[TAG] Work In Progress

[Jimmy O'Regan]

Mike Orr wrote:

> 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.

I meant at the end of the round/fight.

> 
> 
>>IIRC, there are two Gracie school ATM (family fued).
> 
> 
> ATM != bank machine?

"At the moment"

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

Well... maybe it's resolved now. I read that when they (well, some of 
them) were in Sepultura's "Attitude" video, which was 8 or 9 years 
ago--I just didn't think until now about how long ago that was.

> 
>>>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.

Whoops. I meant "in tournaments". Heh. I can just picture the ancient 
Greek school kids:

"Where's <insert Ancient Greek name here>? Isn't he joining us for lunch?"
"We just had pankration..."
"Ah".

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

I think I've read an article or two of his, though most of the prominent 
British martial arts writers have been bouncers at some stage.