Hi All, In my new Black Belt magazine there is an article called the Paradigm Shift. This article is on: "The long-held beliefs of what's truly effective in the martial arts have been turned upside down in a most severe and dramatic fashion. The emergence of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the PRIDE Fighting Championships and other mixed-martial arts events during the past decade has caused a storm of controversy and confusion by repeatedly showing the ineffectiveness of many centuries-old techniques and even entire arts." The article then goes on to talk about the 2 ranges of combat and gives examples. "To support these contentions, it's useful to analyze the early matches of the UFC, for they contain an abundance of convincing evidence. They are also easier to examine because they focus on style-vs-style bouts." The article lists several bouts but this one made me curious. "Patrick Smith vs. Scott Morris: In a classic example of how not to fight, ninjutsu-stylist Morris charged at Smith and clinched immediately. Smith then obliterated him in one of the most awesome destructions of a martial artist ever seen on television" My question is: Has anyone seen that fight? Have clips? What happened? Thanks.
Once they went down Pat Smith went smashed his face and head him with loads of elbows to his face. Morris was out cold.
I don't think these early fights proved anything other than people didn't know how to fight on the ground. This fight certainly isn't an example of what works and what doesn't as Smith had no more of a clue than Morris. In fact Smith tapped to Royce in the final after taking some pretty harmless shots purely because he didn't know what to do in the situation. Morris ran out aggressively and clinched with Smith. They both fell down with Smith landing mounted on Morris. Smith hit him with a dozen elbows and Morris didn't know what day it was...even falling over several times when he tried to get up. Just unlucky the way they fell. I'm sure if they had fallen the other way, Morris would have smashed Smith. It is fun to watch though!
I don't think it was an unlucky fall as much as bad technique. Morris seemed to hope that he would get Smith to the ground through some miracle of physics.
So the Ninjustu guy was on his back and the other guy just landed a bunch of elbows? That must have been something. Seems that if one guy can reach you with his elbow you should be able to reach him with your fist. Thanks for the responses guys.
You should actually go watch some UFC's, whether old or modern, or find some copies of Gracies in Action on ebay, or really any sort of mma at all. Or stop by a any local submission grappling club, and ask them to show you what the mount position is, and why trying to trade blows with someone sittng on your chest gets your face rearranged with elbows. What you're saying makes sense in ignorant theory land, but not in actual fights.
Actually if I remember correctly the moron ran out and pulled Smith on top of him into a full mount with a front bear hug type thing. then smith just started raining thuderous elbows on his face at lightning speed... I thought Morris might have suffered a skull fracture when I saw it. Ofcourse this doesn't prove anything about what style is better, just that morris fought like a fool that day. I study ninjutsu and we do a decent amount of grappling in my school.
