The dudes I watch...

Throughout my life I've had the opportunity to train in a wide variety of martial arts. When I was a wee lad I took Judo for ~7 years. In high school, I experimented with Krav Maga and eventually moved to Saskatoon where I discovered Pekiti Tirsia Kali. Three years later I can geniunely say that the time, dedication and energy I have given to that system have been incredibly well spent. To quote the trailer for "The Bladed Hand," I like the martial but I love the art. It is 95% of what I could want in terms of combatives, and has an incredible amount of flexibility to make the art your own. As a side effect of this, it has reawakened my curiosity for all martial arts. I like seeing how different parts of the world decided to fight, how many different ways the human body can be used as a weapon.

One of the divides I've always found interesting is that many "martial arts guys" really don't like MMA. A lot of MMA fans (note fans, not the fighters) look down on many martial arts and their practitioners. I find that most of this argument comes from the dichotomy of sport vs combat. Is an MMA a sport? Absolutely. Do some arts fit into that setting better than others? Yes. Does it really matter? Not really. If you need your system have some kind of validation then you either need to re-examine what you're learning or re-examine why you're there. My take-away from Kali was that it will likely never make it to the UFC. The rules don't allow you to punch a dude in the dick, box his ears and run, nor do they allow you to tie up their arms, pull a knife and start stabbing. It is not a sporting system, it is a combatives system and most attempts so far to make it sporting have been failures. (Notable exception: Dog Brothers. But they succeeded by being crazy.)

Personally, I love MMA when I see a unique fighter. Too many fights and fighters follow this format.

Step 1) Both guys are former collegiate wrestlers. They practice cutting weight so they can be as big as possible on fight day.
Step 2) Both guys circle each other and feint a jab every couple seconds, just so they look like they're involved.
Step 3a) One guy works up some courage. Shoots for a single or a double. Goes up against the cage, drags the other guy down.
Step 3b) One guys works up some courage. Throws a big hook. Grabs up, pushes the other guy to the cage in a Thai clinch. Eventually decides to shoot for a single, drags the other guy down.
Step 4) Guy on top uses side control or sits in the other guy's guard. Throws a couple of punches every so often. Holds the other guy down. Win by decision.
Step 5) Optional step. Guy on bottom tries to get out. He either messes it up and ends up with no guard, or goes for a triangle.

I hate that format. It is boring and predictable. Guys don't train to be martial artists or fighters, they focus so much on conditioning and optimizing how big they can be. They create a gameplan, usually "lay n pray" and will not deviate from it. In theory martial arts instill confidence, confidence that at any time, anywhere, you can get out alive. Instead we see most fighters unwilling to risk being physically smaller and unwilling to rely on technique over anything else. I don't like wrestling, I like seeing interesting technique. Seeing interesting or unique technique, or just being plain bad-ass and is what wins me over as a fan So here are my 3 favourite, currently active, fighters to watch.

Honorable Mention

Lyoto Machida

Lyoto Machida. Why? Because I'm not a karate guy, so 95% of the time I have no clue what the hell he's doing. Then it works, and it is really really cool.

3) Dan Henderson

Dan Henderson is good old fashioned bad-ass. Go to wikipedia, check out who he's fought, and at what weight class. You'll notice that he fights in any weight class, at pretty much any time and does very well. Also note the string of broken legends behind him. Technically, Dan isn't that impressive, he doesn't use feints or kicks or really any kind of submission technique, but that's why I just love this guy. His plan, always, is his right cross. At this point in his career everyone knows that Hendo is going to try to punch you really really hard with his right hand. Simple, really. Just practice not getting hit with that hand, how hard can it be? And then he hits someone with it, and it is like a human off switch. Why I love watching Henderson is seeing how he hides that right cross in his combinations. He'll throw combinations that disguise how he's torquing his body, and then unload the big power shot. The usual method seems to be left jab-right cross-left hook-right hand of doom. In concept it is so simple but in practice he's just so good at doing it. The guy has made a career out of bringing one really good gun to a shootout.

 

2) Vitor Belfort

 

Vitor Belfort has faster hands than you. If your name is not Pacquiao, don't even think you compare with Vitor's hand speed. Belfort ticks a lot of the same boxes as Hendo. He's old, not a freakish athlete, and will fight anyone in any weight division any time. Look at his career, he might be the only guy in recent memory who marched down weight classes. Why I like watching him is because Vitor is a southpaw, I'm a southpaw and I like seeing how to use it. He uses his dynamite straight left to effectively block off any hooks from his opponent's strong side. With that option shut down, Vitor then starts playing around with some really good combinations. Didn't get hit by the first punch? There's probably another coming from another whacky angle. Got knocked down? Vitor is still punching you. Gave up your back to get away? He's probably still punching you. The guy used the Wing Chun straight blast, widely regarded as one of the least likely techniques to score a knockout, to knock out Wanderlei Silva. How did he do it? Didn't give away it was coming, landed the first shot, then used that hand speed to chain punch Silva into a different place. It was really cool to see that technique used.

1) Nick Diaz

 

Massive caveat here: I'm not a big fan of how Nick Diaz carries himself when he's not fighting. I don't like the pot, the taunting, skipping out on press conferences, etc. I don't know what he's like in real life, I'm not judging, I would just like him more if he acted differently. That said, holy shit this guy can fight. When I train the Pangamot/Panantukan dirty boxing from Kali and need someone to imitate, I imitate Diaz. I just love this guy's hand work. He fights like an old timey bare knuckle boxer. John Nash (no, not that one) wrote an amazing article detailing the resemblance right here. Seriously, go read this article. All the other stuff about fighting and martial arts and your opinions aside it is an incredible breakdown of how Diaz rediscovered the wheel hundreds of years later. From a technical perspective, there is no one like the Diaz brothers fighting MMA today. That it coincidentally resembles Pangamot and gives me something to copy only makes it better. Why else is Nick Diaz exciting to watch? Most of the time, he barely cuts any weight, so he almost always fights guys bigger than him. He also is a world class BJJ player, so he is always fascinating to watch on the ground. The best part is that his game plan is the same for everyone: He's going to walk you down and throw 100 more punches than you. You can either stand and throw with him (historically a bad plan) or you can take him to the ground (also historically a bad plan.) This one-size-fits-all approach is always fun to watch and is incredibly effective. The guy is just an exciting fighter.

Other Honorable mentions? Roy Nelson, Nate Diaz, old Fedor, old CroCop and Damian Maia.