Mailvox: avoiding the Octagon

The Baseball Savant is curious:

Be honest, if you were to start competing in UFC, how well would you do? I’ll give you the context of training time and getting back a good nutriton/supplment regiment.

What’s the talley?

I haven’t watched any UFC other than the first three, but I assume that I’d probably be forced to tap out in the first round. I’d have reasonable size for a middleweight, as 185 is an ideal fighting weight for me so there’s a reasonable chance that I’d have somewhat of a speed and strength advantage over my opponent.

The problem is that I’m an upright fighter and I’m not all that comfortable when forced to grapple, as it plays to neither my strengths nor my training. I don’t know if UFC is still as grappling-heavy as it was at the beginning, but while the 12-15 locks and holds that I know are more than sufficient for everyday situations, it would be a serious disadvantage against someone who is at home on the ground, to say nothing of a Royce Gracie sort. Unless my opponent screwed up and gave me window for a KO strike while coming in, the probabilities are high that I’d end up locked up and tapping out.

I did win the only UFC-style match I’ve ever fought, however, as I choked out a friend and fellow Dragon who had beaten me for the trophy in a conventional karate tournament a few months before. We were very evenly matched in terms of strength and skill, (he had a bit more of both at the time), but in the shoot fighting match I think my speed and height (read: longer arms) made up the difference since neither one of us really knew how to wrestle.

I should note that another Dragon did quite well in one of the UFCs, I think he came in second in the light heavyweight class, but he could not only kick my ass without much effort, he was a formidable jiujitsu wrestler as well, so I don’t see how that’s useful information.

In any event, I have zero desire to enter the Octagon these days and I don’t think Spacebunny would regard it with favor either.