Originally posted by Dolos
Chad Mendes is a top caliber wrestler, that's why he's so strong starting out. He has that work ethic.When you wrestle, even more so than MMA with longer rounds and stand-up, it's a constant power struggle on your feet, on the ground. It's not as damaging, but you have to understand these wrestlers are always exerting more power than trading blows and getting away with laying on their backs or temporarily giving up a power struggle when a few clinch strikes will do the job, for 6 minutes.
You're probably going to say MMA is more demanding because you're wrestling and striking, sorry to tell you, you're not wrestling the whole time in MMA and it is more laxed and a longer round.
In aggregate, Team Alpha contains the three most conditioned MMA fighters. It takes longer for them to get winded than everyone else. Say what you will about him being a greenhorn with a brief record, but Chad Mendes will always be the aggressor no matter who he's fighting. #Bulldog.
Iron Mike is built just like the mother****er, a little bigger and more solid, but if he were to learn some wrestling and jiu jitsu, he could have been a champ sup-par to the Spider. And don't give me that bs about woulda coulda shoulda, people speculated on Mike Tyson's potential and they were absolutely right: Because you either have it or you don't.
I know how grueling wrestling is.
However, the added damage that you take in MMA has a much bigger effect on you long term.
In a pure wrestling match, Mendes would probably dominate Jose Aldo. Allow strikes to be thrown and it changes everything...
Team Alpha Male certainly has some well-conditioned fighters but I don't see where they're superior to everyone else in that regard.
Anderson Silva was getting dominated by a very powerful wrestler in Chael Sonnen and was still light on his feet in the 5th round, and also finished the fight in that round.
Anthony Pettis went 5 insane rounds with Ben Henderson and still had the energy to pull this off at the end of the fight:
There's also the Diaz brothers, who are freaks when it comes to cardio.
These guys are arguably better conditioned that Team Alpha Male's fighters, because they have shown the ability to keep their cardio up while not pushing the pace. It's much easier to keep your cardio in check when you're controlling the pace of the fight.
Chad Mendes being the aggressor doesn't necessarily mean anything. Some fighters push the pace more than others, it doesn't mean they're better. He was pushing the pace on Aldo and ended up getting KO'd.
This is really nothing but speculation. There is no evidence to suggest that Mike Zambidis would have been successful in MMA. We have no idea how good his grappling skills should have been if he trained for that kind of thing, because we've never seen him actually do it. Plenty of people thought Brock Lesnar was going to be the HW GOAT because theoretically all he needed to do was learn how to strike (because people thought there would be no way anyone could stop his takedowns), but we ultimately found out that he just doesn't have any kind of talent for striking.
The same may have been true for Zambidis with wrestling and BJJ. It's impossible to say either way.
Originally posted by Insomniatric
I know how grueling wrestling is.However, the added damage that you take in MMA has a much bigger effect on you long term.
In a pure wrestling match, Mendes would probably dominate Jose Aldo. Allow strikes to be thrown and it changes everything...
Team Alpha Male certainly has some well-conditioned fighters but I don't see where they're superior to everyone else in that regard.
Anderson Silva was getting dominated by a very powerful wrestler in Chael Sonnen and was still light on his feet in the 5th round, and also finished the fight in that round.
Anthony Pettis went 5 insane rounds with Ben Henderson and still had the energy to pull this off at the end of the fight:
There's also the Diaz brothers, who are freaks when it comes to cardio.
These guys are arguably better conditioned that Team Alpha Male's fighters, because they have shown the ability to keep their cardio up while not pushing the pace. It's much easier to keep your cardio in check when you're controlling the pace of the fight.
Chad Mendes being the aggressor doesn't necessarily mean anything. Some fighters push the pace more than others, it doesn't mean they're better. He was pushing the pace on Aldo and ended up getting KO'd.
This is really nothing but speculation. There is no evidence to suggest that Mike Zambidis would have been successful in MMA. We have no idea how good his grappling skills should have been if he trained for that kind of thing, because we've never seen him actually do it. Plenty of people thought Brock Lesnar was going to be the HW GOAT because theoretically all he needed to do was learn how to strike (because people thought there would be no way anyone could stop his takedowns), but we ultimately found out that he just doesn't have any kind of talent for striking.
The same may have been true for Zambidis with wrestling and BJJ. It's impossible to say either way.
I think I could take him
Originally posted by rudesterGratz. Hope it's the best one yet.
My birthday is coming up ooh boy...