That would require having drunk competitors.
Hmmm, The World Street Fighing League? Competitors must have a minimum BAC of 1.6 before entering the ring. Eye gouges, fish hooking, strikes to the groin, hair pulling and puking on your opponent are not only legal techniques, they are encouraged. The ring is in the parking lot of the MGM Grand and is roped off with barbed wire and sprinkled with broken glass and dog shit.
I like the ring in the pool idea. It supports the theory that Pirates Rule!
I just watched a WCL event. While I believe many of these fighters might have better technique under their own rules, the combination of no-clinching and a single 3 minute match (per time they fight; they fight twice a night) means that technique is totally thrown out the window for flailing in hopes of the KO.
In short, the WCL shot themselves in the foot with exhibitions that even the audience should be able to tell have quite crappy form and technique.
I would not describe it as them totally flailing at each other- there are definetly still combos being thrown. One might argue, as above, that it is pretty similar to what actual fights tend to look like. If you sometimes trained for 3 minute of all out offensive blasts, that would not be bad either for self defense or fitness.
Is it the ideal form of competition or showcase for martial arts skill? No. Would it probably be a difficult rule set to train and fight under? Yes.
There are not any perfect competition rules. By training to be able to fight in a variety of situations and under a variety of rules, you get to develop different skills. They are all games, and if the crowd gets to enjoy watching the game, that can be good too.
Headbutts, elbows, and clinching knees are not allowed. Which are all great material for real fights. Not to mention takedowns. But seriously, every decent competitor clinches and gets warned for it in those matches. It’s quite sad.
Clinching + uppercutting or kneeing the shit out of someone’s face is a valid defence against the tactics encouraged by that ruleset (charging forward flailing with their head down). In fact the only other defence I know against that (back off to draw them in then sidestep) is probably penalized under those fucking retarded rules too.
Conclusion: WCL is retarded.
from watching a video of a fight on youtube, it looks like you can throw one or two knees from the clinch… hell… the rule set seems more open then knockdown karate rules- at least you can strike to the head.
But again, not ideal.
…and, this fight has everything you could ask for! A warning for clinching! A push kick to the groin! A sucker-jumping roundhouse to the spine!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Fx0AZCbtQ&mode=related&search=
Hmm, from that video, it looks a bit like what I envision Olympic TKD may look like if the WTF - ITF merger takes place (i.e. punches to the head and a circular ring but no clinching, low kicks, or takedowns), except the Olympic format would still be three - three minute rounds.
Nope, no clinches allowed by the rules, period. The refs took it easy on fighters not familiar with these rules, in the event I watched.
my favorite part was this one fighter in heavyweights on a fight I saw who fought really intelligently. The fight starts and he throws a clean leg kick that that tempers his opponent’s aggression. The opponent tries to flurry and he keeps a tight guard and works the leg and moves out of the way. taking advantage of his opponent’s lack of leg kick defense.
Of course he gets penalized for this. In wcl rules apparently you can’t throw a leg kick on its own without automatically following up with punches, or the legkick has to be part of a combo. No matter that any other kick can be freely thrown. And apparently inside leg kicks are also against the rules. So why even allow leg kicks. I would say that at this point they might as well add the long pants and clown shoes, but they’re already wearing them.
Basically you can see it as either full contact karate rules with a few nifty extras (limited allowance to knees and low kicks) or severely handicapped K-1 (even by the standards of k1s current rules). At least the lack of a kick quota per round is progressive.
On its own merits as a team comp though I still don’t like the format. IFL does team competition but their fighters can still fight full fights, not these 3 minute spurts. Besides the whole format basically does away with half of the standup fighting skill set, ie defense. So obviously some of these fighters are a lot better than portrayed but they can’t show that cause the rules hinders them showing all their skills. So as a result the final product makes the fights look rather unskilled.
Yes, that’s exactly the problem.
Though, that one really fast karate point champion did look good, perhaps because these rules are similar to what he trained in normally.
By the power of Ra!!!
Just saw some WCL fights. Heh, gotta love Chuck.
Anyway, I actually found it highly entertaining. It was not great kickboxing, but I don’t think it was meant to be. It actually seems like it was meant to be full contact point fighting. Very similar style to point karate in regards to fighting range and rhythm. However, it is far superior to point karate as, whatever the rule limitations, these guys are actually fighting. I also found it far better than WTF/Olympic TKD fighting rules.
The short rounds did make for a lack of measured defense and strategy. But in encouraging the fighters to go balls out, it made the action very fast paced and exciting, IMO. And, even with the lack of strategy, there were some very nice crisp and clean techniques thrown, at least in the matches I saw.
So, I vote yes. I think having alternatives to K1 and MMA are great. The more the better.
All i know is that usually when you get kicked in the head 5 times you can’t keep going. When I saw it people were taking hits to the head, kicks to the head and nothing. the recipient just kept going like it was nothing. Let cro cop get in there an kick one of them in the head. I bet the fight would end real quickly…
It is not World Combat League, it is US point sparring league
shrug
Of the matches I saw, more than half ended in KO/ref stoppage. That ain’t point karate.
That’s because most of these guys fight with their chins exposed. They also look away when they punch, thus they go down when they are hit. Sometimes from jabs.
Like everything else it will evolve. Early UFC you guys would all be saying “they can’t grapple, lets see a real BJJer mess them up lol.”
Great thing about competition is that fighters will learn how to fight much better within the ruleset and we will see chins in, more power/strategy eventually.
Quit bitching its cool.
The World Combat League is an attempt to get TKD and Krotty people to train for something with a little more umph behind it than their crappy point sparring tournaments. I think it makes a good stepping stone to harder contact events and is a good thing all around.
It reminds me of the tough man contests. If these guys don’t know the basic by now they never will. Plus, the stupid rules lead to this kind of bad techniques.
As soon as Chuck plugged his home gym with some sponsored “fighters” I changed the channel.