glgl

congrats sir!

Semmy had his chance. He fought at both UFC and Pride level and failed to impress. Record of 4-3 across these two comps. All wins against lesser lights and losses against admittedly tough competition.

I don't watch UFC / MMA type stuff very often, so these questions are a bit general.. but it's "AMA" so I hope it's OK

1) What would you say the risk is for being seriously injured and/or killed in a fight is? What are the most common ways to be seriously injured and/or killed in an MMA fight?

2) In the fights that I've watched, it seems a lot of the time a situation develops where one fighter "has the back" of the other. Yet, strikes to the back of the head don't seem to be allowed. Although this makes sense from a safety standpoint, it seems to deviate from the "anything goes" nature that UFC/MMA is supposed to be about (at least to my understanding). Are significant additional points awarded for taking the back of an opponent?

3) What motivates you to fight? Presumably, you make a lot more from poker. Did you just decide that the benefits outweigh the risks to personal well-being? (I assume this relates heavily to question #1)

First of all, thanks so much to everyone for the support! The fight didn't really go the way I had it in my head (not that I had a great idea of how it would play it in my head), but it worked out pretty well.

I'm not sure if you can embed video here (if you can, maybe a mod can edit this post for me), but there is a video of the fight (but without audio) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvXCoxDtsbg

I was gonna punt on this thread since it sort of veered off into car crash territory, but there were people who took the time to ask some legit questions so I figure the least I could do was answer those. I'm going to be busy traveling this week for various friends/family stuff so I'm not sure when I'll come back to this thread, but here goes:

Never seen it before, but it's probably happened before. Pretty sure it's actually in the rules, so it must have!

This is tough. I honestly have gone back and forth on this a few times. I used to hold the standard view that PEDs are horrible and awful and unfair and there should be really stringent enforcement and heavy penalties for PED use.

On the other hand, having spent a little time in this sport now, it is *so* ubiquitous. And it's the kind of thing where, as I understand it, it's pretty easy to not get caught if you have a doctor/endocrinologist who knows what they are doing, and you aren't stupid about it. So really at the top level the guys who are clean are at a significant disadvantage and the guys who are dirty are not that likely to be caught. And that sucks.

I still think roiding is wrong because it *is* cheating (it's against the rules); the question is whether or not it *should* be cheating. And as I said, I'm really not sure what the answer is. I mean we know that increasing your intake of Vitamin D will raise your testosterone levels. And we also know if you take too much Vitamin D, bad things happen to your health. Both of these statements also apply to steroids. But no one thinks that Vitamin D supplements should be illegal or considers their use unethical. So I dunno. I don't ever plan to take them because I hate needles and I don't want to mess up my body because I want to live a long time and age reasonably well, but if they were to become legal and accepted then I wouldn't begrudge anyone who sacrificed their long-term health for short-term performance. I'm just not that kind of person.

1. I actually seem to be a bit of an anomaly in that I can't really seem to put down solid food for the first 3-4 hours after weigh-in. My teammates went straight to all-you-can-eat sushi right after weighins, but I could only really drink a couple liters of pedialyte before I felt really full. I weighed in (126 lbs) at 6:30, over the next couple hours drank about 3-4L of fluids and ended up eating a reasonable sized meal at 11. Had a protein shake before bed.

Woke up at about 136lbs. Made myself a big breakfast of grass-fed ground lamb, eggs and sweet potatoes. Snacked on Larabars throughout the day. Probably walked in the cage around 140-142 lbs.

As for the health aspects, it's not healthy. There's nothing healthy about losing 8-10% of your bodyweight in a week and there's no way around that. But hey, getting beat up by someone who is just as skilled as you but is stronger and hits harder is also bad for your health.

2. It's certainly different. One of the ways in that it's similar for me is that I enjoy thinking about fighting techniques (punches, kicks, knees, takedowns, reversals, submissions, whatever) the way I used to think for a long time and obsess about hand histories or ranges or pot equities. I'll see someone hit a move in the UFC or see a demo on YouTube and I'll want to practice that thing I saw in the gym. And it's a similar thing where when I'm in the zone, I really want to go to the gym and train, much in the same way I used to get really excited to go to the poker room.

Of course you don't "train" for a poker game the same way you do for a fight, even if it is the WSOP ME. Even if the WSOP ME is the most important tournament you play in a give year you can't really prep for it the way you would with a big fight. Maybe like the November Nine would be a more appropriate analog but until I make that I can only speculate.

I don't plan on fighting until the new year, but if an appropriate opponent, sure, why not.

I played about 40-50 live tournaments this year, I wouldn't really say I've given up poker. I just play less of it.

Sorry, but this is an AMA/well, not a bet arbitration thread! Thanks for the financial vote of confidence though, hopefully you and the other guy work it out.

See above. The real question is when are you gonna upload the "drunken MJ yelling random ****" vid?

Don't really track my macros/calories any more, but it used to be in the 125-150g daily range and is probably around that now.

Not a fan of veganism for fighters, I think there is a lot of stuff you can only get from animal products. But that said you can do it in a way that makes it work and is clean, like any diet. And obviously there are a ton of vegans who do great and could kick my ass six ways from Sunday.

1. It's obviously hard to give any kind of number on this when everyone's definition of a "serious" injury will vary. Wikipedia lists 3 deaths in sanctioned MMA bouts but that's not very useful without knowing how many fights there have been.

So this is interesting and I found this while Googling around [http://www.jssm.org/combat/1/18/v5combat-18.pdf]:

2. Yes, I think you raise a good point here; this is definitely an area where MMA differs slightly from a "real" fight. In a real fight if you have someone's back and you are in a position where you could freely strike to the back of the guy's head (i.e. he is face down), you would do it and destroy the guy easily. In MMA you have to arc your punches a bit and sometimes people get out while the guy in the dominant position is swinging. But still, probably 90% of the time if you get a guy's back and flatten him belly-down, you'll end up winning under MMA rules anyway.

3. Man, I fight because I love it so much. It's that simple. (And yes, it's been a huge money sink for me. But golf is a much bigger money sink for most people and no one ever questions why people spend so much money to play golf.)

I started this because it was fun. And I'll quit when it stops being fun. But I know that training MMA and fighting has made me a better person. It's taught me tremendous lessons about humility, mental toughness, and discipline. And yes, for me, right now the benefits do outweigh the risks. I might get my brain rattled once in a while and some joints might not work as well as they should at my age, but I know fighting has made me a better person. I hate to get all hippie/zen/whatever about it but there's definitely something spiritual there. There's something about having an event like a fight where you make it your singular focus and obsess about it endlessly and cast everything aside. You know it's funny that this guy got on my case about spending time on 2+2 to post in the thread rather than "focusing" because part of the reason I started the thread was that I just couldn't stop thinking about anything other than the fight and I figured I would channel that into something more tangible than the ephemeral thoughts in my own head. I can say without a doubt that I have never been more prepared for anything in my life than this, my fourth career fight. And that feeling of preparedness felt awesome.

***

Well, this thread has been a lot of fun for me and there were some awesome questions in here that really made me think. Again, thanks everyone for reading/posting in this thread, and also for watching on PPV or live.

Really good trip report and everything right on the mark, RE: fighting and preparing. Thanks and good luck in your future matches.

that was pretty epicly bad BJJ by the way he was defending your guard and attempts to get into butterfly it was destined to end badly.

I never fight MMA, but I trained BJJ for quite awhile when I lived in Vegas with Robert Drysdale. I miss it A LOT Once you've trained in a gym like that its really hard to get as into it when you live in Vermont and the class is trained by a purple belt or something =/.

I know what you mean about the Zen factor and learning humility.. When you've been sub'd by women, 15 year old kids(at the time I was 28), and just really learn to respect each other in the gym. I honestly think anyone who does any type of martial art learns this and feel its a great character builder for anyone..

Congrats on another win TC, he wasn't even in your league though.. you obviously had a much higher knowledge of ground game. He pretty much didn't even try to defend when you went into a half butterfly and attempted to roll him and get on top. I kept waiting for two things to happen when you slipped and fell and went to guard.. either he was going to give up one arm inside guard and one out and give up the triangle or you were going to do exactly what you did.. the beautiful thing about BJJ and the only way i can explain it to a lamen is physical chess.. if you're not thinking 3-5 moves ahead, you've already lost. Great work man!

Nice fight. You look deranged at about 5:45 of the Youtube video

Is that your Sharkscope graph tattooed on your chest?

TChan, sorry for asking this, but I did not go throw this entire thread and you did not answer my following question in your opening thread.

Would you be so kind and tell more about your training routine, diet and general life changes you had to do, to get ready for fights. What was you weight and fitness level before you decide you want to fight?

nice fight, stand up looks great and clearly you're good on your back

Fixed the audio problem thanks to an iPhone and an upper deck seat...