[TAG] Work In Progress

[Mike Orr]

On 11/9/05, Jimmy O'Regan <jimregan at o2.ie> wrote:
> Mike Orr wrote:
>
> > On 11/9/05, Jimmy O'Regan <jimregan at o2.ie> wrote:
> >
> >>Mike Orr wrote:
> >>
> >>>But still, I hope UFC wipes WWE off the screen.
> >>
> >>I doubt it, from what little I've seen of UFC. WWE is... a soap opera
> >>with fighting (uh... better fights :), UFC just looks like a bar brawl.
> >
> >
> > It can look like a brawl if you don't understand what they guys are
> > doing, but it's quite organized.  It (pankration) is a combination of
> > wrestling and kickboxing.  One guy puts the other guy in standard
> > submission holds until he taps out (symbolically gives up).  The
>
> Well, any time I saw it the rounds ended after one put another in a
> submission hold and punched 'til the referee sent him back to his corner.

That is how it often ends.  I wouldn't call that a bar brawl.  I don't
know about the referee "sending him back to his corner".  That might
happen on a technicality or to investigate an apparent injury, but I
don't think it's routine.  The ref will move the fighters if they're
too close to the edge of the ring, but he usually keeps them in their
same relative positions.

> IIRC, there are two Gracie school ATM (family fued).

ATM != bank machine?

There are several families of schools with different Gracie names.  I
don't know about a feud.

> > Pankration was the main sport in the ancient Olympics.    There's a
> > modified version in the modern Olympics (no stand-up hitting?), but
>
> I should hope so. Pankration was originally a fight to the death, no?

I've heard different things about that.  Killing the opponent would be
the ultimate victory, but you can't do it every time or there would be
no opponents left.  More importantly, there would be no soldiers to
defend the city.  (I think there were several styles practiced
simultaneously, only some of them to the death.  Also, there were an
increasing number of people growing up maimed, and that led the Greeks
to impose more rules to prevent people's lives from being wasted. 
Obviously if they're maimed they're not dead, so the match couldn't
have been to the death.

There's a book you might like, _The Machine_ by Ian Freeman.  He's a
British boxer/bouncer turned UFC fighter.


--
Mike Orr <sluggoster at gmail.com> or <mso at oz.net>