BTG 79 - Butting Heads

Hey guys, what's going on? David Avalon here with another episode of Breaking the Guard. Uh, a few random pieces of news that I came across that uh, sparked my interest. One was that Mike Tyson is slated now to fight Jake Paul. uh in the summer, which I didn't think was something that would actually happen. And I'm still a little skeptical if it actually comes to fruition, but that will be interesting just because we are dealing with Mike Tyson, and they show some clips of him in training where he still looks like he's got some thunderous power. So, it will answer some questions that maybe uh quite a few of us have, especially as we're getting older, which one is like, how long can you potentially have that killer power late into fight? I mean, for an athlete, I believe Tyson's 57. So, I mean, he is definitely up there, right? Like I don't think there's anybody in combat sports uh especially fighting on a main event pay-per-view card like that of that age. As I recall, I think George Foreman when he was, you know, coming back to win the world title in boxing, I think he was 45 or something like that, which was very old, mind you, uh for an athlete, and he was still putting people down. So, from a curiosity standpoint, I do want to see that and see if he still got it or if because if he comes out there and he can barely move and he's not doing well, this is going to be a nightmare to see because nobody wants to see somebody, especially someone like Mike who's fought for many years and sustained damage here and there. We don't need to see him getting hurt further. Which brings me to the point which the boxing commission who's I imagine has to be overseeing this if it's happening in the US has to approve this match up. So I know when generally they're dealing with somebody who's older, usually like 35 and up, they start doing MRIs, brain scans to see if there's any potential issues with a brain injury. Uh, so I hope they're doing that same level of care and and of security to make sure that we don't put somebody at risk. Uh, especially when the boxing commission's only goal is to protect the fighter. Uh on one hand I do see that as an individual if I want to fight whether I'm 20 or I'm 60 I should be able to choose what I want to do with myself and I do agree with that. On the other hand though if we have a boxing commission and we're forcing people to abide by them they should be applying the rules evenly to everybody. If you're going to have uh in one case prevent the guy from fighting, which I've had happen and uh one of my students essentially career ended because they wouldn't approve him to fight anymore despite being fully functional uh and young. So to me, this kind of hits me more because that upset me quite a bit and it turned out for the best for him. Uh but it was unfair, right? But then we're going to just let somebody who's 57 year old, 57 years old fight uh 20some. It seems like there's a a duality here, right, of a double-edged sword where one guy is getting one treatment and somebody else is getting a different treatment because they are in the know, they have a celebrity status, there's a lot of money coming to that car, so they're going to look over the rules. That's unfair to me, right? If we're going to apply rules, it should apply evenly to everybody. So, the boxing commission is going to prevent people from fighting because they feel this a health hazard and you're going to tell me that a 57 year old doesn't have a health hazard. Uh I I I don't really buy that. So, that's my take on it at least. But, uh like I said, personally, I rather that the Boston Commission was much weaker in what they can do uh as far as preventing people from fighting or whatnot. I I'm in America. I believe it's a free country. You know, if if someone wants to do something that's a potential risk of death, as long as you alert all parties and they're fine with it, you're ch you're free to choose how you want to live or die in my opinion. With that said, uh Jake Paul's no slouch. And even though he's very easy to hate on because just the way he is, which I believe is part of the marketing style, he wants to be the heel. He wants everybody to hate him and he's doing a very good job of that. Uh he's not like a complete slouch. Now someone like Mike Tyson in his prime would obviously starch him, you know, and just destroy him. It's also troubling that he's only picking people who are I believe they said everybody he's fought is over 40, which is also very alarming. you know, he's essentially, you know, picking on old people to beat them up, you know, and it's not, it doesn't make sense, you know, it's he's doing something genius in a way which he's just he's finding people who had past success that were famous or still are famous and beating them and fighting them because he knows that it's a much easier path to victory, but you still get all the accolades of saying, "Oh, I beat a Mike Tyson. Oh, you know, I beat Anderson Silva or I I beat, you know, Tyrone Woodley or I beat Ben Asgrave. All people that um when he fought, it was already way past their prime, right? So, it's not a fair fight, but he still gets to get all the marketing attention from it. So, in that, no, it is a genius move by him, but it's also, in my opinion, as a fighter is a very cowardly move, right? I don't I know I can walk in to a Naga white belt division and just absolutely destroy everybody but what am I going to get out of that right and naga they don't pay any money so you would just be a ultimate sandbagger by doing that he's obviously getting a boatload of money doing it so I'm sure there's better reasons for him to do it but it's still doesn't sit well with me I I think it's unethical uh I I think it's cowardly fight somebody who's of your skill, right? Or fight somebody at least that's still in their prime or moving up. Fighters are measured by the challenge. At least to me, you know, maybe I'm old school and I have different idea as my wife tells me all the time. I've founded another reality. But for me, the worth of a fighter is on the battles that he's had. You don't really have much value if you're way above everybody else and you just get to destroy everybody. You don't really get to show your true worth because nobody ever tested you. Right now, some athletes are just somewhat cursed in a way where they were just able to easily trounce everybody and it's not their fault. There was no one available. There's no one at the time that could challenge him, right? Uh and you know, it is what it is, but that's not the case with Jake Paul. there's plenty of people who can beat him up or that at least there's plenty of people who can give him a good fight that he's not finding. So, this is part of the problem with the whole influencer uh economy here where you can basically skip the line just because you have such a massup audience. Again, in some ways, I think it's great that people who produce engaging content can make their own audience without having to deal with middlemen. You don't have to go to networks or agents or anything like that. You just go straight to the people through social media. That is wonderful. It's just been hijacked by people in my opinion who are producing no value. There just a lot of click baiting things, a lot of attention grabbing things, a lot of negative bias to get your attention and then monetizing that. And I think that's a ne negative for society. Again, my take, but that's how I see it. Uh also, uh besides that, we also have the ACC trials coming up. Uh it's going to be this Friday, uh this Saturday and this Sunday. So, I'm going to be there. I'm going to watch it live. Uh I'm sure there's going to be a lot of good training coming up this week as people are rolling in to get ready for the trials. So, um I'll have a lot to report on for the next podcast hopefully and I'll I'll see if I can do some segments throughout the week. I'm hoping that they start releasing some of the brackets as well, so I can look into potential matchups and and see what they're looking like. But, uh, it's going to be a long day. Uh, it's here in Vegas, so again, I get to go local. But if you guys are not, you can, I believe, watch it on Flow Grappling. So, uh, do that if you're, again, if you want to see some amazing matches, which there is going to be. There's 256 man brackets, I think, in multiple divisions, which means eight matches to win first. And there's two days. I think they do like six matches on the first day and then two matches on day two. Grueling. That's a really tough run for a tournament. But, uh, it should be a lot of fun to watch. One thing that I do want to talk about, there was a UFC on Saturday. I saw yesterday that uh had a very interesting outcome. I'm sure if you watched any of it, you probably saw which was u it was a prelim fight of a guy, a kid who was I think 18 that was been fighting since he was 15 years old from Brazil, fighting another Brazilian, I believe. And they had a really good fight back and forth. I don't have the names. Uh I saw like a little segment of it. I didn't have time to watch the whole fight, but I saw the ending which was quite remark remarkable where at one point this one guy, the young kid has a body lock from the back against the cage and he's holding him there and he starts putting his head into the guy's arm. So, it's kind of weird. And then his opponent starts pointing at his arm and starts motioning like this. The ref stops the match. They do. They call the doctor and the doctor looks and he and he waves off the fight. Calls it off DQ. Turns out that this guy bit his opponent on the arm and that's why the guy was motioning there. And at first people were like, "Oh, you know, he probably did it by accident. Maybe he's, you know, sometimes you're trying to choke somebody or whatnot, like your mouth gets stuck and yeah, you might get a little bite mark or whatnot. And even the commentators were wondering that maybe a warning or a minus point should have been deducted. But then the fighter that got bit raised his arm up and you see as clear as day, a pretty nasty bite mark on both ends, which is interesting because normally you're wearing a mouthpiece. You're going to you're not going to get the top uh to really make that much of a mark. I don't know if he like moved the mouthpiece out of the way so he could chomp him, but it's just so bizarre. And that guy ended up being cut from the UFC entirely. And the guy who got bit got a a bite of the night bonus and Dana White gave him 50k for suffering that. It was just so bananas to me watching it because I it it was such a weird thing to do. like I thought he was winning the fight. Uh again, I wasn't watching too intently, but he had a lot of good moments. He almost had his back, almost had a reneg. They were going back and forth and it was a exciting fight. Just a weird call like why would you do that? And especially for that position, it made no sense. They were standing body lock against the cage. It wasn't like he was at a losing position. He was the one in the better position. Uh, so it just really made no sense. And normally when people foul, it's because of desperation and they're trying to get some type of edge, but here it's like, what are you doing? You had the better position, you know? So, just totally weird. I'm glad they did cut him because uh that type of flagrant foul, it's a no-go, right? Uh it's again I have a place in my heart for that being a guy who's been fouled by like Paharas and I've had other fighters that have been fouled egregiously with eye gouges when I one guy who mounted his opponent and the guy immediately just went for his eyes and he got worn once and then the second time my fighter mounted it again. He did the same thing and then the fighter got DQed. But you can't let people get away with these flagrant files. an accidental thing is one thing, but somebody who's purposely trying to harm somebody uh especially with I mean that bite is not the worst thing that could happen to you. But an eye gouge or a groin kick could have some serious uh lifelong application you know implications if particularly eye gouging although people have died from serious groin shots believe it or not. So it's not to be messed with. I think people who are that dishonorable to do such a thing should be out. I believe in harsh punishments. You know, in general, I think a lot of our degradation in society is because we're too lax, we're too comforting, uh too accommodating to people who make mistakes. The reality is like big mistakes that particularly ones that harm other people, I feel like should be sternly punished. And you make an example of anybody who does. And yeah, there may be some people that well, you know, they didn't realize how bad the consequences would be. But once you set that precedent, the next people who do that and are either a little foolish and maybe don't shouldn't be hanging around says they can't follow simple instructions, you know, or they need that punishment to put them bright. Again, my take. But, uh, along those terms, the last thing I'll talk about today, headbutts. There was a karate combat fight with Sam Alvi where he got headbutted and knocked down as a response and the fight was ruled into contest because it was an accidental headbutt. Of course, right now in MMA, headbutts are illegal. I'm saying why why don't why can't we headbutt somebody? What is the danger in it compared to a punchello? I feel it's the same. Right? If we're talking about something that's super damaging to me, the most damaging thing you can probably do to somebody is soccer kick them when they're on the ground, right? You get maximum foot extension, you know, and leg extension. They're on the ground. They're not in a good position to defend. And yeah, that would hurt quite a bit, right? Especially if they're kicking you this way, right? laterally here and they catch you on the chin or just even in the back of the neck because the way the your foot's going to scoop, that's definitely going to be a problem. Or, you know, the old days uh where people on their fours and someone socket kicks you right in the chin there. Yeah, that's going to I I would love to have testing on that, right? Like now they have all these dummies and whatnot. We should really test these things that we feel are very dangerous and let's see if that's true. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe just a standard head kick is good. Or maybe a knee uh to the chin had generates more uh force and trauma than uh a soccer kick on a downed opponent. But I have a hard time buying the argument that uh headbutt is more dangerous than any of these things I've described. Now granted, I understand headbutts are very hard. This obviously you can knock people down with them. you're using one of the hardest parts of your body when you have the skull there to smash into their head. But I feel it's a valid weapon. You know, it it's one of those things that changes the dynamic of a fight quite a bit, right? Because uh headbutt from close range is a very strong weapon and early UFC's make great use of them. I think Dan Surn was one of the guys who was really doing a lot of damage from close guard and just from up close with headbutts. It's not to be underestimated. It's a very good tool and I just don't see maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone can share with me a good reason why you shouldn't be able to do headbutts. You know, uh I think it's perfectly fine. I I think like I said, it's one of those things that would change the way people fight, right? I want a fight to be as close to a real life fight as possible. while minimizing uh very large risks. We don't allow biting, eye gouging, shots to the spine, shots to the groin. Yeah. Because there is long-term damage that could be associated to all these things. And in respect to the fight itself, it doesn't really change all that much, right? You're still going to pretty much fight the same way. uh if your only tactic is to groin shot or eye gouge somebody, you're not going to do that well in the fight, right? Like you you need more in order to be able to be successful. Um so I don't feel that really changes much of how people fight. Again, that's my take on it. But a headbutt, I think, is just as altering as like down kicks, which is something I'm also in favor for. And particularly for people who do a lot of clinch work, again, good headbutts would definitely change a lot of how we do clinch work on the ground. You know, you could be doing headbutts inside someone's close guard, even from side control mount, you know, mount not that really practical, but uh side mount might have some good implication, right? So, there's a lot of tools, a lot of times where that could be useful. And I just feel like we're missing out on a good weapon to add to the game. Especially when a lot of times fights do happen. We do have accidental head uh butts and then in this case I ended a fight that was really good, right? Or uh it could change the the pace of our fight and now we're like, "Oh, well that was a foul, you know, now uh that's a minus point or that, you know, we could we just DQ the guy or we just no contest it, right? Why don't we just let it be a part of the the sport, right? Let's just add another weapon to the game, make the fight a little more realistic and give people another weapon that they can use uh to be able to beat their opponent. It's not like we're going to have everybody running into it just spear people with a head. It's not the best weapon that we have, but it's a good one and I think it should be a lab. So, that's my take. You guys can let me know what you think. I hope you guys uh have a great day and I'll see you next week after the trials.