So even though I see this issue both ways, I'll say this: There have been several times over the years where my professor entrusted me to live roll with the new(er) white belts that had some pretty clear signs of an acai-heavy diet until they either quit or toned down the spaz factor, this being after injuries were sustained by others of similar experience level. Typically, I would spend roughly the first 60-90 seconds of a five-minute round either maintaining guard with an elbow mushed into my face while he spazzed out trying to pass or being slammed repeatedly during scrambles. This process would generally result in gassing, at which point I'd be able to sweep/submit.
My point is, on pavement and with any and all wild strikes allowed, I'm not willingly jumping into that scenario unless I absolutely can't avoid it. So yes, to a degree strength/size present an X-factor for those of us with healthy egos.
Agree, and size is even less important with striking. The only "out of the box" advantage novice big guys have in MMA is wrestling. Taking down someone who has 30 kilos on you is hard just due to strength and weight factors, but then you can still use Judo trips on them and usually get the same result as a double. It's just more tiring.
I've seen waaaaay more huge guys come in to the gym with this intent to hurt people than regular/smaller guys.
Bec Rawlings used to train at my old gym, and one meathead obviously knew her from TUF/UFC and went on to throw bombs and ended up giving her a black eye. He would have been 90 kilos, at least. He would pop up once a week at a random class until the coach caught wind of him and his stupid intensity against smaller, green guys and girls. He was invited to pro sparring and he quit in the third round of rotation sparring...I didn't get a chance to smack a reality into him but some of the other guys did. He left and never came back.
People who think size doesn't matter have never been in a fight.
"Unskilled guy": If the guy is retarded, afraid of violence, and the "size" is pure fat. Then yes you have a chance.
What 99% of people mean by size is normal size advantage. A large tall powerfully built man who's not afraid of violence and doesn't really train martial arts. If you think even as a small dude 30-40kg lighter who "trains martial arts" you dont have a big danger in this encounter, then you are a fucking fool who's never been in a fight.
Go to any nightclub and talk to guys with fighting experience/security who had to deal with 2 meter 100+ kg bodybuilder on steroid who decided to fuck someone up...If you think your "martial arts training" "MMA" is worth shit in a real fight please go and get yourself killed, its better for mankind and the gene pool lmao.
I'll tell you the reality of a street fight...Fighting amounts to throwing fists. There are no kicks in a street fight. Throwing fists with power is something the average monkey can do easily. If you have 100+ kg of muscle throwing hands and grabbing you, even if you throw elbows/kicks, whatever the fuck you want...There will be no effect. In such a situation its survival and you have to hit the eye sockets, mouth, genitals, hell use a weapon like a bottle or knife, because if a big guy decides to jump you and fuck you up you are in for a bad night.
Let's have Masvidal please fight some relatively unskilled HW guy in UFC, we'll see how he fares
A security company used to send their employees who worked in notoriously bad nightclubs and pubs to our gym to train. Sure, they were big and tough, but like a lot of previous posts in this thread, they would get out-worked.
Obviously there's a lot of risk fighting someone bigger than you, but if you know fuck all about striking and grappling, regardless of size, you are at a bigger disadvantage than the size difference. The bouncers didn't do so well, especially in striking and BJJ. The bigger guys also had no cardio whatsoever. They only trained once a week for about 8 weeks, and many improved a lot in that time, but they were by no means competitive.
There's always the one-shot danger with fighting guys bigger than you, but big guys with no training have only the tiniest of windows to land a bomb before they are heaving for oxygen, and they are slow as hell for that 90 seconds they can throwdown.
The bottle/knife/weapons thing isn't really relevant as that wasn't what Mas or anyone else here were including in the observation. Anyone can kill anyone with a weapon. Also your last sentence is just as irrelevant as Masvidal was pretty clear with the 'no training' part. He made no assertion that he could beat up UFC HWs.
