Brock Lesnar’s Edge
Apparently Freddie from the League of Ordinary Gentlemen is desperate for a coveted Matthew Yglesias link so let me say that though I don’t follow UFC I did find this post very interesting:
Now the UFC’s heavyweight division spans from 207-265 pounds. Which means the absolute biggest you can be on the day of a weigh in is 265– and it just so happens that Brock Lesnar can get down to just about 265 exactly. As most fighters who have to cut to make weight do, he then proceeds to gain a bunch of weight before fight night, and it’s commonly said that Lesnar may weigh as much as 290 or more when he actually fights. Lesnar is just about as big of a human as you can get in the UFC. Meanwhile, almost anyone else in the heavyweight division has no need to cut, so they weigh in at their fight weight. So when he goes to fight a guy like Frank Mir, who he fought tonight and weighed in at 245, he has a huge size advantage of 45 pounds. When he fought Randy Couture, Lesnar probably outweighed him on the order of 65 pounds or more. Who do you suppose would win in a fight between a 145-pound featherweight and a 205-pound light heavyweight?
There are bigger fighters than Lesnar. The problem is there are very few who are just the right size, big enough to pose a threat to Lesnar but capable of cutting to 265. And it amounts to an enormous structural advantage for Lesnar. I don’t think that Bob Sapp is a great fighter by any means. But I think that Bob Sapp could manhandle Brock Lesnar. There’s just no way Sapp could ever get down to 265 pounds. That’s true of a lot of opponents, I think.
Elsewhere on the blog, William Brafford sides with the Whigs of the 1830s and 1840s against the Jacksonian Democrats. I’m with him. I think it’s interesting, however, that people’s instincts about modern-day politics do a very poor job of tracking their instincts about these antebellum partisan debates. You see a lot of modern-day progressives who seem to find much to admire in Jackson’s vision. To me, though, it’s important not to let the fact that there’s a charming TMBG song about James K Polk distract from the basic reality that he was playing for the bad guys.
65 Responses to “Brock Lesnar’s Edge”
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July 13th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Ah, the late and unlamented Andrew Jackson, butcher of the Cherokee Nation. I really should _hope_ that Mr. Yglesias is wrong about ‘progressives’ finding much to admire in him.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
It’s worth noting that Mir forced Lesnar to tap out in the first round the first time they met (UFC 81). Lesnar had a huge size advantage in that fight as well but this is not boxing and the technical aspects of fighting are more important than size.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
In fact, he mentions the Whigs in the context of an (approving) review of “What Hath God Wrought” … an opinion I’d heartily second. It’s a great, great book.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Lesnar had a huge size advantage in that fight as well but this is not boxing and the technical aspects of fighting are more important than size.
Well, yes. But given two fighters of rougly equal technical ability size plays a huge role. Lesnar probably isn’t a technical equal yet but it’s clearly a lot closer such that size puts him over the top.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
How far in advance of the fight is the weigh-in? I can’t imagine how someone could put on 25 pounds in short order that would both be helpful as a size advantage and not leave one completely lethargic.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I don’t know when they hold the weigh-in but in boxing its about 36 hours before the bell. Fighters used to weigh in the morning of the bout but a dehydrated fighter could be weak and easily injured. Most mid-weight boxers (140-150lbs) put on about 5-8 pounds after the weigh-in.
Unless Lesnar weighed in a week before I don’t see how even a big guy could put on 25lbs that fast.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
No kidding. And it’s amazing how history repeats itself:
J.Q. Adams = Carter
A. Jackson = Reagan
Fillmore = Bush I (both one-termers thx to recessions)
Harrison = Clinton
Harrison’s sudden death = 1994 election
Clay/Birney/Polk (1844) = Gore/Nader/Bush (2000)
Mexican War = Iraq War
I admit the Harrison/Clinton thing is the weakest part of this, but it’s spooky how similar everything before and after that matches up.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
“I think that Bob Sapp could manhandle Brock Lesnar.”
Is the author aware that Bob Sapp just got beaten in 3 minutes by Bobby Lashley? Lashley is a bit smaller and a bit less experienced than Brock Lesnar.
The overall argument makes some sense, but I don’t think there are many actual humongous fighters who would be able to beat Lesnar if UFC got rid of the weight restriction.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I’m not at all familiar with UFC techniques, but surely in
boxing height and reach are more important than pure weight ?
How does Lesnar compare to his opponents in those metrics ?
Or do weight and pure strength win out in UFC ?
Presumably also UFC isn’t a particularly lucrative career
choice compared to say, the NFL, for athletic men weighing
250lb or more. Otherwise there’d be plenty of other
competitors around Lesnar’s size: after all, 250lb is big
but it isn’t freakishly big, aren’t there plenty of NFL
linebackers around that weight ?
July 13th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Wm. H Harrison = Ron Reagan/GWB
A Jackson = Brock Lesnar
Nick Biddle = Hank Paulson
July 13th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Lesnar tried out for the Vikings defensive line a few years back and did not make it out of training camp. On the other hand, he didn’t play football in college so the fact that he even survived training camp shows something.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I’m generally down with the Whigs, who had the misfortune to have their presidents die on them and get replaced by psuedo-Democrats. “Whiggish means to democratic ends,” and all that.
But to be honest, there are a lot more “tough” cases to read backwards than Jackson. Try the Populists for size (and William Jennings Bryan), the Civil War Era Republicans can be very hard to pin down on economic policy, Wilson was beloved by progressives for a long time, and even T.R’s a hard case.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Presumably also UFC isn’t a particularly lucrative career
choice compared to say, the NFL, for athletic men weighing
250lb or more.
Right. When Lesnar left the WWE his first stop was NFL training camp to be a linebacker. I believe he was one of the last cuts in the preseason and declined to be on the training squad. In general size is secondary to technique in UFC; Lesnar was a NCAA wrestling national champion who also happens to be huge.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I too find it doubtful that an athlete can gain 25 pounds that quickly.
As to how lucrative the sport is, I think it may be on the verge of becoming much more so. I read that there was about 70 million in pay per view revenue for UFC 100. Presumably, a decent chunk will go to the fighters; the sport can’t be more crooked than boxing, can it?
July 13th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
How far in advance of the fight is the weigh-in? I can’t imagine how someone could put on 25 pounds in short order that would both be helpful as a size advantage and not leave one completely lethargic.
Yeah I’m not so sure about that. One of the fights on Saturday it was mentioned more than once that one of the fighters in a lower division was dehydrated due to having to lose so much weight to make the weigh-in. I would think they’re fairly close to the fight.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Presumably, a decent chunk will go to the fighters; the sport can’t be more crooked than boxing, can it?
UFC is notorious for paying their average fighters very little. Presumably the headliners get compensated well but the sport could definitely use a union or something.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
And to bring the topics together: I think Andrew Jackson could kick the shit out of Lasnar, but his monetary policy was shit and his Indian policy was worse.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Before the official weigh-in, MMA fighters (also wrestlers and boxers) often “cut (water) weight” up to about 8-10% of their body mass. Methods include sweating (using saunas, sweat suits and exercise), fasting (both food and liquids) and, sometimes, the use of diuretics. This weight is re-gained over a day or two with fluids and food.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
When I was in high school, a Tae Kwan Do blackbelt (and admittedly TKD is, IIRC, more of a sport-martial art than a truly combat-focused martial art) who stood about 5′8″, maybe 135 lbs., told me (at the time, 6′1″, 180 or so) that unless I turned out to have a glass jaw, his M.O. in a fight would be to try and cripple me as fast as possible because even given the huge disparity in fighting skills, “you just really, really, really don’t want to trade blows with somebody who’s got forty-plus pounds on you. Bad things happen.” Personally I presume he would’ve taken me down quickly, but it seems like a reasonable attitude to have.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Jimbo:
Given his demonstrated record in pistol duels and foiling assassination attempts, I would agree.
Now a Teddy Roosevelt vs. Jackson pistol duel would be a match of the titans.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Will Allen,
The articles I read in SI and the NY Times Magazina made it seem UFC is even more corrupt than Boxing, somehere between the WWE and record companies.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Matthew–
Which progressives are you thinking of? I’m a staunch Whig sympathizer, and I’d think most modern progressives, what with Whig belief in a strong federal government and fair trade, would be as well. Sure, Ol’ Hickory was for universal white manhood suffrage, a vast improvement on the earlier state of things, but he was a reactionary, genocidal redneck. There are probably a dozen Presidents, or more, I’d rather have on the $20 than Jackson.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Fighters mess with their sodium and nutrient levels to cut water weight. Bodybuilders do the same thing. By taking tons and tons of sodium and water for a few days, then abruptly stopping, you can trick your body into basically completely dehydrating itself.
It’s probably not very safe, but its effective.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
More corrupt than boxing? The mind reels.
Boxing – “the red light district of sport”
-A.J. Liebling
I have heard that some of the top ufc guys like Chuck Liddell are making $10 million a year.
BTW, Manny Pacquiao recently got at least $12mil(plus some PPV % I think) for 5′59″ of work putting away Ricky Hatton. My grade school math says that’s $240 million an hour.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
While the UFC doesn’t pay a lot to its 2nd- or 3rd-tier fighters, many fighters have endorsement contracts and run MMA academies to supplement their income. The fighters often look like human Nascar cars, with logos on their shorts, shirts and banners displayed behind them. “Condom Depot” was actually sponsored a bunch of A- and B-level fighters (the logo was printed on the seat of their shorts).
Like most sports, most of the participants at the lower levels have to have day jobs to learn a reasonable living.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I wrestled Div III for a small Mid-West college, and we had one guy join the team in the heavy-weight slot, a student from Fiji. Up until that time one of our 220 (100 kilo) guys would wrestle that position, so we didn’t have to take too many automatic team losses. When the new guy started, he weighed in at 355, and the other teams in our conference hurriedly found a rule that the heavy-weight person could weigh no more than 325… When he slimmed down to weigh in, he was much more fit than the usual over-weight guys we had in our local group, made him quite effective, even though he was more skilled as a football player.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
It seems like the obvious response to all this potentially dangerous weight manipulation that makes a mockery of the weight-class system would be to hold the weigh-in 5 minutes before the fight, and it’s technically trivial to do so, so… why don’t they? The potential loss of business created by scrubbing a fight at the last minute because one of the fighters is overweight? (But once the practice became known, surely fighters would keep their own scales and weigh themselves regularly to avoid being disqualified that way.)
July 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
For those unfamiliar to the practice of weight-cutting, it probably does seem impossible for someone to gain 25 pounds in a day and not be lethargic, but that intuition is simply wrong. In MMA, it’s very common for “normal” sized men to gain 12-15 pounds of (mostly) water in a day. The fact that Lesnar is so much bigger than normal means he can gain more weight than normal.
As for Bob Sapp beating Lesnar, that’s just laughable. Even in his prime, Sapp would lose to Lesnar 95% of the time. Sapp is the perfect example of diminishing returns. His size and strength come at the expense of significant losses in agility and stamina. This is true of most men above about 250 lbs. Lesnar is such a freak because at 290, he doesn’t appear to have appreciably less stamina or agility than a man at 240 lbs.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
It’s ridiculous to sympathize very much with either party in the Jacksonian system. They both had attractive and unattractive parts, and I don’t see why the Whigs should get particularly more sympathy.
In particular, before the Kansas-Nebraska Act many northern Democrats were just as unsympathetic to slavery as northern Whigs (for example, Walt Whitman was a Democrat; in the more active political sphere, you have David Wilmot, who put out the Wilmot Proviso, and many others). Within the context of northern politics, the Whigs tended to represent the economic elites and the evangelical protestants -i.e., the very groups that are most likely to be Republicans today. Among the issues Whigs frequently supported were nativism and bans on alcohol. Democratic politics tended to be more egalitarian (at least for white men), more willing to accept immigration, and more opposed to economic elites. It’s true that the northern Whigs were, on the whole, more anti-slavery than the northern Democrats, but this only had intermittent real effects (and largely derived out of northern Whiggery’s evangelical protestant base).
It’s also worth remembering that both parties had southern wings which supported slavery. It is completely wrong to say that Millard Fillmore was a “quasi-Democrat”. Fillmore worked with the great Whig grandees, Clay and Webster, to pass the Compromise of 1850 which had the broad support not only of virtually all southern Whigs, but also of the most conservative wing of northern Whiggery (which was, indeed, a distinct minority). Southern Whigs tended to have marginally more sane views on slavery expansion than southern Democrats, and the southern party was dominated in general by border state members who tended to be much more unionist and less willing to do things like threaten secession than southern Democrats. But they were still supporters of slavery, and many of them switched over to the Democrats in the 1850s after the Whig Party collapsed.
So, basically, neither the Whigs nor the Democrats are the “good guys.” The Republicans were perhaps the good guys (although there’s problems with this, too – to consolidate their position as the “anti-Democrat” party, the Republicans had to make nice with nativists), but the Whigs certainly were not.
It’s stupid for Arthur Schlesinger and his followers (I’m looking at you, Sean Wilentz) to pretend like Andrew Jackson was some kind of precursor to FDR. That was a ridiculously presentist reading of history, and it ignored the Jacksonian Democratic Party’s awful racial politics. But it’s just as stupid to pretend like the Whigs were some kind of paragons of justice. The Whigs were not much better as a whole on slavery than the Democrats, and they were worse than the Democrats on a whole range of other issues. And, most importantly, the issues facing politics were simply completely different than they are now. The biggest issue differentiating the two parties was the tariff. It’s just another world, and it’s stupid to pick sides.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I figured he cut all that weight using Coors Light instead of Bud Light.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I’m a staunch Whig sympathizer, and I’d think most modern progressives, what with Whig belief in a strong federal government and fair trade, would be as well.
See, this is what I’m talking about. Fair trade?
July 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Yay!
Incidentally, the information about a fighter of Lesnar’s size gaining 25 pounds or more in a couple of days actually comes from the MMA journalistic community, and from the fighter’s staff itself. Even smaller fighters can gain a great deal of weight in short order; Thiago Silva, a welterweight, supposedly goes from his 170-pound weight on weigh in day to north of 190 by fight night.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Don’t you think it’s a bit pathetic that our leading sports network that decries the use of steroids and other enhancing drugs in other sports take’s this “sport” seriously?
There’s little doubt from what little I’ve seen that the strength and perhaps aggression of these performers results not just from hard work. Is this what we want to encourage as sport? Or really who really gives a damn as long as there is money in it?
July 13th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
28: You’re right about the ‘normal’ limits above 250 lbs, but modern day football players are testing that in practice. Merriman is a great example of someone who is ridiculously quick for a man his size above 250. There are even bigger DL and OL in the NFL and some of them may have the kind of agility, speed and stamina to be quite successful in the UFC. But why would they? They can make a lot more money playing in the NFL. And it’s probably a lot more fun.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
But I think that Bob Sapp could manhandle Brock Lesnar.
That sentence is proof positive that the author (Freddie) knows very little about MMA. Sapp has been beaten by people much smaller than Lesnar. And it’s hard to see how a fight between Sapp and Lesnar would end up being anything except a takedown by Lesnar after which he proceeds to pound out Sapp.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
John @31–
I wasn’t actually attempting to indicate my own policy preference on trade issues on way or another (for the record, I am deeply ambivalent). The words “free trade” and “fair trade” are only imperfectly analogous to the tariff debates of the time, I agree, although I would point out free trade is as much a subjective descriptor as fair trade. It is true, however, that most modern “progressives” oppose our current FTA trading structure, which is more in-line with Whig than Jacksonian Democratic policy. Mostly I like the Whigs because i feel their view of the Constitution was much closer to being correct than that of the Democrats.
But you are right to criticize the Whigs’s ample short comings, especially their nativism.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Agreed that the comment on Sapp is a sign of someone not getting MMA.
The original concept of weight advantage uber alles is also flawed to anyone who has followed MMA. Couture vs Sylvia was only two years ago, and Courture was giving up a massive age advantage as well.
Lesner does have an advantage being a “large 265″ at the top of the weight class. He also has advantages of the base of his MMA skills (wrestling) and conditioning/training that plays to those two advantages.
They’re not unbeatable, and frankly no one who has ever looked “unbeatable” in MMA has stayed that way. Mark Coleman was the Lesner of the early era of MMA. Maurice Smith beat him just five months after we all thought Coleman wasn’t going to lose for a long time.
MMA has evolved and advanced greatly since then, and it’s not like someone can beat Brock with the strategy Smith used against Coleman. On the other hand, someone will come along who can do it. And he doesn’t need to weigh in at 265 to do it.
John
July 13th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Weight advantage uber alles was refuted in some of the earliest fights in the UFC. The UFC, after all, was started to showcase Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Royce Gracie. Royce was a skinny 6′1″ 180lbs that drowned in a gi. In the early matches, before state athletic commissions required weight classes, he fought the 6′3″ 235lb Kimo Leopoldo. Later, he fought (and defeated) the 6′8″ 486lb Akebono. Royce was a deceptively dangerous fighter that seemed to slowly wrap up his opponent like a boa constrictor.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
I’m afraid that if you’re invoking Royce Gracie to make an argument about contemporary MMA, you might want to think again.
And I will ask the same question of my critics: how many of you would pick a 155 pound lightweight over a 205 pound light heavyweight?
July 13th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Bobby Lashley beat Sapp easily, and Lashley is smaller than Lesner and similarly wet behind the ears. I think Lesnar could probably beat Sapp. Lesnar’s size is certainly his biggest asset, but he’s also very good, and size is less important in UFC than it is in other fighting sports.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
And I will ask the same question of my critics: how many of you would pick a 155 pound lightweight over a 205 pound light heavyweight?
What does that have to do with heavyweights? Isn’t the question whether we would pick a 215 pound heavyweight over a 265 one? And the answer to that is it depends on who’s fighting. Fedor, Cro Cop, Couture are all smallish heavyweights who have beaten people significantly larger than them (and Fedor has twice beaten people who are literally double his size).
Lesnar’s advantage isn’t simply his size, but that he has an amazing degree of athleticism. He’s very quick and agile for his size. To some extent, one could draw comparisons with Shaq. Lesnar also has been very dedicated to learning MMA; as his fight against Mir showed, he was able to learn a good gameplan and execute it.
If the argument is that the heavyweight division should be split into two divisions, that’s fine in theory but as a practical matter it doesn’t work today. Heavyweight is the thinnest division in MMA today, and the UFC is particularly thin, and splitting it would only make the problem worse.
But seriously, the Bob Sapp of today beating Lesnar? Come on
July 13th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Lesnar’s advantage isn’t simply his size, but that he has an amazing degree of athleticism. He’s very quick and agile for his size.
But that’s exactly it. The structure of MMA, and the unified rules, don’t reward him for his athleticism, but for his size. He didn’t demonstrate his athleticism in this fight. He showed he was bigger, by lying on top of his opponent for the large majority of the fight. Is that effective? Hell yes. Do I want to watch it? No. The point isn’t that Lesnar isn’t athletic or capable of better technique. It’s that the vicissitudes of the weight class means he has every incentive to use his size in a boring way, rather than using that considerable athleticism.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
What, no oddsmakers on my Teddy “The Rough Rider” Roosevelt vs. Andrew “Ol’Hickory” Jackson pistol duel cagematch?
July 13th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Freddie, and I’m sure by the same token, it was GSP’s distinct size advantage over Thiago Alves that caused him to relentlessly take him down, lay on him, and wear him down until he had a face made of marshmallow and tears? Oh, wait, GSP was giving up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 pounds on Alves by fight time.
If you found either that or Brock Lesnar’s complete physical domination of the 245 pound Mir “boring”, I respectfully suggest you’re not actual a fan of mixed martial arts. You’re just a fan of knockouts.
Of course, your suggestion that Lesnar didn’t show athleticism in this fight and would lose to Sapp pretty much already cement that you’re not actually a fan of MMA anyway. Did you see how quickly Lesnar moved on the ground? How much damage he did to Mir’s face with about a six-inch wind-up on most of his punches? It was scary athleticism. Scary.
Sapp is a joke at this point. Everyone knows that. The only reason Lashley fought him is because Sapp is a fat punching bag with some name recognition, so it helps build Lashley as a legit seeming heavyweight, much like his fight against Fry will. And some time in the next 12-18 months I suspect we’ll see Lashley in UFC fighting Lesnar and/or Fedor, depending on how that whole Fedor/Lesnar show down ends up.
The original argument vis a vis size is perhaps a point worth debating, but the argument as laid forth is so laughable that I don’t see the point of starting it here. I will say, however, that size discrepancy at the heavyweight class has diminishing returns vs. lower weight classes, so the theoretical 205 pound light heavy vs. the 155 pound fighter isn’t and apples to apples comparison. Or, if it is, I’ll take the 55 pound fighter vs the 5 pound fighter!
It’s also an exaggeration. Most heavyweights that would fight anywhere near 207-217 would simple drop down to the light heavyweight division.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
If you found either that or Brock Lesnar’s complete physical domination of the 245 pound Mir “boring”, I respectfully suggest you’re not actual a fan of mixed martial arts. You’re just a fan of knockouts.
That’s actually the opposite of the truth. What I don’t understand about people like you, Patrick, is why you hop from arguing to ridiculing and both. If I’m so worthless and not worthy of your argument, then why are you spending some time debating? Either ridicule me or debate with me, but don’t spend half your time shitting on me and the other half arguing, please. Or at least understand that when you call me pathetic I take it seriously.
Everyone who is so sure that Sapp couldn’t bang with Lesnar, I’d like to know: did you think Ray Mercer would knock out Tim Sylvia in an MMA match?
July 13th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
So much inaccurate info here it’s hard to know where to start so a few random notes:
–the ufc hw division starts at the minimum of 205 + ε, where ε is any positive real number, not 206, which is the limit of the lhw div, with the one pound weight allowance for non-title fights. Given that fighters can weigh in with clothes on, the effective floor for the weight class is several pounds lower than 205.
It sounds stupid, but Frank Shamrock weighed in with full clothes and allegedly filled his pockets with weights, before beating Tito Ortiz in a lhw title fight ten years ago. And given weight cutting techniques, anyone under 230 can easily cut to lhw. Most top heavies are around 240-250, and there really isn’t much indication that they have an insurmountable advantate. The best fighter in the world, by far, is Fedor, who is about 230. Josh Barnett is also a much better fighter than Brock and he’s around 245. Cain and Carwin are fighting precisely because they both present huge problems for Brock, despite both being smaller than he is, and Dana White wants to eliminate a contender to lessen the risk to his cash cow.
–Fighters (along with wrestlers, boxers, and just about any competitor who deals with a weight limit) pretty easily cut about 5% of weight just as water weight. They also diet down. The weigh ins are approx. 30 hrs. before the fight (this is because liability issues as well as insuring the fights take place–the ufc could be legally responsible if one of their fighters dies or undergoes severe injury and it is able to be linked to cutting) so Lesnar should be well over 280 fight time if he knows what he is doing. He does.
–Lesnar’s main fighting ability is based upon his wrestling ability, and being a ncaa champ and a runner up definately takes a lot of skill, regardless of crying about him being too big, too strong, or a big meanie.
–Anyone who thinks that a Bob Sapp that has to pass a roid test–the same Sapp that is both a shot fight fighter and has already been destroyed by Fujita and Lashley, lesser examples of the type of fighter Brock is–has no fucking idea what he is talking about.
–”And I will ask the same question of my critics: how many of you would pick a 155 pound lightweight over a 205 pound light heavyweight?”
Small LW BJ Penn fought a very close fight, that was arguably a draw, and many feel he actually won, against Lyoto Machida, currently the best 205 lber (by far). It was a while ago, but Lyoto had already beat then top 10 LHW (and future MW champ) Rich Franklin, noted future TUF fighter, LHW Stephen Bonnar, and K-1 superstar, HW Sam Greco. Admittedly, there was
Kid Yamamoto regularly beats fighters that weigh 20 lbs more than he does, and considering he is less than half Lesnar’s size, the percentage difference is similar to what you are suggesting.
Frank Mir is garbage and, in fact, he himself has lost to two mediocre LHWs: Brandon Vera and Ian Freeman. In both fights he was completely destroyed in the first round.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Jackson was probably the worst president we ever had, but he would have to compete with G.W. and Polk to claim the title.
IMHO, J.Q. Adams was about the best.
Good observation Matt, I was just thinking while reading “Team of Rivals” about the absurdity of Republicans having “Lincoln Day” dinners and Dems having “Jefferson and Jackson Day” dinners since each current respective party is just about the ideological opposite of their namesake “heros’”.
Politics has done a 180 turn since 1865, but each party fails to admit that.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
The part about BJ v. Lyoto should note that in the fight bj was admittedly only about 30-35 lbs less than lyoto at fight time, but he was also about 20 lbs overweight. Lyoto was probably about 10 pounds above where he should have been, so it’s really about the same as what you were asking for.
Also, GSP wasn’t close to 15 lbs. less than Alves. God he and his fans are such whiners.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
No kidding. And it’s amazing how history repeats itself:
J.Q. Adams = Carter
A. Jackson = Reagan
Fillmore = Bush I (both one-termers thx to recessions)
Harrison = Clinton
Harrison’s sudden death = 1994 election
Clay/Birney/Polk (1844) = Gore/Nader/Bush (2000)
Mexican War = Iraq War
I admit the Harrison/Clinton thing is the weakest part of this, but it’s spooky how similar everything before and after that matches up.
Good comparisons. I’ll add:
Judge Taney=Scalia
But to be far, Scalia is a jurist and not a political hack elevated to the bench.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
_Other things being equal_, size is an advantage in any fighting sport, whether it be boxing, wrestling, or MMA. That’s the reason weight classes exist. Of course an in-shape small guy can very often beat a lumbering, out-of-shape big guy: conditioning is very important. Muscle strength counts for a lot too- a large _fat_ guy is not going to fight too well. Skill counts for a lot too. But again, between two guys of equal upper body strength, conditioning, and skill, I’d bet on the heavier guy. Being able to sit on top of your opponent’s chest and tire him out is an advantage.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Re: –Fighters (along with wrestlers, boxers, and just about any competitor who deals with a weight limit) pretty easily cut about 5% of weight just as water weight.
Yup. I wrestled in high school and cutting 5% of weight was pretty common.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Skill counts for a lot too. But again, between two guys of equal upper body strength, conditioning, and skill, I’d bet on the heavier guy. Being able to sit on top of your opponent’s chest and tire him out is an advantage.
This is all I was saying. But as this is the Internet, everyone has to be incredibly uncharitable and demonstrate that they are smart by assuming the absolute worst into anyone’s argument. Sad story.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
The structure of MMA, and the unified rules, don’t reward him for his athleticism, but for his size. He didn’t demonstrate his athleticism in this fight. He showed he was bigger, by lying on top of his opponent for the large majority of the fight.
Again, I strongly disagree with this. I know it’s hard to see all the adjustments and defensive positions fighters take on the mat, but if Lesnar were unskilled or unathletic Mir would have submitted or reversed him almost instantly. Lesnar did use both his athleticism and wrestling skills to stay position on Mir so that Mir could not mount any offense, and especially not try any submissions. Lesnar was also able to position himself to do damages to Mir while avoiding damage. This took quite a bit of skill from Lesnar, and shows that he’s learning MMA techniques at a rapid rate.
You also have not addressed the various counterexamples that I and other have raised of smallish heavyweights who have done very well, often against much larger competition. Being faster than your opponent, as many smaller HWs are, is often going to be as much of an advantage as being bigger.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
You also have not addressed the various counterexamples that I and other have raised of smallish heavyweights who have done very well, often against much larger competition.
Yes, I’m not addressing them because I specifically said that this was the case in my post! I made one fairly banal point, that in fighting, size is an advantage, and that Brock Lesnar, as a man who is as big as a UFC heavyweight can be, is someone who is not likely to ever have that advantage used against him but certain to have it often work for him. That’s all. I never said he wasn’t skilled, but rather that the system doesn’t reward his skill as much as his size. I could be wrong about that! It wouldn’t be the first thing that I’ve been wrong about. But when people keep attacking me with arguments that I myself pointed out in the original post, it’s frustrating, and it’s also frustrating that there is so little argumentative charity around here that people who agree with my fundamental point still see fit to destroy me for small specifics which don’t change the fundamental point of agreement. It’s really, really depressing.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
The Whigs supported Federal public works, opposed aggressive war, and opposed expansive executive power. In these respects, they were akin to today’s progressives. Also, sad to say, in their habitual lack of success.
In Albany, CA, where I live, the streets named after national political figures are named after villainous 19th-c. Democrats: Buchanan, Polk, Peirce…
Just South, in Berkeley, early Republicans get the honors: Grant, McKinley, Roosevelt…
Further South, in Oakland, it’s all about Whigs and Federalists: Clay, Webster, Harrison, Franklin…
Go figure!
July 13th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Kropotkin:
Actually, my county Democratic Party changed the name of the Jefferson-Jackson dinner to the Roosevelt-Hamer dinner. So some people do adapt.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Funny how posts about MMA bring out the e-fighter in people. I throw in my two cents.
In addition to being a freakish athlete for his size, Lesner is a former national champion in wrestling. Since wrestling is a great base upon which to build the striking and submission skills needed to compete in MMA, that fact alone makes him a threat. Add in his aformentioned great size and acccompanying athleticism, and he is certainly a dangerous prospect.
That being said, there is an element of circus freak about him that is being used by promotor Dana White to advance Lesner’s career at a rate that his mma skills alone probably do not warrent. MMA is certainly no stanger to such spectacle, as the recent “Kimbo Slice” debacle demonstrated.
Me, I guess I’m old fashioned in that I’d rather so stick to the “sweet science” for my combat sport fix.
As for the poli-sci question being discussed, I guess I’ve always found fascinating the alliance between fundamentalist Christianity and powerful industrial/financial intersts in this country. To find out it stretches back that far in American history is interesting. I know that modern american conservatives often compare their stand on abortion to that of pre-civil war abolitionists. If you remove their support for a government sponsored industrial policy and fair trade, or substitute those two stands for an expansion of the defense industry and anti-immigrant populism at the level of the base (Tom Tancredo), the Whigs sound a lot like what the modern Republican party turned into.
As for Andrew Jackson, from my dim recollection he sounds a lot like a militaristic version of Ron Paul.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:23 am
Yes, but avoiding that would require actually reading your entire post. And how could the Arrogant Internet Autodidact Swarm possibly distribute the necessary snark per diem if we were all too busy reading stuff?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:34 am
“Yes, I’m not addressing them because I specifically said that this was the case in my post! I made one fairly banal point, that in fighting, size is an advantage, and that Brock Lesnar, as a man who is as big as a UFC heavyweight can be, is someone who is not likely to ever have that advantage used against him but certain to have it often work for him. That’s all. I never said he wasn’t skilled, but rather that the system doesn’t reward his skill as much as his size. I could be wrong about that! It wouldn’t be the first thing that I’ve been wrong about. But when people keep attacking me with arguments that I myself pointed out in the original post, it’s frustrating, and it’s also frustrating that there is so little argumentative charity around here that people who agree with my fundamental point still see fit to destroy me for small specifics which don’t change the fundamental point of agreement. It’s really, really depressing.”
But it isn’t “a point” at all. Essentially, you’re saying, “if x = y, then x + n > y, for all x and y, if n is positive.” Well, no shit. If all things are equal, and then you add something to one side, then things will no longer be equal. I don’t know when this was first figured out, but I do know it was a long fucking time ago.
This fight doesn’t prove what you claim it does. Frank Mir has lost, he was destroyed in under one round, twice, each time to a middling fighters whose proper weight class is *below* HW. He has historically had terrible conditioning, poor wrestling, and poor stand up. Even in his strength, grappling, he has never won any major competition, certainly nothing close to matching Brock’s ncaa championship.
So a smaller, slower, weaker, worse conditioned, less skilled–but more experienced–fighter lost, badly…that’s not indicative of any of the broader claims that you implied in your post.
Yes, you said a few things that were true, but you also said a lot of things that were inaccurate, ignorant, or just plain dumb. Because this is the internet, you were criticized. Welcome to the internet.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Well, UFC is mixed martial arts, but not so mixed that Andrew Jackson would be allowed to shoot Brock Lesner in a bout.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:52 am
The UFC heavyweight division includes a far wider range of weights than any of the other divisions — 59 pounds vs. at most 19 pounds for the other divisions. Being heavier is an advantage, which is why there are weight divisions to begin with. Skill can offset some of that advantage, but it’s still an advantage, and only guys like Lesnar, who happen to be able to weigh in at 265 pounds, get that advantage. It amounts to special treatment for fighters of a particular size. It is better for MMA as a sport to have fair fights that emphasize skill, which is why there should be at least one additional weight division that divides up the current heavyweight division. There should probably be two.
The reason fighters don’t weigh in immediately before the fight is because they would cut weight to do so, and would be weak and dehydrated during the match and therefore more likely to suffer an injury including a TBI. Having the weigh in the day before is an acknowledgment that combat athletes cut weight and that enforcing the rule more strongly is not worth the risk involved.
MMA competitors in sanctioned fights, which includes all UFC fights, are subject to drug testing. I very much doubt that MMA has an unusual level of PID use compared to other sports. As for corruption, MMA is as sleazy as any other economic arrangement where people exploit each other to get money. Brock Lesnar got $400k for this latest fight, all of which was guaranteed. Mir got $45k. Georges St. Pierre also got $400k, of which $200k was a win bonus. His opponent got $60k. The lowest payout on the card was to T.J. Grant, who made $5000 to lose to Dong Hyun Kim.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Boxing’s traditional weight classes (112, 118, 126, 135, 147, 160, 175) were developed over many years, and at least in theory represent the amount of weight advantage that is very difficult to overcome. For example, a welterweight boxer weighing 147 pounds is likely to have little chance of defeating an equally skilled middleweight opponent weighting 160. Today’s “junior” and “super” weight classes are a more or less mercenary attempt to allow for more title fights and do not really represent insurmountable obstacles in the same manner as the traditional classes. A 140-pound “junior welterweight” may not necessarily be at a major disadvantage vs. a 147-pound traditional welterweights.
MMA’s weight classes have wider spreads, and combined with their more recent vintage I don’t quite imagine that they are as carefully developed as those in boxing.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hmm, Polk was like GWB? Except that his war of aggression was actually a rousing success in execution and in material terms for the USA, and he also played off the maximalist demands of the 19th century neo-cons’ “54-40 or fight” to achieve a compromise with Britain on the 49th parallel border for the Oregon Territory. He also adhered to his promised one term in office. So maybe Polk wasn’t a particularly nice guy, but it’s insulting to compare him to W. He was far, far more effective.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Sounds like MMA weight class’s map on to wrestling’s pretty closely. I think the heavy weight spread when I was on myhigh school team was 193-265. A little unfair to the guys at the lower end of the range!
July 14th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
If you remove their support for a government sponsored industrial policy and fair trade, or substitute those two stands for an expansion of the defense industry and anti-immigrant populism at the level of the base (Tom Tancredo), the Whigs sound a lot like what the modern Republican party turned into.
The Whigs didn’t support “fair trade,” whatever that is. They supported protective tariffs to protect domestic industrial production. The differing economic situations of the early nineteenth century U.S. and the early twenty-first century U.S. are so vast that the debate over free trade vs. protectionism in the two eras simply cannot be seen as comparable, and people shouldn’t try to conflate them by using anachronistic terms like “fair trade” to refer to nineteenth century debates. In the early nineteenth century, the U.S. was largely agricultural, and there was a question of whether it should try to remain that way, or if it should instead try to encourage industrial growth. Today, we are a de-industrializing gigantic economy, facing competition in our manufacturing sector from less developed countries. Perhaps in that context it’s worth comparing us with, say, late nineteenth century England, which faced a similar decline to what we’re saying now, but any comparison to Whig/Jacksonian policies is ridiculous.
Beyond that, this is the traditional view of people like Schlesinger and Wilentz – the Jacksonian Democrats are the ancestors of the New Deal/modern Democratic Party, the Whigs are the ancestors of the Republicans. This is just as over-simplistic a view as the one Matt and others support above, where the Democrats are the “good guys.”
So, again. Neither the Whigs nor the Democrats are good guys. Neither of them are bad guys, either. History, for the most part, doesn’t produce good guys and bad guys, except in some limited cases. I’d also add that the Jacksonian party system basically consists of a number of only loosely connected state parties, and that the state level is really where the debates that people most cared about tended to occur, not at the national level. On state level issues, the two parties were a crazy hodgepodge, especially since each state party was frequently split by factions – for instance, in New York around 1850, the Democrats were divided between an economically conservative, pro-southern “Hunker” faction and an economically radical, anti-southern “Barnburner” faction. The Whigs were divided between a conservative, pro-southern “silvery gray” faction and a more radical, anti-slavery Sewardite faction. Similar splits and such can be seen in most states. Trying to map one to one correspondences to modern political parties is a fool’s game.