Biff Hardbody said:
I've noticed when posts about martial arts come up you generally jump in with "there are no absolutes" argument, and forgive me for saying so, you do it rudely. You equate people discussing their opinions with having a "circle jerk". In this case its Fedor, who deserves most of the hype he's getting here. If your opinion differs on that, that's fine. I would love to hear something intelligent and thought out, but not the same old "Anybody can win, no one is best". If that's the only thing you have to contribute most of the time, its really not worth reading.
I think you're overlooking a few facts here. Because I didn't come in with my opinion in a rude way. My first post was only one sentence long, and I would have probably left it at that, but NLB2 disagreed and said something along the lines of 'Only a professional fighter can beat a professional fighter", and the conversation went from there. I didn't only say "no one is best" we went over everything from training to misinformation to something about upholding the valuie of "traditional martial arts". I elaborated on my views much more than you're giving me credit for, because I had to. I elabortaed on them over and over again, essentially sayingthe same thing in about three different ways. You're talking like I'm the only person involved in the argument there, but there were at least three of us man, and all of us stepped on each others toes in some way or another. If it wasn't worth reading I doubt we'd still be talking about it. I only called it a circle jerk because the post weren't about 'hey he's a great fighter' but about
invincibility and ridiculing another user for respecting the abilities of another MA'ist. And really.. calling something a 'circle jerk' isn't that serious. :/
You seem to love the martial arts, so I'd love to hear why Louis was your ring hero and why you thought his career was on par with Ali's. Instead I read replies from you like "I don't do that crap". This isn't a knock on you, and I have no anger writing this. Its just me being honest with you, why I've reacted negatively towards you in at times in these threads and why I see the same thing here in the argument you were having. Basically, for all you write I don't think you explain yourself or your position well, aside from telling everybody not to have a definite opinion on who is best. That's all I'm saying. I did get your last reply though, so I don't mean all the time.
Ok, I strongly disagree. I seemed to explain my position well enough to NLB2, and I don't see how anything I said could have been taken as me somehow seeing myself as upholding the "true spirit of the martial arts" while believeing that competitive fighters should join the WWE. Instead of like, jumping on me, look at the argument as a whole. One guy turned my use of the word "Capable" to the word "likely". In case you didn't see it, this is what sparked the discussion:
Breaking pre-TUF news: Shouta claims in #ga that '70s Bruce Lee would take out Fedor in a bar room brawl.
(Honestly I just got done with this and related arguments in the IRC channel, but I guess I can't help myself).
.
And my thinking was why ridicule this Shouta guy, when you get down to it the
possibility of what he's saying isn't really THAT ridiculous, since we're talking street fights and all, so I posted :
In real life anybody can beat anybody at any moment. :/
It went from there. I didn't come in here with 'you fucking morons, don't you know anything about fighting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Anyway...
Joe Louis is my in ring hero because of how clean his techniques were. His punches travelled such a short distance, but they were so clean and effective. I can't remember who he was fighting, but in the fight he put a guy on the canvas with three clean & solid left hooks one after the other. After I saw that I was a fan for life. It could be argued that he would lose to whoever or whenever, and I've seen it done plenty a time but that doesn't really concern me. His style and work ethic just struck a chord with me. I'd love to emulate his effectivness. That, and beating five world champions and fighting every month no matter who the challenger is just plain cool.
When i said "I don't do that crap" what I mean is I'm not going to say:" Joe Louis was felled by this punch in 1951, but Ali bounced back after
this punch in 1971. It clearly shows that Ali had the superior chin and would probably withstand anything Joe Louis could dish out." or "Joe Louis throws the more economical punches between the two, therefore he doesn't expend as much energy as Ali, so if the fight goes the distance and Alis footwork slows, louis with his 6 inch techniques will still have the juice to put Ali down!!" I mean, why bother? We all have our favorite fighters. If we were to argue about who would beat who could we really seperate our bias from it? And would it really mean anything? I don't think so, so I don't do it.
I actually laughed that first minute where he was just circling. I would like to hear his post-fight comments on his gameplan.