In recent years we have been asking this same question in with our real life superheroes. Who wins a fight between a world-class wrestler and a world champion boxer?Sylvester Stallone was one of the first to take a crack at this question, but his scenario was made up – Rocky fought Hulk Hogan in an exhibition in the movie Rocky 3. The Hulkster was tearing him up until Rocky found his southpaw mojo and threw barrage after barrage of brutal combos. The fictional bout ended up a draw.

Just the other day, my friend Sean, a fellow martial artist, asked me, “Do you think a kung fu fighter would stand a chance against a boxer or a muay Thai guy?” Such a question is what got the ball rolling on mixed martial arts years ago. It’s called Ultimate Fighting because in part it is an answer to the ultimate query. Who wins a fight between fighters of different kinds? Boxer versus wrestler, karate champion versus kung fu master, and so on.

Ever since Bruce Lee came on the scene, we have been trying to answer that question for real. In fact, master Bruce himself was intent on answering the question by developing a super martial art, jeet kune do. Bruce Lee took the strikes from Western boxing, a little dash of wresting, a little smidge of this art and a little dash of that art. In essence, he is the father of mixed marital arts. Today that is the way all mixed martial artists train – a bit of this and a bit of that. Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be too many jeet kune do guys fighting in MMA.

Well, we’ve learned some things over the years but the more we know, the less we know. We thought we had an answer when the Brazilian jiu jitsu guys came on the scene. No one could figure out the triangle choke. It seemed like fight after fight was decided in favor of the grappling guys. Now that’s not so much the case. A knockout is still a knockout and a damned good way to end a fight. In fact, there are more knockouts In the UFC than submissions. A good striker always has a puncher’s chance, no matter how good his opponent’s ground game.

My friend Sean’s question was actually a compelling one for me because I got my start in the martial arts by studying kung fu. Maybe it’s because I used to watch David Carridine from time to time on his TV show Kung Fu, or maybe it was just random happenstance, but kung fu was my first choice. Southern style Shaolin kung fu taught me many things including a good sense of footwork and movement and an excellent comprehension of breathing. But it didn’t teach me how to keep my hands up or punch as effectively as what I learned in boxing and muay Thai. After thinking long and hard, I had to tell Sean the truth. As pretty as kung fu is, no chance a kung fu guy beats the boxer or muay Thai guy in a fight, and that’s why you don’t see many flowery wushu kicks in the UFC. Still the question looms – who dominates?

Here’s what I can tell you:

There is no one dominant style or martial art. There are some karate guys, but the prominent stand up modality is muay Thai. Boxing still has its place and wrestling seems to be right up there with jiu jitsu on the ground. Almost all of the UFC fighters study all these arts, and increasingly at a very high level. MMA fighters these days are trying to master each art. If going with Malcolm Gladwell’s assertion that it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft, then mixed martial artists still have a way to go to catch up to the likes of a professional boxer who has been training since she was a kid. Plus training in one art allows you to practice that art all day every day, versus splitting time between several.

Still, there will always be the debate. We do currently seem to have an answer though. Like with the Rocky movie, it’s a draw, all things being equal (physical stature, conditioning, etc). The numbers tell the story. Up through July of last year in the UFC roughly half (47.5%) of the bouts were decided by decision. Knockout or technical knockout (KO or TKO) accounted for 29% of the outcomes, and 23% were ended by submission. Increasingly it’s a closer call. This has been the prevalent trend in recent years.

What the numbers tell us is that the fighters are getting better and there is more parity than ever between the arts. The wrestler can still get knocked out and the boxer can still get submitted, but mostly, it’s a toss up. We’re starting to see those arriving on the scene who are world class in more than one art or modality, which makes the debate all that more interesting. As long as the question persists, we’ll keep tuning in.

References:

1. Mookie Alexander, “Fun With Numbers: UFC 2012 Fight Finish Statistics,” www.bloodyelbow.com, July, 2012

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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As a former wrestler with a self-described “in your face” style, Bermudez takes pleasure in breaking people, in getting them to give up and submit. That “super-aggressive” wrestling style prompted many to suggest to Bermudez that he try mixed martial arts, saying he would be perfect for it. As fate would have it, he started to believe it himself when he helped a friend prepare for a fight. He worked some wrestling and submissions, and the friend’s coach reiterated – vehemently – that Dennis should become an MMA fighter.

And the coach was right – Dennis took to MMA like a fish to water. Now, as he prepares for his UFC fight, a typical day starts with breakfast and a light run, maybe 2-4 miles to kick his metabolism into gear. This is followed by grappling or MMA class at Long Island Mixed Martial Arts, or perhaps kickboxing with focus mitts. The end of the day sees him completing a weight lifting session at Long Island Strength and Performance, where his strength coach focuses his efforts on functional, cross-body movements rather than movements that increase bulk.

But Bermudez told me his favorite part of training is “breaking people,” getting them to succumb to his will due to fatigue or self-doubt. He noted that his wrestling training has been “1,000%” useful in his MMA training, particularly with his intensity level and with weight cutting. As a self-described “fat kid,” Bermudez doesn’t particularly like cutting weight, but he does like how it makes him look and what it enables him to do.

Bermudez’ wrestling style also helps him prepare mentally. In wrestling, according to Dennis, the attitude was that you should treat everyone the same and not idolize anyone. If you were to fight a national champion, you wouldn’t put him on a pedestal; you would remember that he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. In other words, you’d remember he’s beatable.

This unflappable mindset also translates into the Octagon. In describing what it’s like to fight in the UFC, Bermudez described it as “kind of surreal.” All he hears from the crowd is white noise, and he refrains from thinking that everyone is there to watch him. But once he and his opponent touch gloves and the fight starts, everything outside dims, and he follows his game plan and does what he’s been training to do.

While Bermudez doesn’t particularly like having to put in the time to improve his Brazilian jiu jitsu, which is arguably not as strong as his wrestling or his striking. He admitted he’ll eventually meet the guy who can take him down and he will have to be able to finish that person from the bottom. Meanwhile, though, there are tons of techniques to learn. It’s a whole new sport for him, unlike striking, which has a finite number of requirements. But it’s not entirely up to Dennis, because his coaches give it to him straight and keep him honest in terms of his game plan and his schedule.

In five years, Bermudez plans to be defending a belt in competition. And in the long run, he wants to have something to show for all his hard work in terms of sound financial investments and stability for his future. In the UFC, said Dennis, “It’s about how fast you want to go.” Before he fought, Bermudez was working at UPS, where you had to put in the time to get promoted. But in the fight game, you can fight every month, and as long as you do it in an entertaining fashion, they’ll keep you going. So his advice to new people is to stay hungry.

He may also have a future as an adventure race creator. In preparing for a previous fight, he and a teammate created their own marathon to prepare for high-altitude conditions. They ran, swam, and biked around and in the Hudson River and Hunter Mountain, despite the fact that many people told them they couldn’t do it. He enjoyed proving them wrong.

Bermudez commented that he is ready to go in and have fun in his upcoming fight. In previous matches, he prepared for a tall opponent and for a lefty opponent. For his upcoming fight, his opponent is just like his training partners, who have prepared him well. When Saturday comes, he’ll undoubtedly be putting his training to the test and getting in his opponent’s face.

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Darren’s nickname is Bone Crusher, though very few people call him that, sticking instead with BC. He got the name from Luke Stewart, also a Ralph Gracie black belt, as well as a mixed martial artist who fights for Strikeforce. One day during training, Darren was repeatedly looking for the bicep slicer (a finishing hold that puts pressure on the bicep and the humerus; if the person caught in the hold doesn’t tap, ligaments can tear, or bones can dislocate or break) while rolling with his training partner. After hitting the move a couple times, he locked it on again, but this time the training partner rolled the other way to try to escape. Everyone heard the snap, which put the training partner out of commission for a while. (Needless to say, Darren felt awful.)

The next day, Stewart said Darren needed to have a nickname, and started to riff off of what had happened the previous day. Thankfully (in my opinion), they decided that “Armbreaker” sounded stupid. “Bone Crusher” was floated, ended up sticking, and finally was shortened to BC, partly because Ralph Gracie is terrible with names (he could remember BC, but not Bone Crusher).

When contemplating his life now that he has a win under his belt at “the big show” and another coming up, Darren commented that it blows his mind when people come into the gym or talk to him about how they want to be world champions or MMA fighters, but then seem shocked when they learn what it takes: “You mean I have to eat right?” “That was just the WARMUP??” The life of a mixed martial artist isn’t all glamour, Darren has found, and the people who focus on the glamour don’t tend to do what it takes to keep the glamour. From my perspective, while he may not have had a specific plan, he has definitely demonstrated the focus and work ethic it takes to succeed.

Darren and his family have had to take a little time to regroup since the win; I can attest to the fact that he hasn’t changed at all, but it appears that the people around him have. Acquaintances have started to expect things from him, as if he’s some kind of golden ticket. People introduce him to strangers by listing off all his accomplishments, as if they are trying to gain some credibility through knowing him. So he has felt very disconnected from people he has known. This has made some of them give him even more grief, because they have interpreted his retreat as him deciding he is too good for them now, rather than what he needed to do to acclimate and to keep himself focused on his priorities, his values, and his real friends.

Learning this, I did what any friend would do: I made merciless fun of him for the entire time he was here, as did everyone else at Fifty/50. I like to think that treating him this way is the single most important thing we could have done to help shape a mixed martial arts champion, and I wish Darren the best of luck in May and beyond.

(No need for thanks, Darren, you sweaty, hairy little bastard. I’ll make fun of you any time – free of charge!)

Read part one of my interview with Darren:

An Unabashadly Biased Portrait of UFC Fighter Darren Uyenoyama – Part 1

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