Richard Hubbard
Editor's Note: Here is part two of Richard Hubbard's Live From Las Vegas series, covering UFC 100 and all of the events surrounding it live as it happens. Today's installment sees Richard arriving in Las Vegas and beginning to take in all that the city has to offer in preparation for the UFC's historic event. Be sure to check back throughout the weekend for even more from Richard, exclusively on Nokaut.com!
Arrival
Arriving at the Mandalay Bay, guests are immediately greeted by a glass display case housing a UFC championship belt and a set of UFC gloves resting beneath a circular bank of television screens playing UFC 100 previews in an endless loop. As I stepped in, a large group of people, most of them non-mma fans, were congregated around the display staring intently at a highlight reel of GSP’s fights. As I slowed down to people-watch for a moment, one woman casually remarked “We should go to this!” Her husband, clearly both intrigued by the idea as well as ignorant of the importance of the event, replied: “Sounds great. I’ll go get us tickets after lunch.” Unless he’s willing to pony up anywhere between $3,000 and $20,000 per seat at my last check, I think they’ll probably be paying $500 a pop to watch it at the Mandalay Beach on Closed Circuit TV.
Watching this event captivate everyone here is simply magical. Speaking to the hotel staff, several people, from the bellhop who delivered my bags to the bartender at Michael Mina’s Stripsteak, have voiced the same opinion: The growth of the UFC is one of the best things to happen to Vegas in a long time. “Ten years ago, these were little, tiny shows….nobody really came here for MMA,” one hotel employee confided in me, “Now, it’s unbelievable…people come from all over the world to watch the fights, and it seems like there’s always a fight going on….I meet more interesting people who are here for UFC than for anything else.” I can certainly appreciate that: Vegas is famous for its shows, and for those who work in the thick of the tourism business, the young, vivacious fight fans and the thrill of the nature of MMA must be a welcome relief from an endless parade of geriatric retirees and bachelorette parties seeking the latest Elvis impersonator or the Chippendale’s.
Another point that wasn’t lost on me was his statement that: “I’m not a fight fan. However, there’s a certain amount of knowledge you have to have about the shows that go on in Vegas in order to serve your customers and speak intelligently about the events….For the last two years or so, I’ve found myself following the UFC just to be able to help the guests who ask about it,” he said. Then, after a moment, he slyly added: “I must admit that is has grown on me as well…go GSP!”
And it’s not just the Vegas natives that are making that observation. On Thursday night, I met a fellow from the west coast who owns an Ice Hockey supply store and goes to as many fights every year as he can. “I’ve been following the sport for about five years or so. I’m addicted, and I love it.” In regards to his business, he had a very interesting story to offer: “I’ve sold hockey gear at the retail level for 20 years. About four years ago, I started selling MMA gear as well. Now, I actually sell more MMA gear than I do hockey gear a lot of the time….I’m actually thinking about making the full switch to MMA.” When I asked him about the historical dynamic of the rise of MMA and the falling Hockey numbers, he was straight forward in his response: “In my opinion, Hockey is the greatest sport in the world to play, but it doesn’t translate to television well….you can’t follow the puck, it’s hard to see what’s going on, you need a lot of technical understanding in order to really ‘get it,’ you can’t smell the ice or feel the shaking of the walls, you know? Now, MMA…that’s a sport, like football, that is perfect for watching on television, and anyone can watch a fight and appreciate it without a lot of education about what’s going on.”
Fan Expo and The Return of PRIDE?!?!
I must admit that I was a bit skeptical about the whole Fan Expo idea. Certainly, Zuffa operates on the “go big or go home” philosophy, which is often a double edged sword: Massive success or enormous failure with very little in-between. In this case, the massive success of the event is undeniable.
Entering the Expo hall, one is treated to literally the entire MMA cornucopia of products and services. From basic gear like gloves, shorts, T-shirts, and protein supplements, to portable, personal high-tech electronic muscle stimulators (if you’ve ever had knee or shoulder surgery, you know what I’m talking about), anything and everything one could ever want or need is on display here. One of the greatest products that I saw was a device that hooks up to any heavy bag, punching bag, or striking dummy, and measures impact force over time. It can be used not only to calculate how much your striking power has improved over time and which training methods are producing the best results for building power, but also to see when your power is fading due to over-training or injury. I’ve seen these units in other places go for as much as $400. However, after the demo I just had to buy one for my gym at home: Fan Expo price $179.
And it’s not just about retail at the expo. There are major lines for autographs from literally dozens of fighters. The next season’s TUF cast took the stage for a the announcement of what is going to be an interesting season to say the least. A giant bank of a dozen TV screens set up in the center of the Expo and hooked up to gaming consoles allowed anyone to walk right up and play THQ’s UFC Undisputed 2009 for as long as they liked (guilty, guilty, and….guilty).
Next to the Fan Expo is a matted area for the Grappler’s Quest matches. I was able to watch about an hour of the women’s sections, and was greatly impressed by the quality of the competition. Watching these girls compete, and with Gina Carrano and Cristiane Santos ready to propel women’s MMA into the limelight, I am continually reminded that MMA and Submission Grappling are sports where the women are just as exciting to watch as the men.
One thing that has certainly caught my attention is that, for the first time since the UFC bought and disbanded PRIDE FC several years ago, the PRIDE logo and brand is being displayed. On many of the signs, the PRIDE logo sits right next to the UFC and WEC brand names. Inside of the Expo center, there is a very large booth entirely dedicated to PRIDE, and sporting a massive PRIDE logo. Quinton Jackson and Royce Gracie were inside of that booth at the end of an autograph line that would have dwarfed anything that the DMV has ever offered. However, the bigger question is “why?” With 90% of the best fighters from the organization successfully folded into the UFC and the PRIDE infrastructure dismantled, why would the organization now bring a dead brand to prominent display at a huge expo? Is it a respect thing; a one-off acknowledgment, for this event only, of the importance of the PRIDE name in the history of MMA? Or, is it that the UFC as something up its sleeve to resurrect the PRIDE brand? Your guess would be as good as mine, and I can’t honestly say that I would be surprised if either, or some combination of both, were true.
Training and Development Sessions
Urijah Faber is one of the nicest, most intelligent fighters that I’ve ever met. This young man is an exemplar of the sport, and during his talk before the training session, demonstrated his professionalism and composure as a Champion and world class athlete. His two hour training session on Friday focused on the ability to be creative in your approach to the martial arts regardless of whether you train casually, for fun, for fitness, for competition, or to be a world champion. For him, the ability to be creative is connected to being well balanced. “Some fighters whose performances are hot and cold struggle because they’re mentally or psychologically unbalanced,” He said. “One of the things that is common is that those types of guys will train for a fight, and then once the fight is over, fall out of shape until they get the next fight, then do all of this work to get back to the level where they were before… It’s very hard to make progress that way, and it’s also very hard to be at your best and get to a level where you’re confident enough to really be creative about your game.”
That balance also refers to being well rounded as a fighter: “You have to train where your weaknesses are. If you don’t, then you’ll never be able to really be creative. You can have the best Jiu-Jitsu ever, but if you’re weak in other areas, you’ll never get to really use those skills because you’re struggling in other areas. It’s when you train to your weaknesses and see how they’re connected to everything else that you can really begin to create and find your own ways of doing things.” That balance was evident as he taught as well: Beginners were offered simple, basic variations of the techniques that he taught while intermediate level practitioners were given more complicated transitions and options. Finally, those in the group who were experienced, professional fighters were offered more detailed versions suited to their specific questions and concerns, so that everyone there from the total beginner to the professional fighter was offered usable and workable techniques to fit their games.
Speaking with an industry insider later that evening, I was offered a story that demonstrated how it is that Faber’s approach to his fight game is an extension of his creative mindset: During an MMA event a while back, a couple of people managed to sneak another person into the show. After a little while, Urijah and his friends showed up and it happened that the “extra” guest was sitting in what was his seat. In what could have potentially been an awkward or downright ugly scene, Urijah defused the situation by looking around and, seeing other empty seats, asking another group to move down a few seats and then moving his group over so that everyone could sit together and everyone would have a seat. It’s exactly that ability to instantly kick into creative problem solving mode and find available solutions to unexpected issues that is at the heart of his approach to fighting, and also makes him such a fun guy to be around.
Technique Corner
Faber’s seminar focused on unique variations for attacking an opponent’s neck. As a jumping off point, he offered a modified guillotine choke from sprawl control that involved using the ridge of the thumb directly against the windpipe with the opponent’s head pressed into the solar plexus rather than the traditional guillotine which has the opponent’s head tucked under the arm and the forearm applying pressure for the choke. From there, he showed how to pull guard to transition into the traditional guillotine, but with one leg across the stomach in a variation more reminiscent of the Peruvian Necktie than a textbook guillotine.
He also showed how to, from the original technique position, deal with an opponent who tries to roll out of the submission (or, how to use the roll yourself to bait your opponent into another submission). From the thumb ridge guillotine, as the opponent gator rolls to one side, you stay with him and follow him in the roll. Once both of you are on your back, if he continues to roll in the same direction you can bring the other hand in and sink a very nasty modified D’arce choke. Once on your back, if he tries to cut back the way he came and come back to his knees you throw up the traditional guillotine variation described above. Or, while on your backs, if he tries to fight your guillotine arm with two-on-one control, you back roll into the mount and can finish the choke from the top.
I credit my Ju-Jitsu instructor back home with providing me with a great metaphor for training: Each of us has a martial arts toolbox. As we proceed in our training we fill that toolbox with various techniques, strategies, tactics, and ideas that work for us and fit our styles. A good toolbox will have many layers of drawers to it: basic techniques for different phases of the fight, combinations from those basics, positions, transitions, etc. Those drawers will be filled with specific techniques for various situations: A jab and guard pass are like a screwdriver and a hammer; basic, effective, multi-use, essential tools that any toolbox must have. Other techniques, like the D’arce or upward elbows from standing are highly specialized tools that one isn’t going to use very often, but which, should the need arise, everyone is glad to have sitting in a draw in their toolbox. Faber’s variations off of the guillotine and gator roll were kind of like a small Swiss Army knife: a lot of different tools…some basic, some highly specialized, but all connected and easily accessible.
Now, that’s creative.
WEB SHOP
