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

[shockwave kicker]

Well, this isn't necessarily a matter of skill. It could just be a matter of style. BJJ with its "position before submission" ethos doesn't lend itself to quick finishes.

Couldn't any elite BJJ Guy adjust to that based on the opponents experience level?

I feel like that's like saying karate guys can only snap their kicks

 

[Bullitt68]

But why couldn't Shamrock submit Royce? Royce is literally the weakest Gracie and not a great jj Guy relative to the competition.

He could've. Ken's gameplan was to sit in Royce's guard and dare him to go for submissions. Remember, this was when the UFC had no rounds and no time limits. The old Gracie myth was that Gracies would fight for hours and win by submission after four hours of grueling grappling. That's what Ken wanted. He was planning on fending off submissions for hours if need be, and only when Royce was exhausted having failed to do anything to Ken would Ken then seal the deal and pound him out. But at the last minute - partly due to the fact that the long UFC 4 tournament final with Royce and Severn went over the allotted PPV running time and the event blacked out before the fight ended, requiring SEG to refund a lot of angry fans their money having missed the classic triangle finish - a time limit was added. That pissed Ken off, but he refused to change his game plan. He did exactly what he planned to do: He sat in Royce's guard and dared him to go for submissions. Except Royce was too scared to go for anything other than that half-assed Ezekiel choke, so the fight was a stalemate. It's too bad that at least in the OT after blowing up Royce's eye that Ken didn't let loose with GNP once they hit the ground. But he wanted to prove a point more than he wanted to win. He wanted to show that the first fight was a fluke and Royce would never catch him in a submission again. For us, that made for a boring fight, but for Ken, he did what he set out to do.

Yep. Honestly, if Kimo didn't have that big tuft of hair, he might have pounded out Royce. I remember him throwing a pretty nasty punch while on top but Royce controlled his head/upper body enough to keep it from landing. That was back when hair-pulling was legal. I see that as the real beginning of the end of Royce's reign, even though he won a few more fights. Keith Hackney also tried a pretty good sprawl-n-brawl attempt with Royce...he was just a little too gunshy with his striking. You could tell everyone was starting to figure Royce out and how to exploit their superior/size strength...it was just a matter of time.

Yep. I love that Hackney fight. Severn and Shamrock had legit skills and accomplishments, and Kimo was huge and strong, but Hackney was just a random TMA guy, but he was smart and he put up a damn good fight.

And good point about Frank's catch wrestling. I really wish catch had gotten bigger (opened schools, etc.) around the time the Shamrocks were using and Sak was beating Royce. A few years later Josh Barnett came around, too. There were still enough catch legends along with guys like Eric Paulsen who were incorporating it into NHB/MMA. Paulson later helped Brock divise a good game plan in the Mir rematch where Brock destroyed Frank from the half guard.

QFT. BJJ had better press. Catch, sambo, judo, they have their standouts, but BJJ is the grappling default.

 

[mkt]

He could've. Ken's gameplan was to sit in Royce's guard and dare him to go for submissions. Remember, this was when the UFC had no rounds and no time limits. The old Gracie myth was that Gracies would fight for hours and win by submission after four hours of grueling grappling. That's what Ken wanted. He was planning on fending off submissions for hours if need be, and only when Royce was exhausted having failed to do anything to Ken would Ken then seal the deal and pound him out. But at the last minute - partly due to the fact that the long UFC 4 tournament final with Royce and Severn went over the allotted PPV running time and the event blacked out before the fight ended, requiring SEG to refund a lot of angry fans their money having missed the classic triangle finish - a time limit was added. That pissed Ken off, but he refused to change his game plan. He did exactly what he planned to do: He sat in Royce's guard and dared him to go for submissions. Except Royce was too scared to go for anything other than that half-assed Ezekiel choke, so the fight was a stalemate. It's too bad that at least in the OT after blowing up Royce's eye that Ken didn't let loose with GNP once they hit the ground. But he wanted to prove a point more than he wanted to win. He wanted to show that the first fight was a fluke and Royce would never catch him in a submission again. For us, that made for a boring fight, but for Ken, he did what he set out to do.



Yep. I love that Hackney fight. Severn and Shamrock had legit skills and accomplishments, and Kimo was huge and strong, but Hackney was just a random TMA guy, but he was smart and he put up a damn good fight.



QFT. BJJ had better press. Catch, sambo, judo, they have their standouts, but BJJ is the grappling default.

I attribute that to Gracie marketing in the early UFCs. They wanted GJJ to be the primary grappling art, but had to settle for BJJ. I'm not a fan of Rorian, but as an entrepreneur myself I have to admire him. He created an event that was supposed to look like Bloodsport or Enter the Dragon but the main goal was putting their name and art on the map.

If some sambo guys created the UFC instead and put Oleg in it, the grappling world may look very different. The same is true if Gene Lebell and Gokor created it and sent one of their students to UFC 1. But that's not how it happened. BJJ became the art everyone knew about and studied. It's like the network effect in business or technology, where almost everyone uses the same operating system or software. Even if it's not the best, it's a pain to not use it.

Because of this, BJJ and even submission grappling tournaments have rules that benefit BJJ more than other arts. And while there are small catch or sambo tournaments in the U.S., there's not enough money or popularity to have guys like Gordon Ryan really excel, compete full-time and help their style evolve.

 

[tasticles]

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?

I'm an OG and used to nerd out on this shit. I read the article also. You have the better recollection of this. Severn would have caused Helio to call in Rickson to save the business. The weight of the world is on Rickson to redeem the Gracie clan or American wrestling explodes all over the country. There are Universes we could make where Royce is the disgraced black sheep of the family and everyone trains Catch or freestyle.

 

[mkt]

I'm an OG and used to nerd out on this shit. I read the article also. You have the better recollection of this. Severn would have caused Helio to call in Rickson to save the business. The weight of the world is on Rickson to redeem the Gracie clan or American wrestling explodes all over the country. There are Universes we could make where Royce is the disgraced black sheep of the family and everyone trains Catch or freestyle.

And if you watch around the 4:20 mark of this video, Kimo looked like he might have picked up and slammed Royce, Rampage-style, or at least landed GnP if Royce didn't have his hair the entire time. "Shaved-Head Kimo" might have gone down as more famous than Sea-Level Cain, Motivated BJ, etc.

 

[Bullitt68]

I'm an OG and used to nerd out on this shit. I read the article also. You have the better recollection of this.

Severn would have caused Helio to call in Rickson to save the business. The weight of the world is on Rickson to redeem the Gracie clan or American wrestling explodes all over the country. There are Universes we could make where Royce is the disgraced black sheep of the family and everyone trains Catch or freestyle.

I always love these "What If?" scenarios in MMA history. Since Ken is my all-time favorite fighter, a lot of them involve him definitively beating Royce at UFC 5, not breaking his hand training for UFC 2 or on Brian Johnston's head in the Ultimate Ultimate 1996 tournament, him staying in the UFC and never going to the WWF, him deciding to come back to the UFC and fight Tito as soon as their beef started rather than waiting until he was riddled with injuries. Plus, what if Royce had continued competing beyond UFC 5, what if Rickson had been the Gracie representative from the start, what if Sakuraba had competed in Pancrase, what if Frank Shamrock fought Sakuraba in PRIDE...

For all of the amazing shit that's gone down in this sport's incredible history, there's a ton of amazing shit that didn't happen, or happened differently than it could've. It's a trip to think about.

And if you watch around the 4:20 mark of this video, Kimo looked like he might have picked up and slammed Royce, Rampage-style, or at least landed GnP if Royce didn't have his hair the entire time. "Shaved-Head Kimo" might have gone down as more famous than Sea-Level Cain, Motivated BJ, etc.

Haha, I like Shaved Head Kimo. And would you believe: He's bald now.

https://external-preview.redd.it/6S...bp&s=754aeacf56d7e26db08035e7b9292cdc83f378b7

 

[SalvadorAllende]

Tank Abbott was an obese brawler with a 0.500 record.

 

[don't ask]

Sorry for the dumb question but how can you not be good at G&P if you have very solid wrestling skills? What did he lack?

The plethora of lay-and-pray wrestlers who can't GNP their way out of a paper bag demonstrates that it's very easy to be a wrestler who can't hit people on the ground.

 

[don't ask]

Is this TS's shtick? Asking stupid questions and then refusing to accept the answers that are given?

Tank studied BJJ, don't ya know???

IIRC he went to Alan Goes' school and caused a ruckus when he was submitted and threatened to start throwing punches instead of tapping. You've definitely identified TS's shtick.

 

[don't ask]

Having watched the sport from the beginning, I never got why Coleman got all the credit for GnP. Some of the earliest fights were among the most brutal finishes on the ground with fists or elbows

- Tank vs. Matua
- Tank vs. Varelens (not as brutal as Matua, but Tank did get a TD and finish with GnP)
- Pat Smith vs. Scott Morris
- Goodridge vs. Paul Herrera

I think Coleman is credited for GNP not because he was the first one to do it, but because the was the first person to do it as a series of techniques that could be trained and duplicated. A few fights on your list are almost impossible to duplicate, which is why they never made an impact on the direction of the sport.

 

[mkt]

Tank Abbott was an obese brawler with a 0.500 record.

Dumb comment. Tank was 6-4 in his first 4 UFC events. 3 of his losses came to tournament champs (Oleg, Frye and Severn) and a close decision to Scott Ferrozzo, a powerful 350-pound beast who basically just held Tank in the clinch while they traded blows here and there. Ferrozzo couldn't continue after the fight due to the punishment he took and was carted off to the ER while Tank went to a bar (similar to Oleg being carted off on a stretcher while Tank walked out of the cage).

Tank later took a 5-year break from MMA while it was quickly evolving and came back in his 40s, an obvious shell of his former self.

The sport was very different in the 90s when you didn't pad your record by fighting in some small org, then on prelim fights until you had 15-20 wins. You fought in tournaments and faced the best guys in every event if you won your initial fights.

Mark Coleman was also 6-4 at one point in 1999. Does that make him a mediocre brawler, too?

Tank also had a couple of fights (Mo Smith and Pedro Rizzo) where he literally came off a barstool (his words) and fought some of the best competition at the time. That was unfortunate and was his fault. He still managed to last over 8 minutes (no rounds) with each of them, and they were both very respectful of Tank's power.

 

[mkt]

Another old school gem: Scott Ferrozzo vs. some unknown guy named Steve Grinnow in what appears to be an office building with mats, allegedly in 1996. This was long before Kimbo's backyard league or the "Street Beefs" stuff now seen on Youtube. And surprisngly, Sherdog lists it as an official fight. There's quite a size discrepancy. I'm guessing Grinnow could fight at MW.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Mark came to UFC to wrestle-fuck and only struck from grounded positions whereas Tank wanted to stand-N-bang bro


Tank gained more fans

 

[shockwave kicker]

He could've. Ken's gameplan was to sit in Royce's guard and dare him to go for submissions. Remember, this was when the UFC had no rounds and no time limits. The old Gracie myth was that Gracies would fight for hours and win by submission after four hours of grueling grappling. That's what Ken wanted. He was planning on fending off submissions for hours if need be, and only when Royce was exhausted having failed to do anything to Ken would Ken then seal the deal and pound him out. But at the last minute - partly due to the fact that the long UFC 4 tournament final with Royce and Severn went over the allotted PPV running time and the event blacked out before the fight ended, requiring SEG to refund a lot of angry fans their money having missed the classic triangle finish - a time limit was added. That pissed Ken off, but he refused to change his game plan. He did exactly what he planned to do: He sat in Royce's guard and dared him to go for submissions. Except Royce was too scared to go for anything other than that half-assed Ezekiel choke, so the fight was a stalemate. It's too bad that at least in the OT after blowing up Royce's eye that Ken didn't let loose with GNP once they hit the ground. But he wanted to prove a point more than he wanted to win. He wanted to show that the first fight was a fluke and Royce would never catch him in a submission again. For us, that made for a boring fight, but for Ken, he did what he set out to do.



Yep. I love that Hackney fight. Severn and Shamrock had legit skills and accomplishments, and Kimo was huge and strong, but Hackney was just a random TMA guy, but he was smart and he put up a damn good fight.



QFT. BJJ had better press. Catch, sambo, judo, they have their standouts, but BJJ is the grappling default.

The fact that Royce even swept Shamrock the first fight was weird.

I always love these "What If?" scenarios in MMA history. Since Ken is my all-time favorite fighter, a lot of them involve him definitively beating Royce at UFC 5, not breaking his hand training for UFC 2 or on Brian Johnston's head in the Ultimate Ultimate 1996 tournament, him staying in the UFC and never going to the WWF, him deciding to come back to the UFC and fight Tito as soon as their beef started rather than waiting until he was riddled with injuries. Plus, what if Royce had continued competing beyond UFC 5, what if Rickson had been the Gracie representative from the start, what if Sakuraba had competed in Pancrase, what if Frank Shamrock fought Sakuraba in PRIDE...

For all of the amazing shit that's gone down in this sport's incredible history, there's a ton of amazing shit that didn't happen, or happened differently than it could've. It's a trip to think about.



Haha, I like Shaved Head Kimo. And would you believe: He's bald now.

https://external-preview.redd.it/6S...bp&s=754aeacf56d7e26db08035e7b9292cdc83f378b7

Since you are a Ken fan (and a grappler?) . Can you explain why Ken got saxed into a sub so early against Royce?

 

[Billthebutcher]

Tank brought "necessary barnacle" Tito Ortiz to help him with his wrestling. The translation didn't go well.

 

[Dim1]

Tank Abbott has a terrible mma record. He had a few highlight real knockouts and then rode that wave with his outrageous commentary and personal conduct. I don't think he had the discipline to evolve his game at all.

 

[Dim1]

This was highly competitive and he should have won if he knew what he was doing on the ground

Stoppage by leg kicks. Yeah you're right Maurice wasn't very good on the bottom (except for his 12-6 elbows.) If Tank had better ground control he wins that.

 

[shockwave kicker]

Stoppage by leg kicks. Yeah you're right Maurice wasn't very good on the bottom (except for his 12-6 elbows.) If Tank had better ground control he wins that.

And if he wins that he's champion. So he can't be that bad

 

[m249viking]

Watch the Maurice Smith fight. He's sort of lost on the ground, despite having enormous potential with his strength.

lots of big men struggle to breathe when they’re laying down, Why you see so many young fatties and strength athletes using cpap machines

 

[Bullitt68]

Another old school gem: Scott Ferrozzo vs. some unknown guy named Steve Grinnow in what appears to be an office building with mats, allegedly in 1996. This was long before Kimbo's backyard league or the "Street Beefs" stuff now seen on Youtube. And surprisngly, Sherdog lists it as an official fight. There's quite a size discrepancy. I'm guessing Grinnow could fight at MW.

Cool vid, I don't think I'd ever seen that. God, I love the early days, when nobody knew what this thing was, or what it could become, but it didn't matter because they were all just there for the love of the game, because they had something in them where fighting called out to their souls and they had to do it. And that was a great finish. Talk about taking a shot to give a shot

The fact that Royce even swept Shamrock the first fight was weird.

Since you are a Ken fan (and a grappler?) . Can you explain why Ken got saxed into a sub so early against Royce?

First, Royce never swept Ken. Royce shot in, Ken reversed him, Royce went to guard, and then when Ken dropped back for the leg lock Royce went with the momentum and got on top.

Second, following from the previous point, the reason that Royce got the submission was because Ken gave him literally no respect on the ground. He thought he was some Karate dude in pajamas. Meanwhile, Ken was the top dog in a submission-oriented fight org in Japan. He was obviously going to tap everyone with ease. So literally the second he had an opening, he dropped right back for a leg lock. He didn't set anything up, he didn't try to distract Royce, nothing. He just fell backwards. The problem was that Royce knew his submissions, too, and so when Ken dropped back without any set up, Royce just went with the momentum, and when Ken dropped back, Royce got up and ended up on top. Adding to his problems, once Royce got on top, Ken still didn't abandon the leg lock. Again, he's thinking it's just a matter of time since he's the submission expert. So from the bottom, Ken is still trying to turn into position to basically suck out a single leg, get Royce back on the bottom, and then try again for the leg lock. Except that while Ken is trying to roll over to secure Royce's leg, he doesn't realize that he's rolling into a rear-naked choke. And once he realized, it was too late and he had to tap.

My favorite of the old Gracie Breakdown videos is actually a breakdown of this very fight. I highly recommend checking it out.