Why didn't early MMA wrestlers like Tank Abbott utilize G&P as effectively as Mark Coleman?

[chiefwiggum]

He lay on a kickboxer who looked half the size of him for a bit and then gassed and got wrecked.

Maurice smith had a great defensive guard.

 

[Jose Beehive]

Maurice smith had a great defensive guard.

Indeed, though I'm not certain if he did at that point in his career.. Regardless It looks like there are 2 weight classes between them imo.

 

[Lee_]

Later than who? Not Tank. Severn was already a tournament champion - and already displayed nasty GNP - before Tank debuted.



Coleman debuted at UFC 10, not UFC 8.

True, but Severn had no GNP by his own admission at UFC 4, which is why he lost to Gracie who was half his size. He came back in 5 and had trained GNP, leading to a win. He was an early example of someone getting more well-rounded and improving their game.

That's right, Frye wins 8 and loses in 10 to Coleman. Still the same era though. Those days were super exciting, it just sucked to have to wait so long in between events.

 

[Vampire life]

Because he was fat and out of shape

Always

 

[tasticles]

Do you think Tank was a good defender against subs on the ground?

I know it was for him but his sub defense wasn't that bad. Good enough enough it made Taktarov nope out on an arm bar off his back and finally got him aftee 17 min gassed out. He knocked out huge Duarte for trying an arm bar. Mir was a high level grappler that got him etc Not too horrible early on

 

[Bullitt68]

True, but Severn had no GNP by his own admission at UFC 4, which is why he lost to Gracie who was half his size. He came back in 5 and had trained GNP, leading to a win. He was an early example of someone getting more well-rounded and improving their game.

It's not that he had no GNP - which I can't imagine him ever having admitted to because it's not true - it's that he wasn't willing to pull the trigger and hurt people. The UFC is quite literally a bloodsport - presided over in those glorious early days by the almighty Just Bleed God - and Severn, coming from wrestling, had no bloodlust. But losing, well, that got his blood pumping. After UFC 4, he decided that he'd rather hurt people than experience himself the hurt of losing. That, Severn has admitted, many times. Hell, he'd never punched anybody before stepping into the cage at UFC 4. It's not something Joe Schmoes think about, but for a lot of people - call them "normal people" - being willing to hurt someone takes practice. You have to learn how to flip that kill switch. This is why Big John McCarthy had to take Randy Couture aside early in his career and explicitly tell him that if he wanted BJM to step in and stop his fights then he had to hit his opponents harder on the ground. Hurting people didn't come naturally to The Natural, and that's why he never liked to think of what he did as fighting, but rather, as competition. This is also why Rulon Gardner never fought again after beating Hidehiko Yoshida. Sure, we have had wrestlers like Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr who were literally smashing machines. But we have also had wrestlers who never got into the game for the violence or to inflict pain. Severn was in the latter camp. He didn't have to learn the technique of ground and pound, he had to learn the mindset. He had to learn how to unleash The Beast.

 

[josh345]

One has Olympic level
Wrestling and the other doesn't.

 

[Mr Wings]

He lacked ability to beat anyone of note.. Unlike Coleman.

True, but don’t forget that with one exception, the only guys that beat him in his first UFC run were at the top of the food chain.

Oleg Taktarov (UFC tournament champ)

Dan Severn (UFC tournament champ)

Scott Ferrozzo

Don Frye (UFC tournament champ)

Vitor Belfort (UFC tournament champ)

Maurice Smith (UFC heavyweight champ)

Pedro Rizzo (2X UFC title challenger)

 

[Lee_]

It's not that he had no GNP - which I can't imagine him ever having admitted to because it's not true - it's that he wasn't willing to pull the trigger and hurt people. The UFC is quite literally a bloodsport - presided over in those glorious early days by the almighty Just Bleed God - and Severn, coming from wrestling, had no bloodlust. But losing, well, that got his blood pumping. After UFC 4, he decided that he'd rather hurt people than experience himself the hurt of losing. That, Severn has admitted, many times. Hell, he'd never punched anybody before stepping into the cage at UFC 4. It's not something Joe Schmoes think about, but for a lot of people - call them "normal people" - being willing to hurt someone takes practice. You have to learn how to flip that kill switch. This is why Big John McCarthy had to take Randy Couture aside early in his career and explicitly tell him that if he wanted BJM to step in and stop his fights then he had to hit his opponents harder on the ground. Hurting people didn't come naturally to The Natural, and that's why he never liked to think of what he did as fighting, but rather, as competition. This is also why Rulon Gardner never fought again after beating Hidehiko Yoshida. Sure, we have had wrestlers like Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr who were literally smashing machines. But we have also had wrestlers who never got into the game for the violence or to inflict pain. Severn was in the latter camp. He didn't have to learn the technique of ground and pound, he had to learn the mindset. He had to learn how to unleash The Beast.

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The interview was actually during one of the early UFCs where he is making comparisons to another fighter that was one-dimensional, he states that fighter was like he was at UFC 4; he was making the point that you can't win with one dimension. He 100% did say that, and felt it was the reason he lost to Gracie.

GNP is actually something you have to train at, and in the early days they didn't really know that. It isn't that Severn had the ability to do without ever training at it. You can see he has trained in the next UFC; he looks totally different wrecking Oleg with GNP. He looked like he didn't know what to do against Gracie. The UFCs were much further apart in those days, so he had time to train.

My first PPV was 6, so I was watching it all unfold as the sport evolved.

 

[TheTickG]

I've always wondered why early MMA wrestlers like Tank Abbott were at a such a disadvantage on the ground against jiujitsu despite cross training BJJ.. Wheras later ones made a living out of it.

Why couldn't the early wrestlers learn the pitfalls and use their G&P to the same extent at later fighters like Coleman?

Was that phase of MMA simply not developed enough? Or were they too lazy?

1 guy trained at the bar, the other trained on wrestling mats.

 

[Bullitt68]

The interview was actually during one of the early UFCs where he is making comparisons to another fighter that was one-dimensional, he states that fighter was like he was at UFC 4; he was making the point that you can't win with one dimension. He 100% did say that, and felt it was the reason he lost to Gracie.

GNP is actually something you have to train at, and in the early days they didn't really know that. It isn't that Severn had the ability to do without ever training at it. You can see he has trained in the next UFC; he looks totally different wrecking Oleg with GNP. He looked like he didn't know what to do against Gracie. The UFCs were much further apart in those days, so he had time to train.

My first PPV was 6, so I was watching it all unfold as the sport evolved.

Respectfully, since I first started posting on here in 2006 all the way to today as 2023 comes to a close, I've believed literally no one who's said that they've been watching since the NHB days. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. I'm not going to measure OG dick sizes. Even if you have been following the sport since UFC 6, you're still wrong here. I'm not going to pretend to have read/listened to/watched every interview that Dan Severn has ever given, but I'll need you to post the interview in question for me to believe that Severn said that he didn't know how to GNP, which was your original claim, because in every interview of his that I have read/listened to/watched, he's explained how he came from wrestling and Judo which were all about positional control and submission holds and he wasn't comfortable hitting and hurting people. He absolutely gained considerable experience at UFC 4, and he trained seriously for UFC 5, but I don't see his domination at UFC 5 as the result of him learning the previously unknown skill of GNP, as you've strangely claimed, but rather as the result of him unleashing The Beast and allowing himself to let loose with violence once he used his grappling to put his opponents on the ground.

And against Royce, he looked pretty good to me effortlessly taking Royce down, staying tight to him in the guard, stopping Royce from being able to secure an Ezekiel choke, constantly repositioning and putting Royce up against the fence to limit his mobility, keeping his base low to thwart Royce's sweep attempts. But he was only lightly peppering the back of Royce's head with little rabbit punches occasionally to score points, he wasn't actually trying to hurt Royce with any GNP because he wasn't yet comfortable hurting people. As he's maintained for 30 years, and as he said verbatim as part of a Reddit AMA: "I should have crushed him when I had him." Had he gone at Royce the way he went at Oleg at UFC 5, or the way he busted up Ken's face at the end of UFC 9...who knows?

 

[Lee_]

Respectfully, since I first started posting on here in 2006 all the way to today as 2023 comes to a close, I've believed literally no one who's said that they've been watching since the NHB days.

Sorry to break it to you, but 2006 is not NHB days. I can tell you weren't there by what you say.

Most people here aren't on their first account who have been around a long time, but that is a futile bunch of nonsense anyway because I don't give a shit who believes me.

People on Sherdog like to act like their belt is real and their sign up date means they know something others don't, but that really is all a false mental construct.

I know for a fact Severn said that and am most certainly going to thumb through all of the old UFCs to find it for someone that isn't in the know. I'm not going to lift a finger to prove it to you; if you want to be ignorant of the facts, that's on you.

 

[Bullitt68]

Sorry to break it to you, but 2006 is not NHB days.

I didn't say it was. I said I've been on here since 2006 and in all that time I've never believed anyone who's claimed to have been around since the NHB days. That's a pretty simple sentence to comprehend. Maybe reading it a second time here will make it easier to digest. I'm not the one pretending to have been around since the beginning. I was born in 1989 and started watching MMA in 2004. If you'd really been following the sport since 1996 then you'd know that the hurdle that Severn had to jump was accepting the fact that to win in the UFC he'd have to hurt people and not that he needed to learn how to GNP.

I know for a fact Severn said that and am most certainly going to thumb through all of the old UFCs to find it for someone that isn't in the know. I'm not going to lift a finger to prove it to you; if you want to be ignorant of the facts, that's on you.

Right, I'm the one not "in the know," the dude with the PhD who's published and spoken on MMA in journals and international conferences, who's worked for Sherdog in multiple capacities for a decade and a half, I'm the one "ignorant of the facts" when I can cite sources and specific things that Severn has said while you can't back up anything that you say.



With that name and AV, I wish that you weren't making me commit this Bruce Lee Fan on Bruce Lee Fan crime.

 

[TheGreatA]

Coleman was on an entirely different level compared to Tank, who was just a brawler.

 

[Takes_Two_To_Tango]

Coleman was on an entirely different level compared to Tank, who was just a brawler.

Yeah exactly, he wasn't technical at all as a fighter. Just a bar room brawler at best type of skills.

 

[shockwave kicker]

True, but Severn had no GNP by his own admission at UFC 4, which is why he lost to Gracie who was half his size. He came back in 5 and had trained GNP, leading to a win. He was an early example of someone getting more well-rounded and improving their game.

That's right, Frye wins 8 and loses in 10 to Coleman. Still the same era though. Those days were super exciting, it just sucked to have to wait so long in between events.

I don't get what severns plan was against Royce if he doesn't know submission and he doesn't want to strike him. How is he suppose to win just being on top of him?

 

[shockwave kicker]

Coleman was on an entirely different level compared to Tank, who was just a brawler.

Brawler doesn't mean you can't fight. Foreman was a brawler.

 

[shockwave kicker]

1 guy trained at the bar, the other trained on wrestling mats.

Myth

 

[shockwave kicker]

"That was the birth of this Tito. This explosion of trash.. biological trash."

This man is brilliant. I don't care how he fights

 

[shockwave kicker]

I know it was for him but his sub defense wasn't that bad. Good enough enough it made Taktarov nope out on an arm bar off his back and finally got him aftee 17 min gassed out. He knocked out huge Duarte for trying an arm bar. Mir was a high level grappler that got him etc Not too horrible early on

Wasn't tank much heavier than Oleg?