The MMA Files – Part 3: The Greatest Mixed-Martial Artist of all time is….

Chapter I: (…but first, some history). Generational Evolution.

A professional sport that is in still in its developmental stage like MMA is perhaps too new to have a ranking of “greatest fighter” just yet. We are only now, for example, seeing true mixed martial artists winning matches against what we might refer to as “hybrid fighters.” It is a generational shift. The first generation of UFC combatants were strictly discipline (or lack thereof) representatives. Royce Gracie was the Brazilian Ju-Jitsu fighter. Ken Shamrock was the catch wrestler. Patrick Smith was a kickboxer. David “Tank” Abbott was… well, a brawler. And in between you have savate practitioners, sumo wrestlers, judokas, Greco-roman wrestlers, and the occasional samboiste. Very few, if any of these early fighters demonstrated a range of talents beyond their discipline. A boxer could put a man down with one punch, but if a BJJ expert got a hold of him on the ground, it was all over. Likewise, chancers like Tank Abbott, who actually managed to win the occasional match, would often have the advantage of guile in the face of technically superior opponents.

The original goal of mixed martial arts (in the sense that we know it. There have always been style-versus style events promoted as gimmicks or special exhibitions) was to test style-against-style and settle long-standing arguments. The Gracie family in particular had a vested interest in these early fights because the no-holds barred, bare-knuckle style suited their claim that Brazilian Ju-Jitsu was the most effective martial arts style. Time and again fighters not trained in BJJ would end up dominating the smaller Gracie (usually Royce) initially only to be wind up submitting to a joint lock or by being put to sleep by a choke hold. Because of the open-weight nature of these early bouts, Gracie would often be seen submitting a much larger man, such as Greco-Roman champion Dan Severn, who after keeping Gracie in a compromising position for most the match, ended up being submitted in a triangle choke. The secret seems to the Gracie ability to simply let the other man exhaust his big weapons and allow him to begin to feel overly confident. This in turn would cause him to leave a an opening to the seemingly indefatigable Gracie, who, having conserved amble energy during his “rest” would easily lock his man up in an agonizing pretzel of bone and muscle.

PICTURE: a visual representation of the five micro-generations of professional mixed martial artist. From right to left: Generation 1: Royce Gracie, Don Frye, Ken Shamrock, Mark Coleman, Randy Couture; Generation 2: Fedor, Tito Ortiz, Wanderlai Silva, Antonio Nogueira, CroCop; Generation 3: Chuck Liddell, Dan Henderson, BJ Penn, Matt Hughes, Quintin Jackson; Generation 4: Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Urijah Faber, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva; Generation 5: Lyoto Machida, Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, Brett Rogers, Aldo Reyes, Cain Velasquez

It is with the next, or middle generation of MMA fighters that we begin to see something like hybrid fighting. Mark Coleman, Tito Ortiz, Fedor Emelianenko, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Kevin Randleman, and many, many other fighters who got their start in the late 90s and early 2000s, were capable and comfortable in a variety of positions. A striker like Chuck Liddell could compete on the ground (and more importantly, defend takedowns), and Fedor, arguably the best samboiste in the world, has a record of wins that balances out dynamic submissions and jaw-shattering knockouts. What these fighters were and are capable of doing is switching between styles in-match. The proportional proficiency in any one style may be suspect (Couture rarely tries for submissions; Liddell is better at defending against the ground than dominating the position, and the rap on Fedor is that he can’t box properly) but the ability to turn on a dime and become Greco-Roman one moment, then transition to a judo or BJJ position, depending on the circumstance, is the hallmark of this generation. These now-seasoned fighters grew into the sport from the perspective of developing an arsenal, rather than focusing exclusively on a native discipline.

A key match during this era was the 2006 catch-weight bout between Royce Gracie and then-long-reigning UFC welterweight champion, Matt Hughes. The match was billed as old-school vs. new-school and, in truth, showcased a number of changes in the sport since its debut a decade previous. Hughes, a masterful Greco-roman wrestler, easily took Gracie to the ground and essentially kept him there at will. Hughes kept busy, not letting Gracie really settle into his usual game plan. At one point, Hughes landed a remarkable arm bar, a BJJ signature hold, that probably would have broken Gracie’s arm had Hughes not relinquished it. Hughes then mounted the veteran and ground-and-pounded Gracie to the point where the referee had to intervene and stop the match.

The reason this match is important is not so much for its symbolic value, (“changing of the guard,” and all that) but for the range of techniques Hughes employed to win the match. He transitioned from wrestling, to grappling, and finally to ground strikes effortlessly. The fighters of this middle generation dominated the mid-to-late 2000s and a handful of the first generation have continued to contend as well, adjusting their game and becoming more versatile. (In fact, Hughes recently defeated Royce’s cousin, Renzo, brutally dominating nearly every second of the three-round affair.)

Randy Couture is a prime example of a multi-generational MMA combatant. While still primarily a rather stiff Greco-roman wrestler with a penchant for dirty boxing, over the past several years Couture has added improved strikes and kicks to his game and has even been known to utilize a choke hold. This has been enough for him to collect belts in multiple weight divisions in the UFC. But more on Couture later…

The generation currently coming into its prime in the new decade is the first generation to truly adopt MMA as a specific mode of combat unto itself. The difference between a fighter like Hughes and the new generation’s George St. Pierre is the fluidity of the movements and the integration of techniques without really having to transition between them. Hughes adjusts whereas St. Pierre combines. In other words, St. Pierre is not responding to something that isn’t working by employing a different fighting style for the moment, he is using the momentum of each move to set up the potential for the next one. It is like an ultra complex series of flow charts: If he shoots in for take down, he is thinking of a fork in the road: either my man will go to the ground or he will defend; either way he is going backwards; either way I am moving forward. Looking at GSP’s wins, what is striking is the variety of ways that he has won over the years: punches, elbows, chokes, kimuras, armbars, knees, and a host of judge’s decisions which on their own suggest a strategic dominance as well as an athletic one.

Along with GSP’s athleticism, we may also note a difference in the way the very notion of martial artist has manifested itself in this new generation . Fighters like GSP, Anderson Silva and B.J. Penn almost seem to swim through their matches. Silva especially is adept at making the match seem like dance of violence. If you watch any of his better matches, particularly his destruction of Rich Franklin for the UFC middleweight bet, you will get a sense of a fighter who appears to have choreographed the match from bell to bell. His final flurry against Franklin - a series of body blows followed by a vicious muy thai knee strike to the head which then led to powerful head kick and a final volley of punches - was as close as anyone has ever come to making bodily harm look beautiful. Franklin, a remarkable fighter in his own right, looked positively helpless against Silva. Indeed, their subsequent rematch proved no less convincing of Silva’s powers. He has in fact, seldom looked to be in substantial trouble. His dominance over the second generation of fighters and those in the middle portion of his generation of fighter (such as his rather embarrassingly lack-luster defeat of Patrick Cote, and the strangely one-sided affair against fan favorite, Forrest Griffin) suggests that he is the watermark for excellence in the sport at this time. The question remains whether someone really of his cohort - like GSP or Lyoto Machida – would meet at one another’s weight class. Recent events suggest he may never get that chance, as Silva has devolved in past several matches into unrepentant clowning and showboating.

We might term this era of MMA the “GSP Generation,” to stand just in front of the “Chuck Liddell Generation.” But we might just as easily call this the “Penn Years,” or “The Forrest Griffin Years” or “The Time of Silva,” or even “The Time of Faber.” There are too many claims to be made, all of them justified. Much depends on the legacy these individual fighters leave for themselves as they consider the direction their careers should take going forward. GSP continues to dominate the welterweight division with style, class, and overwhelming athleticism, but there are still dragons to slay and ambitions to fulfill – including a serious desire to join the Canadian Olympic wrestling team in London in 2012. For Penn, the recent loss to upstart Frankie Edgar resulted in an almost immediate scheduling of a rematch. But even if he wins (and the odds are that he very well might) what more is there him to prove at 155? Another run at GSP for the welterweight belt? Silva has talked about retiring from MMA to pursue boxing. And he may indeed be bored. Having never taken a lot of damage, “The Spider” could make a go at light heavyweight. A division he has so far dominated with lopsided wins over James Irvin and Forrest Griffin. But his recent wins have done nothing to improve his standing among fight fans and promoters. Dana White has gone so far as to threaten to place Silva in the undercard, whether he’s champion or not. And speaking of Griffin, the working class hero and baby-faced star of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter , and one-half of the fight that many claim to be THE watershed bout in UFC, if not MMA history when he fought Stephan Bonnar, there are still doubts about his true ambitions in the sport. After a brief tenure as light heavyweight champion, Griffin has gone one-and-three in his recent bouts. A fan favorite, Griffin may be content with his legacy as it stands.

Whoever history smiles on from the post-Liddell generation of fighters, what is clear is that for these men, the book is still being written. For now, we should take the broadest view possible if we are going to locate that elusive “greatest” fighter. So in the next two chapters I will be discussing several fighters who may fulfill the criteria. I will begin with the man who tops most lists… Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko.

Game for art's sake

For the past several years, film critic Roger Ebert has been conducting an occasional virtual debate on the merits of the video game as art. It all started with Ebert saying that he didn’t consider video games an art form in the same was painting, poetry, or cinema. This in turn led Clive Barker to call Ebert a name, which resulted in Ebert writing more on the topic, and on, and on. The latest volley in this pong of words comes in the form of Ebert’s recent entry on his excellent blog wherein he critiques a presentation given by a video game designer who believes that video games are in fact art. Ebert remains, for the most part, unmoved and he explains himself in terms which suggest that the problem isn’t the games or the art works in question, but the definition of art itself. I added my few bytes to the discussion in a reply to Ebert’s blog, but as I was reply number 3061, my vanity demanded its own space… thus…

This article, if anything, only underscores our already flimsy "catch-all" definition of "art." It's almost as bad as our definition of "pornography."

Those who defend the "video-game-as-art" argument tend to focus on how "cinematic" a good video game can be. True. I recently played Halo: ODST and found the scenes varied in lighting in ways that often appear to be in emulation of film-noir. The score, too, was often equally evocative. But beyond this imitative aspect, the game is ultimately a game. If art is going to be located in the video game, it has to meet it at where it specializes, namely, at the point of interaction.

A definition I have enjoyed for a long while (at least since my brief days as a philosophy undergrad) is that art is information + finesse filtered through interpretative subjectivity. The "information" is just the stuff of a game. The rules, the elements of play, and in the case of the video game, it is the visuals. "Finesse" is what the artist brings to his or her medium. It is what the sculptor brings to the clay, what the painter does with the canvas, what the actor does with the words of the page, what the writer does with ink and paper, et cetera .

In the world of games, the gamer himself or herself is the one who brings the finesse, not the designer, developer, or marketer. When confronted with a challenge in the game world, the gamer has a variety of (often very limited) options. How he confronts these challenges seems to be where the actual enjoyment of the game lies and where it stands the best chance of achieving something like an "artistic" imprimatur. A "sick" fighting move, a particularly arduous run-jump-spin-roll move, a certain panache in dispatching a squadron of enemy fighter planes... each activity, in its own way, may allow the player/artist to forward a unique expression of excellence.

And, as thousands of youtube videos can attest, particularly worthy game play can be uploaded and screened for an appreciative (or critical) audience. This is the subjective aspect that all audiences bring to any art form.

At present, however, I feel that the "finesse" aspect of these games is pretty paltry, anodyne and, frankly, not that interesting to anyone who has sat dry-mouthed while reading Proust or while watching "The Hurt Locker." The best art tends to have more channels for personal expression than the model I propose here for video games. But I definitely think that the potential is there for a true expression of the individual within the game world.

The limiting factor at this point seems to be two fold: 1) gaming is so wedded to industry that designers are not in a position to think beyond the interests of capital, and 2) the medium itself requires such technical prowess and up-front expense, that an avant-garde, underground, or "indie" movement cannot flourish in the same way as it does in other, more conventional art forms.

Will it always be thus? I don't think so. Eventually, technology always trickles down to the masses. Yesterday's $8,000 digital camera is today's $250 Best Buy special. This allows for the furtive 14 year old imagination to explore her world, take in information through her aperture, and, through finesse, generate something new. If such an "aperture" were scaled for the artistically-minded video game designer, then we may actually start seeing something like a true, audience-generated video game arts movement. Until that point, however, we are still in zoetrope mode as far as video gaming is concerned.

The MMA Files – Part 2 The Establishment Clause: Professional Boxing vs. Professional MMA

The world of pro boxing is a fairly convenient place to draw up the foundations of an argument for mainstream combat sport recognition. It is long established has a deep history, and a vast cast of characters. What then of a sport just coming into its late adolescence, like Mixed-Martial Arts? As a young sport, MMA is currently in the process of figuring out what it is going to be. Starting out as a freak-show in the hey-day of pay-per view in the early to mid-1990s, MMA grew into a legitimate sport by the turn of the century, thanks to there being serious athletes involved with the events alongside the chancers and circus geeks. Now, seventeen years after its founding, the Ultimate Fighting Championships has helped to establish the sport’s legitimacy, creating something more than a mere-hybrid combat sport. MMA is now a “style” of fighting unto itself. So much so, that traditional martial arts schools and boxing gyms have began to advertise MMA training on their shingles.

The boxing mainstream are not particularly impressed. Floyd Mayweather has famously dissed the sport, going so far as to say that MMA is a “fad,” and veteran boxing journalist and pro wrestling historian, Bert Sugar, also panned MMA as a flash in the pan; a sport fit only for those bored of pro wrestling’s antics. Time will tell, but the box office and sell-through numbers for UFC events don’t lie. Arena sell-outs, record breaking pay-per view events, and consistently high ratings for the UFC’s reality show, The Ultimate Fighter, all speak to the UFC’s commercial legitimacy, at least in the short-term.

That being said, MMA still has some distance to go before anyone forwards it for inclusion as a demo sport in the 2048 Olympiad. It bears repeating that boxing had to jump through a lot of hoops to become legitimate in the eyes of the general public. In its early days, boxing was a lot closer to human cockfighting than MMA ever was. Bare-knuckles, fights-to-the death, and dank basements where the rules of the day before the Queensbury rules of 1867. The 143 years since Queenbury have allowed a space for professional boxing to develop its mainstream legitimacy. MMA, thanks mainly to sanctioning infrastructure developed by and for boxing, has leapfrogged much of this glacial establishment process. It has, in essence, placed itself squarely in the same culture a professional boxing. Las Vegas is the UFC’s headquarters. It’s smaller cards are in casinos rather than arenas. Ring announcers in tuxes and pretty girls carrying round-number cards are the order of the day. Nonetheless, a vocal core of boxing devotees continue to minimize the successes professional MMA has enjoyed over the past decade.

Why is this? There is the usual upstart rap that goes with every new cultural product, especially a new pro sports venture. Truth to be told, they nearly all fail miserably. Indoor soccer leagues, the XFL, arena football, legitimate professional wrestling, these and others have all been tried, and one is wont to not get fooled again. Americans, and perhaps leisure-based cultures in general, are very conservative when it comes to what professional sports they are willing to watch during prime time. Even hockey, once the forth leg of America’s sports table, has fallen back to second tier status. Boxing fans like what they like, and they like the parameters of their culture. MMA is consciously horning in on that cultural space. And, as the UFC’s acquisition of former IBF champion, James Toney suggests, MMA may also threaten to steal away their stars.

Oddly enough, boxing seems to be the only combat sport that feels this need to be defensive. I don’t think we hear a lot from the K1 kickboxers or the Greco-Roman Olympians regarding the legitimacy of the fledgling sport. In fact, at least one MMA promotion, Strikeforce, has felt comfortable blending MMA matches with kickboxing contests on several of their cards. Boxing feels threatened because … well, they have never really had competition. The other combat sports have never caught on in the professional ranks in America the way boxing has. Professional wrestling, boxing’s clownish, cousin, has long since relinquished any claim to legitimacy and has even cut itself off from the genuine historical ties it shares with boxing via their historic tradition of co-promotion. Only MMA has displayed true credentials in the market as a competitor to boxing.. It is obvious that it can make money, therefore, critics must attack MMA as a kind of faddish non-sport. Usually this involves lobbing easy volleys at the fans themselves. They aren’t sports fans but “spectacle” watchers. The kind of people who rubber-neck freeway crash carnage and play ultra-violent video games. Truth to be told, MMA fandom certainly houses such rabble. But then again, are there not hockey fans who primary interest in the sport is the violence rather than skating or stick prowess?

And depending on the location, the venue, and the card in question, an MMA event may attract a lot of these people (made more surly by the access to beer). When televised, their numbers are signified by the rampant booing that can be heard when grappling and wrestling are involved in the match. They want to see punches. They want to see strikes. Frankly, they want to see an old timey boxing match! But these people are not the rank-and-file of MMA fans. They are casual fans, and indeed, probably casual sports fans. Ask any MMA blogger his or her opinion on the topic and you will get an essay on what a “real MMA fan” is all about. It has to do with appreciation of the balance of skills that go into making a well-rounded fighter. Strikes, kicks, take-downs, grappling, “dirty boxing,” transitions, defense, recovery, strategy. They will also talk about “dream” matches and how one fighter is up and coming or down and out or ready to make a comeback. They love the narratives and the drama. Long build up to the big match. The obscure under carder who might one day be someone.

In other words, there is something about passion here, isn’t there? A concern for the display and execution of athletic excellence in the direction of another athlete who may or may not be as prepared, as skilled, or as lucky as the other guy. The passion is something that a lot of “real boxing fans” have or have had for their sport, and it is something this upstart new sport, still in its adolescence, is generating in millions of people around the world.

The MMA Files – Part I : Muhammad Ali and the Calculus of Greatness

Sports is beloved of left brain people, rationalists. Facts and stats win arguments. The fastest, the strongest, the most field goals, the most homeruns, the most goals. In our post-modern world of moral relativism and political correctness, there is something refreshing about the binary certitude of won/loss ratios, world records, and absolute percentages.

But the numbers don’t always tell the whole story. They don’t delineate the difference between “the most” and “the best.” Is Muhammad Ali the heavyweight with most wins during his career? No. That accomplishment goes to a man named Young Stribling, who, in his career of 289 fights, won 256 matches, 128 by knock-out. That is an 88% winning percentage. By contrast, Ali “only” fought 61 matches, winning 56. Only a slightly better winning percentage against far fewer fighters. But what makes Ali “the greatest” heavyweight of all time? 37 KOs? Over 60%. That is still only a little better than Stribling. So there must be other factors. Character? For sure, Ali was/is a celebrity. He was colorful in the ring, and charismatic and controversial in public. He was the right kind of sportsman for his time. A man who knew how to “sell” his personality and generate a fascinating public narrative.

This is why we have heard of Ali and not Stribling. But does that recognition, and his record, make him “the best?” No. The confluences of circumstance cannot be used to determine who the greatest is. Ali, after all, came into his notoriety just as television was becoming an international phenomenon. Not only could he do great things, more people could see it. Stribling’s only mass exposure came during a 1933 match against Max Schmeling, the first match to be broadcast on radio. That broadcast, and a handful of grainy silent film reels are the only electronic media evidence which have survived.

What makes any individual athlete “the best,” is his willingness to prove himself against the highest possible caliber of contender in his chosen sport. From Archie Moore, to Sonny Liston twice, to Floyd Patterson, Joe Frazier, George Forman, Ken Norton, Spinks, Holmes, and Trevor Berbick, Ali fought the blue chip fighters of his day, dodging no one who would fight him. Even at the end, when his fire was clearly out, he stood up with the best in waning years. But if anything, Stribling’s record would suggest that he had the more challenging record. He fought the world champion twice, and beat the national champions of a dozen countries while maintaining an arduous road schedule at home. His controversial loss to Schmeling in 1933 was his final opportunity to meet the sport’s top dog. Schmeling would go on to fight his historic bout against Joe Lewis a few years later, and by then Stribling was a fading memory in the minds of casual sports fans.

What accounts for this? Again, we may need to look back to the mass media component, but also consider that in life, more is not always better. There was something about the sheer volume of matches that smacks of a profligate career on Stribling’s part. He was from traveling entertainer stock. He was a born exhibitionist; a sporting vaudevillian. To work was to eat and without a massive promotion machine behind him (Schmeling, after all, had the Nazi state propaganda machine to tout him) all Stribling had was talent and energy. In the 20^th century, that simply wouldn’t suffice.

The calculus then might break down along the lines of record, character, competition and timing.. Ali was an elite fighter who fought elite fighters, and he did it over a long enough period of time to establish by repetition and reputation his status as the greatest. His character marks him in time, his time. Thus he can’t be stripped of his spiritual title. At least not easily. Finally, Ali was a man of his time, and, by all accounts, defined boxing for the latter half of the 20^th century. There will be better boxers than Ali, ones who win more fights, ones who fight better opponents, and ones who set the world on fire with their character. But whether or not that will ever come again in a single package remains to be seen.