Just curious as to why there are not more MMA fighters with A Military background in UFC or other organizations. Or do they just not promote it?
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Just curious as to why there are not more MMA fighters with A Military background in UFC or other organizations. Or do they just not promote it?
August 28th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
they dont promote it
August 28th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Because soldier know that MMA is crap and they go on to take real martial arts. Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu is really big among soldiers.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
maybe you need more training than a couple of months learning basic fighting skills. soldier are trained for war not fighting in a cage. i fought my friend before and after he got out of the Marines and he lost both times. all the while i was learning Thai and BJJ. i have all the love for armed forces and im not trying to dog on my friend but they gotta learn about rifles and learing how to take tear gas and other things that are essential for ARMED combat. but a lot of them were. like CRO COP, RANDY, they just had a strong base in wrestlling or K1 not just military training.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
There are! The former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champ Randy Couture spent 6 years in the Army from 1982-1988 and retired as a Sergeant before coming into the UFC and dominating. Also the current WEC light heavyweight champion Brian Stann graduated from the US Naval Academy, and was an infantry officer in the US Marines. He retired in May of 2008 and is now the WEC champ. Finally anyone who says that soldiers don’t do MMA obviously isn’t a soldier. The Army now teaches Modern Army Combatives (MAC) which is a combination of wrestling, judo, boxing, and Muay Thai. The Army adopted the MAC program with a large contribution from the Gracie family which is a very well known and respected family in the MMA world.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
B. NINJA— YOUR AN IDIOT… HOW CAN YOU SAY IT’S CRAP? MMA STANDS FOF (MIXED MARTIAL ARTS). WHICH WOULD LEAD SMART PEOPLE TO BELIEVE THAT IT WOULD INCLUDE A “MIX” OF ALL MARTIAL ARTS…. PICK UP A BOOK YOU ONE TRICK PONY.
BACK TO THE QUESTION. BEING IN THE MILITARY IS FULL TIME. MMA TRAINING WOULD BE FULL TIME IN THE ELITE ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE UFC. THUS MAKING IT HARD TO JUGLE BOTH. BUT, BRIAN STANN OF THE WEC IS KNOWN TO BE A MARINE AND GOOD MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST. HE PROMOTES IT AND MAYBE OTHERS DON’T.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I’m not 100% sure. The Marines have had a program that emphasizes well-rounded H2H– throws, ground fighting, strikes, holds, etc.
Anyone else in the military will have combatives which are designed to kill or incapacitate an opponent under battle field conditions. These movements are one-two or one-two-three sequences. For example:
chin jab, hatchet hand, knee to stomach. These combatives aren’t really designed for sports competition
August 29th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I assume you think that having a military background would be some sort of an advantage for being a professional fighter. That’s not true–if anything, it would be a big disadvantage, because during a hitch in the military, you spend lots of hours of every day doing training and deployments that have nothing whatsoever to do with MMA fighting. I was an infantry man. Any kind of hand-to-hand combat training was absolute lowest priority. When I actually deployed for a combat tour, or when I did major training, I wouldn’t get much of any chance to work out.
Being in the military can make a vet tougher than the average person, no doubt about it. But when you talk about MMA fighters you see performing on television or pay-per-view, you are talking about elite athletes. Many of them went to college on wrestling scholarships. Other MMA fighters were showing so much talent at 18 or 19 that people encouraged them to start training seriously at MMA. I know some pretty young guys in their early 20′s who are starting to get pretty high profile fights. That wouldn’t be happening to them if they had spent the past three or four years in the military instead. They’ve been in wrestling rooms or MMA gyms all that time, training six hours a day.
There are some pretty good MMA stars with military backgrounds. Randy Couture, quite notably. But even he spent pretty much his entire hitch on the wrestling team. If you have the talent he has, you can pretty much do your sport the entire time. If you’re an average ability mat rat like I was during my time, you can probably get your CO to let you out of some work details for a few weeks while you train up for a big tournament or something. I actually knew a lot of tough wrestlers and boxers when I was in the army. But if you aren’t one of the handful of the very best, when really important stuff comes up, your sport training is done until further notice.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I am not really sure to be honest. The new MMA fighters are simply starting to train younger and younger and it takes all your time away from almost doing anything else. That could be why you don’t see many with a military background.
I think they promote it somewhat. There have been UFC fighters that have visited the troops in Iraq on many occasions so far.
Also, Fedor Emelianenko has spend a good amount of time in the Russian Army.