Are American fighters the only real Champion / belt holders at the moment?

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Yeah, when the unified rules are tailored to your advantage and make you look good, it would be pretty embarrasing, if they didn't hold a couple of titles ...

Unified rules are tailored to help strikers in at least three key ways:

1. They give strikers two free stand ups with round breaks. It would be far more reasonable to start each new round with the wrestler in top control if that was how the round ended.
2. If there is a stalemate on the ground, the fight is stood up. If there is a stalemate on the feet, the fight is not reset on the ground.
3. The fence allows leverage for fighters to stand up. Wrestlers generally want their opponents in the center of the Octagon when on the ground. Strikers want to get to the fence to use it to get up.

The rule set that is really tailored toward wrestlers is called physics.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Middleweight and Lightweight being conspicuously absent!

​

They are absent because the belt situation in both of those divisions is a mess. I think that is part of the point of the thread, no? And in both cases it was non-Americans who screwed the belt up. McGregor at LW and Bisping/GSP at MW.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Bisping is British
GSP is French-Canadian
Whittaker is Australian
Romero is Cuban

The last officially recognised LW champions are Conor and Khabib. Do you think they have green cards?

Come on fam...

Did you even read my comment? And who says fam anymore?

 

[Shercatter]

Did you even read my comment? And who says fam anymore?

Can't tell if trolling or just dumb.

Lightweight belt has not been American since Edward was sparked out by Conor.

Middleweight hasn't been American since Rockhold was sparked out by Bisping.

How hard is this for you?

Khabib and Robert are the rightful titleholders, it doesn't fucking matter if you're in denial about it either. Even if you don't accept that it doesn't make their predecessors (GSP and Conor) American. Stop reaching so hard...

EDIT: You are either legit retarded and struggling with reading comprehension or trolling. The belt situations have absolutely been clarified by the promotion. Neither the current titleholders nor their predecessors are American. So please shut the fuck up already.

Added to ignore.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Can't tell if trolling or just dumb.

Lightweight belt has not been American since Edward was sparked out by Conor.

Middleweight hasn't been American since Rockhold was sparked out by Bisping.

How hard is this for you?

Again, did you read my comment? Because you seem to be the one struggling with comprehension here. I explicitly noted that those belts are not held by Americans, so repeating that the belts are held by non-Americans is arguing about something we already agree on. I pointed out, because you seemed to miss it, that TS is obviously making an exception for those belts because he considers them currently to be disputed or illegitimate titles.

 

[Bogeyman]

Americans have a much easier time of it in the UFC in general so they're more likely to have success. They don't have to travel around the world to fight, don't have to deal with visa issues, don't have to deal with language barriers. That's just a few advantages they have. But the fights have to be held somewhere, so the fighters from the promotion's home country will always be at an advantage regardless of where it is.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Nunes is Brazilian and her belt is legit.

Nunes lives and trains in America. If she was living and training in Brazil, she probably wouldn't be champion.

Cyborg also lives in the US (and is a US citizen which makes her an american) and also trains in america.

 

[ImNotSurpisedDonks!]

I think Khabib is very likely the P4P best in MMA, and certainly the most dominant fighter out there, but he is the epitome of a paper champ. Fights falling out and UFC being able to facilitate the fights we want sucks, but beating Holloway (fw champ) or Tony (lw interim champ) would have been atleast somewhat more credible than beating a guy that was ranked lower than Dennis Siver when Conor beat him and not even in the top ten.

WME is now just giving out belts, taking them and doing whatever they want: they strip GDR in two months for ducking the Borg when MM has been ducking for years and they continue to cater to his wishes and feed him a steady diet of fighters that have no right being in the octagon with him. There has to be some consistency, whether it be a year strip rule, as now they are just making shit up as they go.

 

[ImNotSurpisedDonks!]

Americans have a much easier time of it in the UFC in general so they're more likely to have success. They don't have to travel around the world to fight, don't have to deal with visa issues, don't have to deal with language barriers. That's just a few advantages they have. But the fights have to be held somewhere, so the fighters from the promotion's home country will always be at an advantage regardless of where it is.

I think a large part of it too is that America just simply has more people, a high standard of living (good food, doctors, gyms) and thus it attracts all the best fighters to train here, so not only is the talent pool larger but iron sharpens iron. Also, in places like China, where there are way more people, MMA is super taboo so no one does it. In Dagestan tho, everyone does it, and that is why out of only 1 million men that inhabit the country, they have 14 in the UFC and a near 85% winning record (which is fucking insanity).

 

[DS66]

If for some reason you don't consider Whittaker as the legit MW champ, then it has to be GSP.... so there's no way around MW not having an American champ.

 

[bigeastgi43]

Finally someone who knows Stipe is American.

Who the fuck thought he wasn't?

 

[Londonjitsu]

You average American could easily beat up your average dude from another country.

It's not really fair to compare the two

Your average American is a grease guzzler, couch potato

 

[bigeastgi43]

If for some reason you don't consider Whittaker as the legit MW champ, then it has to be GSP.... so there's no way around MW not having an American champ.

Are you retarded?

 

[bigeastgi43]

Nope doesn't have much to do with that at all. It's the tradition & culture of brutal conditioning, cross training, weight cutting, the weeding out of sub par athletes, etc. It's what makes Folkstyle & Western Boxing the two top combat sports on the planet. The unified rules are designed specifically to simulate what a real fight would look like, while still keeping things as civil as possible. American Wrestlers always come out on top because they're built & conditioned to humiliate, stifle, & demoralize people.

Oh, you were serious?

 

[bigeastgi43]

Your average American is a grease guzzler, couch potato

What's wrong with that? Huh?

 

[Londonjitsu]

What's wrong with that? Huh?

Nothing haha, same in the majority of the west i suppose

 

[bigeastgi43]

Nothing haha, same in the majority of the west i suppose

Lol I don't see as many fat people as the statistics suggests. Always blows my mind.

 

[bigeastgi43]

Bisping is British
GSP is French-Canadian
Whittaker is Australian
Romero is Cuban

The last officially recognised LW champions are Conor and Khabib. Do you think they have green cards?

Come on fam...

Nobody denies that America is incredibly dominant right now, but stop ignoring two entire divisions because they don't fit your narrative.

Lw is a all fucked up, so it doesn't count. Mw is ok but Romero should be interim, so it doesn't count. Lhw is fucked up because of Jones, so it doesn't count.

Hw: Stipe American
Ww: Woodley American
Fw: Max American
Bw: Snake American
Flw: MM American

No one gives a fuck about the women lol

 

[Pain4Pain]

American HS/Collegiate Wrestling (Folkstyle) is the #1 combat sport on the planet. Nothing else really comes close.

I wouldn't say so.

The sample size is small, but for instance some of these freestyle/sambo wrestlers are good at taking their opponents down and less often pin their opponents against the cage before they get the TD.

One factor can be that American MMA gyms don't emphasize throws/trips found in Judo or freestyle wrestling as often in their curriculum. DC uses chain wrestling, whereas guys like Khabib/Zabit use TDs with a greater emphasis on throws and trips comparatively to their NCAA counterparts.

This element of surprise is probably why Karo and Ronda were so hard to deal with until people started catching on.

 

[Literally Bricked]

Interesting how 3/6, about to be 4/6 champs are African American. It's probably going to be 4/6 after UFC 226 with only 1/6 white American champions. I thought wrestlings the best base for MMA and wrestlings a mostly white sport?

Then you clearly don’t pay any attention to international wrestling.