This is a serious question. Royce and I are the same age and Shammy is certainly no younger. Is there a future in the ring for the older fighter? Is there a style one can adopt to win against the younger, fitter, stronger opponent?
After seeing their recent losses I was disheartened. I really thought that these guys' fighting style was going to reflect the truth lurking there for us all: we all get older and older means less athleticism, speed, and reflexes. But, it also means more experience and, possibly, better technique.
Does any practical style really exist for the older MMAist or can we all just hope to hang on against 19 yo collegient wrestlers turned BJJ guys?
A 40+ year old MMA fighter will always face an uphill battle when he has to fight a similarly skilled opponent who is 25-35. Muscular endurance is probably an even bigger obstacle than speed and reflexes. Watch wrestling, which is relatively similar to MMA in physical demands. How many guys in their 40s have won olympic medals there recently?
That said, Royce would have lost to Matt Hughes and Ken would have lost to Tito and Rich Franklin regardless of age. Both had their brightest moments when they could tap guys who had little or no clue about the submission game.
Randy Couture PEAKED at 39-40 when he beat Liddell, and then Ortiz by domination (Ortiz was the man at the time and had been for 4 years). But exceptions do confirm the rule, most fighters have done their best by the time they are 32ish. The HUGE majority is done by 35. I guess when your body gets older you have to train harder, and not softer, and simply hope for your good genes and good fortune to prevent injuries. Randy said that as he got older, he was no longer able to skip a week of training while on holiday, he had to keep a much more continuous(sp?) training schedule in his later years.
So, 35-year-old MMA fighter, train hard, do not neglect your cardio, repeat the mentioned steps, but harder this time, and you just might be able to hang with the best of the young guys. If you outsmart them with your experience.
"Randy Couture PEAKED at 39-40 when he beat Liddell, and then Ortiz by domination ..."
That's hard to tell, because he had been fighting heavyweights before that and dropped down to 205 because he had lost two in a row there. Also, Randy's focus for most of his athletic career was Greco-Roman wrestling, and he didn't train MMA full time until he was already over 35. Who knows how good he could have been and when he would have peaked if he had started MMA as a teenager like many fighters do nowadays.
"Who knows how good he could have been and when he would have peaked if he had started MMA as a teenager like many fighters do nowadays."
Yeah, if you look at the difference between Liddell/Randy I v. II and III, it seems obvious to me that age is starting to play a factor for Randy. I hoenstly believe that if he were Tito's age but with the same knowledge and technical skill he possesses now, he wouldve been a dominant LHW champ for a long, long time.
"Are you SERIOUSLY telling me you never heard this expression?"
The Linguist is IN.
The English saying that per means is: "The exception PROVES the rule." This comes from the Latin expression "Exceptio probat regulam", which means "the exception TESTS (or TRIES, or CHALLENGES) the rule". An older meaning of "prove" is "test" or "challenge". You can look it up yourself if you don't believe me; you still occasionally hear the word used this way.
So the saying makes perfect sense, but only if you understand the meaning. Which is tautologically obvious, I suppose. The point is, the saying means precisely the OPPOSITE of what most of its users think it means.
"Are you SERIOUSLY telling me you never heard this expression?"
The Linguist is IN.
The English saying that per means is: "The exception PROVES the rule." This comes from the Latin expression "Exceptio probat regulam", which means "the exception TESTS (or TRIES, or CHALLENGES) the rule". An older meaning of "prove" is "test" or "challenge". You can look it up yourself if you don't believe me; you still occasionally hear the word used this way.
So the saying makes perfect sense, but only if you understand the meaning. Which is tautologically obvious, I suppose. The point is, the saying means precisely the OPPOSITE of what most of its users think it means.
In the swedish form the expression is more like "the expression CONFIRMS the rule".Not that it makes a big difference. Never have I been so thoroughly manhandled when it comes to expressions. If there was a smiley that took of his hat and bowed it would be placed right HERE:
Dont tell me you looked that up...? I will stop using expressions, metaphors and slang THIS MOMENT.