Good MMA fighters who aren't actually that great at their own discipline in MMA?

[Sheepdog]

Holly Holm is thought of as a world champion boxer, but has been clearly outboxed in MMA multiple times. Cyborg, Shevchenko and De Randamie all lit her up with counters and looked to clearly have her number in straight boxing. But Holm's MMA striking overall is decent because her kicking game and her use of distance is strong. When she's finished, it's always been due to kicks.

Dan Henderson is another. One of the GOATs but his MMA wrestling didn't really stack up with his Olympic wrestling pedigree, as he was often out-grappled.

People often focus on fighters who have a background excelling in one discipline but then begin to excel at another aspect of MMA, or Stand n Wangers who abandon their discipline for ill-advised reasons and fail to reach their potential because of it. I'm instead interested in people who haven't actually been that successful transitioning their discipline into MMA but have adapted and found success anyway.

 

[The Big Guy]

Overreem is the guy with the highest striking skills that i see get KOd by guys with way less on paper.

Imagine werdum with 15 sub losses

 

[La Paix]

K1 Reem getting KOd by Bigfoot

Lesnar not being able to hold Cain down with his wrestling and size advantage.

 

[ShakaSway]

Vitor Belfort is a Jiu Jitsu black belt who took the Gracie name for a little bit. Yup.

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

I've never once seen Francis Ngannou be homeless in the Octagon.

 

[member 3289]

Vitor Belfort is a Jiu Jitsu black belt who took the Gracie name for a little bit. Yup.

I still don't know why he pulled guard against Jacare...

 

[Sheepdog]

I still don't know why he pulled guard against Jacare...

 

[Wild]

How was Holm such a dominant boxer when she has no power, doesn't appear to have great technique, and hits air a lot?

 

[BeardOfKnowledge]

How was Holm such a dominant boxer when she has no power, doesn't appear to have great technique, and hits air a lot?

Women's boxing is stacked like Mighty Mouse's flyweight division.

 

[ShakaSway]

How was Holm such a dominant boxer when she has no power, doesn't appear to have great technique, and hits air a lot?

She has decent technique but it gets pretty readable as time goes on. You know when she throws a multi punch combo it will be followed by a kick. Theres other things that escape my mind at the moment. Or at least thats what I picked up from her MMA fights.

 

[The Big Guy]

I still don't know why he pulled guard against Jacare...

I bet my striking coach $20 that jacare would win and he took the bet for fun. He just wanted to know why i thought jacare would win. So i simply said belfort would do something dumb

 

[Nemo?]

How was Holm such a dominant boxer when she has no power, doesn't appear to have great technique, and hits air a lot?

It's the variables of MMA that throws her boxing off.

Look at Conor's crack at boxing.... took on the best eva and looked pretty good doing it all things considered.

I am not trying to be insulting but boxing is cute compared to the shitstorm that MMA brings to your table.


PS for all the Overeem haters the mans been chinny since forever his kickboxing pedigree stands. Look at how many times his overall use of his techniques have changed pending the situation and still finds W's.

Demolition man Reem

K1 Reem

Ubereem

Econoreem.

A champion or contender every time.

 

[regular john]

Overeem was never that good in kickboxing. He had a quick, successful run but that was a one off thing in a shallow talent pool and he had pretty good luck facing undersized Spong and broken arm Saki. He's not nearly as good at kickboxing as Werdum is at BJJ.

 

[kneeblock]

Overeem was never that good in kickboxing. He had a quick, successful run but that was a one off thing in a shallow talent pool and he had pretty good luck facing undersized Spong and broken arm Saki. He's not nearly as good at kickboxing as Werdum is at BJJ.

Agreed. His roiding was what gave him K-1 success. His wins were mostly like Bob Sapp beating Hoost.

 

[so long]

Marcus Davis was 17-2-1 in boxing and they would yap about it every time he fought.
I mostly saw him get punched in the face.

Different sport, different variables, different results. Anyway, he was the first one that came to my mind.

 

[Sheepdog]

Marcus Davis was 17-2-1 in boxing and they would yap about it every time he fought.
I mostly saw him get punched in the face.

Different sport, different variables, different results. Anyway, he was the first one that came to my mind.

Davis only fought cans in boxing. He was never a boxer of note. I should have clarified that I am talking about guys who are relatively elite in their original discipline.

 

[maurice]

Level of boxing (and wrestling) skill varies widely by sex and region. Holm beat up a bunch of cans, and all of Davis's boxing wins are against nobodies in Mass. and Maine.

Belfort came thisclose to subbing Jon Jones from guard. Other times, his guard looked like garbage.

Lesnar couldn't hold Cain down because they were BOTH national champs at HW.

Overeem is just a glass cannon.

 

[regular john]

His roiding was what gave him K-1 success. His wins were mostly like Bob Sapp beating Hoost.

IMO that's unfair to him. Everyone was roiding like crazy in HW K-1. Overeem always had great genetics to begin with and he knew how to use his strenght and exploit the clinch rules. He was a bit lucky to win the WGP but that wasn't his fault either.

 

[regular john]

(...) I am talking about guys who are relatively elite in their original discipline.

Other than BJJ guys and a select few wrestlers I don't think there has ever been anyone in mma that qualifies.

 

[Ryann Von Doom]

How was Holm such a dominant boxer when she has no power, doesn't appear to have great technique, and hits air a lot?

She was extremely protected...

 

[Sheepdog]

Other than BJJ guys and a select few wrestlers I don't think there has ever been anyone in mma that qualifies.

There is no exact way to describe 'relatively elite' as the benchmark. But we'll go back to Marcus Davis as the example and compare him to another famous MMA boxer, Art Jimmerson. Despite being nothing more than a journeyman, Jimmerson went the distance with elite boxers in Jeff Harding and Dennis Andries, and beat a couple of other journeymen with decent records. So we would expect Jimmerson to be a better boxer than most MMA fighters (and in those days, he easily would've been) who has never boxed professionally based on that.

But the same really doesn't apply to Marcus Davis. He only fought and lost to complete bums (see 25-0 'pro boxer' Fabio Maldonado for another guy like this). It's not actually surprising that Marcus Davis wasn't some epic boxer in MMA, because there is no reason to think that he was ever that good a boxer in the first place.

I'm not saying they had to be world champions, they just had to be competing at a high enough level of their original discipline to show that they should be better in that single aspect of MMA than most MMA fighters. And there would be lots of wrestlers and BJJers in MMA that would qualify as 'relatively elite' based on what we know about their careers in BJJ tournaments and college wrestling.