I hope you guys don't mind, but I want to play devil's advocate here for a sec. I was talking about this topic with a few friends at work who do different martial arts and such, and they brought up the case that it appears many of the current rules in many different MMA events seem to favor grappling over striking.

Example (UFC)
1) Throat strikes of any kind are illegal, yet a grappler can preform any choke hold that makes contact with the throat. Does this not put a striker at a disadvantage if he trains in striking the throat for self defense, yet is not allowed to do this in a match, and has no other significant equal for that strike that can be used in the match?

2)Kicking or kneeing to a downed opponent is illegal, yet a grappler can do anything he wants to a fallen fighter. Does this not take away one of the most prime instances for a striker to be effective? I think back to several older UFC matches where striking to a downed opponent is what won the match.

3)Striking to the spine of back of the head is illegal, yet grapplers can grab the back of your head all they want. Does this not take away one of the strikers prime defenses against a shoot, an elbow to the back or back of the head, which could also be a good ground defense in general?

4)Groin attacks of any kind are illegal, yet according to some who posted here, it's ok to plant your leg in the groin for a submission. Does this not take out a prime striking area?

5)Kicking to the kidney with the heel is illegal. Does this not take out another major strike target for strikers?

6)Head butting is illegal. Again, some strikers would use this as an anti-grappling measure, and now it's taken away.

7) Downward striking with the elbow is illegal. Again this goes back to what I said in #3

So, the question is out there, do these MMA rules favor grapplers? I think the kicking a downed opponent definitly does, and the downward elbow strike one as well.

It can be argued that a grappler is open to use all of his best tricks in the ring, while a striker has had all of his best tricks taken away from him.

Also, one has to ask, why are some of these rules even there to begin with. It can argued that many of these rules are present because those certain moves were "too" effective, and caused too much damage to the opponent, and were rendered illegal to maintain a certain level of safety in the ring for the fighters.

I also have to point out that Royce still won the 1st two UFCs with out these rules. (thought I believe throat and groin strikes were illegal, please correct me if I am wrong)

David, I'm not going to play semantics games with you, especially since I'm saying the same thing as you are. My point about GSP is that he did not come into MMA with expert level BJJ nor expert level wrestling. He came to his current level of BJJ and wrestling through MMA, not visa-versa. But even that point that I made, was only background to the subject of my posts: the question as to the relative weight of a well-rounded fighter and how it compares to a person who comes in with only one discipline under his belt. To be more specific, I've put into question the effectiveness of a single skill in a fight.

Dave

-"Yes. You can deny the facts all you want, but it doesn't change them"-

as soon as you can prove this with viable hard facts, then I'll believe them, but there are no hard facts to back up what you are saying because none of us were around back when the arts where in their prime.

-"Look at traditional kung-fu and karate, and you simply don't see Western boxing-style handwork."-

Again, I don't know what tradiontional styles you are looking at, but clearly not the ones I am. You can not assume that you know, and have seen, all forms of tradional styles. I know one style of kung fu and have seen others, and I don't even know what every style of kung fu looks like. The ones I do know are so vastly different from one another, that I am sure others I don't know are just as different, if not more so.

-"That's why your arguement about san shou being "kung-fu" is so faulty--i.e., it doesn't even look like traditional kung-fu. Le's manager even stated how Western boxing played a role in san shou's development. Considering when san shou was created (1920s), the Western influence makes perfect sense. At that time, China was still dominated by the Western Colonial powers. Westerners held all sorts of competitions and exhibitions of both Western combat arts (Fencing, boxing, & wrestling), as well as Eastern methods that they deemed effective (Westerners at this time were particularly impressed with Japanese arts like judo, as well as their sword methods, and also with Indian wrestling). Chinese fighting arts, on the other hand, were not held in particularly high regard. It's also worth noting that the Chinese themselves began to incorporate aspects of Western fighting arts and physical culture into their own training curricula."-

Again, how do you know what every form of traditional kung fu looks like? You don't. And Le's manager didn't say western boxing, he simply said "boxing", which could mean Thai boxing or chinese boxing, which San Shou is often referred as. Infact, of all the arts mentioned on Le's own website, western boxing is never mentioned.

And one more time, yes, San Shou is Kung Fu... here is the definition:
Sanshou (Chinese: 散手; pinyin: sǎnshǒu; literally "free hand") or Sanda (Chinese: 散打; pinyin: sǎndǎ; literally "free fighting") is a Chinese hand to hand combat, self-defense system, and combat sport. Not seen as a style itself, but is rather considered as just one of the two components (taolu and sanshou) of Chinese martial arts (Kung fu) training and is often taught along side with taolu training

Don't get me wrong, western boxing is definitly effective. When alot of people were argueing if Tyson would do well in UFC at his prime, I thought he definitly would, unless he fell for a joint lock or submission. I saw Tyson as more of "Cat in a bath tub" type, who would just be difficult to take down as he would just be swinging wildly.

I edited my last post by the way, don't you know if saw that yet or not. I'll pick up that book and read it, thanks for the info. I still stand by the fact that is silly to think that none of the traditional martial systems of china, japan, korea, indonesia, or the phillipines ever came up the 4 basic punches. Again, it goes back to the sword swing from style to style that I refered to before.

Dave -

"What you refer to as the "4 basic punches" are strikes from a specific style of fighting--Western boxing. Just like you see reverse punches, knife hands, and ridge hands in karate, you see jabs, straight lefts, crosses, hooks, & uppercuts in Western boxing. And comparing specific unarmed strikes to the "sword swing from style to style" isn't accurate either. Just as there are specific methods of striking in various unarmed martial arts (eg., Western boxing's uppercut, Thai boxing's knee from the plum clinch, savate's kick w/ hard-toed shoes, karate's reverse punch, etc), there are specific methods of cutting and thrusting, in various sword arts (eg., Western fencing's lunge-thrust, kenjutsu's simultaneous sword-draw & cut from "sky to ground", the push- and pull-cuts from Italian duelling saber, et al.)."-

Again, this is where we disagree. I used a sword analogy to make it alittle more relavant to myArmoury in general. I have taken chinese swordsman ship, western swordmanship, and JSA. And there are moves that are very similar from each style, some almost identical. Some chinese swordsmanship moves are very similar, almost identical, to capo faro western moves. Some german longsword moves are similar, or almost identical, to JSA japanese moves. The point being there is only so many ways a human can move a sword, and back to our conversation, only so many ways a human can throw a punch. The 4 basic punches are a natural motion of the body, so why would it be impossible that the chinese, japanese, koreans, or others came up with them as well? I would argue that they did. My particular style of Kung Fu spread from China to the phillipines after the boxer rebellion in china, from there it was shared with silat and eventually brought to the states. This art includes all those basic punches, and it's the first thing we teach. The forms we have utilize these punches in practical ways. It is thought by many that styles such as this were saved from the cultural revolution do to it being spread outside of china long before the revolution, in this case it was the phillipines.

It is clear that in any combat sport, even historical sparring, there are always some rules. The question I ask myself in each specific case is how much additional training would be required so the person could still be effective if the rules were removed.

The example I can offer is my duel this summer in which I used SCA Sword and Shield techniques in a contest that allowed for low-leg hits, hand-strikes and grappling. In that particular case I found that I did not have to alter my techniques much. Now I suspect if the contest was changed so that it was open hand only (no weapons), I would have do a great deal more improvising since I normally don't fight open-hand.

Another example might be to consider how effective a person trained in German Longsword might be in a Madmax style cage fight if only baseball bats are allowed? How well would that training transfer to a pipe? A crowbar? How about a camping axe? a knife? I suspect that as the weapon gets shorter the Longsword training will transfer over less and less. However if the person is also trained in German dagger, they will be able to use the short weapon effectively and perhaps improvise something with a medium size weapon. That improvisation takes extra thinking time and might be costly.

In the case of MMA fighting, the question that matters is if the eye poking, throat punching, kidney kicking... etc. rules were removed... how much more additional thinking would these fighters have to do in order to cope with the new situation? I suspect that they would be able to make the adjustments pretty quickly. If on the other hand they were forced to fight and opponent with a weapon... now they are fish out of water. They may be able to improvise, but it will be at a level that is far away from their specialized training.

So it is my opinion that we can expect fighters to make some adjustments to changing situations. The smaller the changes are from what they are use to, the easier it will be cope. Bigger changes will be harder to cope with. I think that more discussion along these lines might help better understand how well combat sorts are transferable to real combat situations.

Taylor -

-"This wasn't a rule in the first few UFC's and it never really came up. I personally see throat strikes as one of the more bullshido techniques, as a moving jawline makes it much harder to pull off against a guarded opponent than most self defence classes would have you think. Even so, consider someone like Randy Couture tying up on opponent on the ground: he's certainly in a better position to delver these strikes from close range than a stand up fighter is."-

This is not true, "but the UFC was often its own worst enemy. Its initial lack of rules - only biting, ‘fish-hooking’ an opponent’s face, eye gouging and throat strikes were illegal " - from extremeprosports.com So throat strikes were illegal from day one, thats why no one could use them. And tell all the police officers out there they are a bullshido technique. I have personal been hit in the throat, and it wasn't even a hard hit, and it sucked. Throat strikes are very effective.

-"Considering that the only way for a striker to be able to strike a downed grappler is to outwrestle them, I don't think its a big deal personally. Sure I'd like to see it back in though..."

I don't quite understand what you are saying here. You can easily kick and stomp and downed opponent with having to grapple them. I wish I could remember what match it was early on in UFC, I think is 4 or 5, when someone stayed on the ground trying to intice the ground game, and other fighter just kicked in the head and took him out. Not saying that ground fighter was any good, just it was just an example.

-"You would have to be very niave to think that. The biggest anti-grappling rule (and one you forgot to mention) is the standup for inactivity that strikers can stall for. There is no standing equivilent."-

Actually a referee can restart the match again for stalling even from a stand up point of view, or he can take points away from the stalling fighter.

"Just to play devil's advocate, what makes that kick a kung fu technique? And if it is, what is it specifically? Just asking because Cung Le also has a solid taekwondo and muay thai background too....."

His kicks are side kicks and round kicks that many styles of kung fu teach. Your right though, there are similar kicks in Tae Kwan Do and Muay Tai, I wouldn't argue that. In speaking with Le, that was the first thing I asked him about, and he mentioned he learned some kicks in Tae Kwan Do, but prefered the kicks in the Kung Fu he learned later, though some were quite similar. The biggest difference in technique I could personally tell you, is watch how he aligns his hips when he kicks. Especially his side kicks, he turns his hips away from his opponent, almost creating a back kick more than a side kick. This also allows him more reach and power in the kick, and also allows him to follow up with a quick spinning back fist, which he uses quite often, and I am surprised no one has picked up on this and guards it. This hip placement is what we do in our side kicks, and most Tai Kwan Do side kicks do not emphasize this, or just keep their hips side ways, and kick with muscles in the leg, rather than the mucles in the entire body.

Dave -
-"So Chris, for all you know, the Western boxing influence on your kung-fu style may have occured long before you were even born. Or, perhaps it took place later, when it was brought here to the U.S. Whatever the case, it's wrong for you to assume that the Western boxing-style repertoire in your system is an original feature of that system."

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree, unfortunatly we'll never know, so I don't think we can definitly say one way or the other.

Btw, I've been researching on that book, and it's a great book done very scientifically. However, it's based only on what is tangible historical proof, so to him, if it wasn't written down, it doesn't exist. You simply can not say that with chinese martial arts, I can't speak for japanese or korean, but many styles of kung fu, includeing my own, have been passed for down the generations with no written down information to follow at all. So, to him, my style of kung fu doesn't even exist. Again, it's a great book, I don't want to dismiss it, and I am not dismissing it, however, you can't leave out many of the oral traditions of the arts, or you'll be missing most of what is there.