That, of course, has already been done. I don't know how my assertion that there should be no cap on the heavyweight division keeps getting associated with other weight classes. It has nothing to do with those weight classes. And it's not like this is something particularly novel or bizarre. PRIDE FC had lightweight (under 73 kg), welterweight (under 83 kg), middleweight (under 93 kg), and heavyweight (no limit).
Well, since the Choi-Fedor match is the subject of so much debate: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3QzX1ZadJM"]YouTube - Emelianenko Fedor vs Hong Man Choi[/ame] Fedor wasn't trying to pull guard, he was going for a throw and ended up in half guard. Twice. Choi's sub defense pretty much does amount to, "fling arm around". The guy is a 2-fight rookie with no ground game. He didn't try to pass half-guard, didn't try to prevent Fedor from getting full guard, and did exactly the opposite of what one should do when defending the arm bar: he straightened up instead of stacking. Most SHW's with any skill can drop to 265. Many have already, even Eric Pele, who's normally listed as 340lbs. http://beat.bodoglife.com/sports/weigh-in-results-for-bodog-fight-russia-vs-usa-67949.html Certainly it's got to be better for these guys, health-wise, if they get on the treadmill more and cut out the burgers? That pretty much leaves Cesar "Giant" Silva, Bob Sapp, Hong Man Choi, Akebono, Zuluzinho, and Butterbean. They have a collective record of 27-25-2. Most of those wins were over much smaller opponents. So were a few of their losses. And many of their opponents had records of 0-1, 4-7, and the like. They ONLY thing they have going for them is size, not skill. They're freakshows, and that's all. Freakshows damage the legitimacy of the sport. I mean, look how much grief people are giving Lesnar, and the UFC for giving him a title shot. At least that guy has some legit credentials. As for how the assertion that the weight difference between a 265lbs guy and a 400lbs guy is negligible... well, I'm going to ask to see a study that says that I'm not saying that the raw strength difference is going to be massive, but if Fedor, who tossed Nogueira around like a child and even threw Olympic Judo silver medalist Ogawa, couldn't move someone the size of Choi, then that should be a good indicator at what the difficulties are when facing a legit SHW fighter. They carry more mass. They have greater punching potential, are much harder to move in the clinch and on the ground, and don't tell me you wouldn't notice the difference between being in the side control of a guy the size of Couture and a guy the size of Butterbean. When dealing with absolute weight, it's like a lightweight fighting a heavyweight. When dealing with proportional weight, it's still like having a LW fight a LHW. Sometimes, when the smaller fighter is better, they can win, but it's still an uphill battle. One of the things the athletic commissions tries to ensure is that a fight is as fair as possible. Having no cap for the HW division would lead to gross mismatches in size and power, which would run contrary to that principle. Most of the tallented SWH's are around 300lbs, max. If Anderson Silva can cut 35lbs to fight, so can they. If they want a shot at wearing that big gold belt, then they'll have to. If it's not worth that much to them, they can go play in Japan, in the UK, in Russia, or in US promotions with a SHW division. But right now, if you want to get into the UFC, you have to be male and weigh between 155-265.
Who said he was pulling guard? Actually, I used to think that maybe because he almost got the armbar the first time and did ultimately get it with the second attempt, maybe he was comfortable with the throw attempt doing what it did, and that was why he went for it again. Watching it closely, I see that this was probably not the case at all because on the first attempt it REALLY looks like Fedor tripped. I think I didn't see it before because the ref moved in front of the camera and his right foot, which is the one that would have tripped, is a bit obscured. If he didn't trip, he was forced down by Choi, who was driving in that direction and who obviously has a lot of power. But he definitely didn't throw Choi on top of himself. But it really looks like he tripped at about 0:19 on the video. As for the second one, I was wrong in a different way. Choi was the one who threw Fedor there. I didn't remember it that way at all, but I'm watching it again and again and it's obvious now. Fedor drove Choi into the ropes while holding a bodylock and they rebounded off the ropes a lot, possibly more than Fedor expected, which might have been the problem for him there. But as they're doing that, he's bringing his right leg out to either sidestep (and possibly attempt to sweep Choi's foot) or circle counterclockwise, but they were moving backwards (for Fedor) too quickly and his leg came out at an awkward angle that off-balanced him and couldn't do anything for him. Meanwhile Choi capitalized on Fedor's being off-balanced. It's almost unmistakable. I watched for the arm fling and never saw it. Where did you see him fling his arm around? On the first armbar he was (successfully) trying to slip his elbow joint to the outside. I don't think it worked solely because he's huge either. I've escaped numerous armbar attempts from people my size or larger doing exactly what he did there. He may not be an expert in submission defense (and neither am I, for that matter). But that was clearly "slip elbow to the outside" and not "fling arm around." On the second one he didn't appear to do ANYTHING to escape because the armbar was sunk in so well. Man, that armbar was beautiful too. I wish I could do that... Fedor stacked himself to get the first armbar attempt and Choi's defense did work. He didn't straighten his arm on the second one. It looked like if he did anything it was desperately try to grab his own arm to pull it back in. I thought I said something like that, but if not, I do agree. Most of them can drop to 265. My claim was that they SHOULDN'T have to if they're more comfortable at a higher weight because there's no size at which they're magically too big to fight other people out of just being so big and dangerous. This is, if anything supported by the fact that there are so few guys that big who can compete with the smaller/normal heavyweights. It seems like the problems with my claim that there shouldn't be a cap are either "none of the guys who can't cut to 265 are any good anyway" AND "they have too much weight advantage." It can't be both. Those two contradict each other. Furthermore, the former isn't an actual justification for a cap and the latter is unsupported by what data we have. It's probably better for their health to not fight at all, but that's not the point and I'm sure you know that. But if they're such bad fighters, they won't make the cut in the UFC anyway. Me too. Who made that assertion? I don't recall seeing it before... He moved him quite a lot. He didn't put him on his back, but he sure did move him. I don't remember him putting Coleman on his back either though. It was usually Coleman who took him down. And yet Fedor still won like he always does. But if a LW fought a HW or LHW, we'd expect the the LW to lose. The opposite seems to happen quite often when it's a smallish heavyweight fighting a SHW. If it would lead to "gross mistmatches in size and power" why don't we see that in organizations without the cap? Why do the SHW fighters still lose so much?
To sum up: a) Its better for the UFC's continuing campaign to legitimise the sport of MMA if they don't hold matches with huge weight differentials. Hence why they cap their HW division at 265lbs. b) This cap makes very little difference in any case as most fighters who have fought at more than this are either A) capable of making 265, or B) are not very good fighters. Personally I think its a far greater pity that theres no oppotunity for female fighters in the UFC rather than 300lb guys.
This implies that the cap is, as I've been saying, bad. But you seem to be saying that it's a necessary evil. In some sense, I'm sure that's true. It's going to take a major change, not in the UFC, but in the athletic commissions really... Oh, I'm with you there.
[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xf9W9luyxHw&eurl="]YouTube - MMA queen Satoko Shinashi[/ame] This one especially.
