Move

People typically get started in mma after having considerable experience in some other similar activity.

Wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, and Karate all spring to mind.

The trick is to take what you're good at, and then to strengthen up all of the weak areas. For example, if a great Karate champion enters the Octagon and tries to make a career out of it, he'd better get to work on grappling or he'll be finished pretty fast.

All of the component arts have both strengths and weaknesses. The big problem comes when somebody coaches their speciality to an mma fighter without really being able to address the weaknesses.

In the mixed fighting style environment, movement is critical. Some sports don't need it at all, and produce wonderful competitors with no idea how to do it, or even about the need.

Out of my little list of arts, Judo is one of the worst in this regard. In competition, Judoka walk towards one another, and proceed to grab each other or to beat the other person's grip. Somebody tries a throw, and perhaps they end up on the ground scrambling. They are then re-started, and do it all again.

Jiu-Jitsu can be equally stunted, usually in the case of a sport-style competitor. They walk up, grab, and both go to ground and grapple for the rest of the match. Non-sport Jiu-Jitsu is a bit better, being obsessed with being either out of striking range, or in absolutely locked-down clinches. In between these two ranges, they blitz in and out.

Greco-Roman wrestling has restricted movement as well, but Freestyle does not. Freestyle wrestlers are forever shooting in blindingly fast to secure double-leg take downs, or single-legs, or trips. Greco-Roman specialists don't do this.

Karate has the best movement of any of the striking styles, being predicated on getting in and out without taking any reciprocal damage. Mauy Thai and kickboxing both have to handle various ranges to accommodate kicking and punching and elbows and knees, and move well.

Boxing alone stands as a stunted-movement striking art. They don't have to deal with anybody shooting in to grab them in a boxing ring, or trying to stay just a bit farther away to kick. The entire game is predicated on a relatively short-range exchange, but not at elbow range or closer. Similarly, much of the punching defences are predicated on an opponent wearing big, padded gloves that are easy to block or absorb with one's own big, padded hands.

Everybody getting into mma knows they need grappling, and striking, but a lot don't think for a second about movement at all. A lot of coaches don't either.

The biggest example of failure in this area lately involves the last two fights of Ronda Rousey, although the evidence has been present much longer.

She came from Judo, and knew she needed to learn how to handle striking. To do this, she found herself a boxing coach. Not an mma striking guy at all; strictly a boxing guy. She made him her head coach.

Ever since, he's been teaching her boxing hands, and ignoring anything like movement.

For example, he holds pads that Ronda will strike in rapid patterns. This is fine in itself, but only as one activity of many. They should also do it while moving forward, and back, and sideways, both at a slow boxing-like pace, but also with rapid movements, and changes. They never do. They both stand, and she hits the pads. She also hits bags, which don't move either.

She had 3 amateur mma fights, followed by a string of 12 straight professional wins. The early ones were all won with her Judo, but this became more difficult as she climbed the ladder. The kept facing better opponents, who also had better coaches getting her ready against Ronda's style.

Nick Diaz and BJ Penn are notable examples of other fighters who moved into mma from impressive grappling-only credentials. They worked hard on their striking to prepare for the move, just as Ronda tried to do. In BJ's first 12 professional wins, he had 3 decision victories, 5 submissions, and 4 knockouts. Nick had 2 decision victories, 4 submissions, and 6 knockouts.

Ronda had no decisions, 9 submissions, and 3 knockouts, but even those few striking finishes were not really due to the boxing she'd been specializing in. One was from a knee to the chest, and another by striking an opponent while holding her down on the ground, and pounding with her free hand. Only one was from straight up striking, and that against a limited opponent who did likewise. Her striking training was not preparing her the same as Diaz's or Penn's had.

Then, a little over a year ago, she faced a real striker, Holly Holm. Holy came from a boxing and kickboxing background, and had put herself into the hands of one of the finest mma gyms in the world. They took the movement she already had, and took it to another level. They also knew that she had to be able to grapple, and worked heavily on that as well, specifically with Ronda Rousey in mind. She trained to avoid the upper-body throws of Judo.

They came out, and both wanted to hit. The difference was that when Ronda threw, Holly was gone. When Holly wanted to throw, she'd blitz in, hit-hit-hit, and be gone again. As the swifter fighter, Holly got to choose the distance. When Ronda would chase her down, she'd then stop to exchange. Holly would hit and be gone again. By the middle of the round, Holly knew she could hit Ronda at will as was demonstrated by a right cross, and then a few seconds later, buy another identical one, and a few seconds later, another, a pause, and then again. Ronda had no movement to get away, or to get in, or even to move to the side.

In the corner after the round, an exhausted and battered Ronda Rousey was told by the boxing guy who was her head coach to just keep doing what she was doing. She followed his direction and ended up unconscious about a minute into the second round.

She took over a year off and trained hard, but kept her head coach, and kept training the exact same way.

At the very end of 2016 she went in to challenge the current champion Amanda Nunes (who beat the women who beat the woman who beat Holly Holm).

They came out to punching range, both ready to exchange. Ronda started getting hit, and had no Plan B. She didn't back off for time, and move, or blitz in closer to grapple. She stood there, at punching range, and got hit with a string of increasingly devastating blasts. The fight was over in 48 seconds.

Likely she'll retire.

If she decides to keep at it, she'll have to get her head around it all, and will have to get a totally new training setup. If not, she's doomed, as the formula for her defeat has clearly been revealed.

In effect, she'll have to remove 7 years of defective, non-movement based, stand-up slugging that she's been invested in, and find somebody to get her moving properly, and dodging, and learning how to shoot in fast.

Not a simple task at all.