Here are some sports links I found of interest :-)
Ulitmate fighting on CBS tonight -- first time on a national broadcast network! Kimbo Slice, one of the headliners, rose to fame thanks to YouTube video of his street fights. Although he has fan appeal, he's far from a top level fighter at this stage of his development.
US military embraces ultimate fighting! See here, here and slides.
Profile of China's surprisingly successful rowing program. (video, slideshow.) They've recycled tall athletes from track and field and other sports into rowing. I've always thought the talent pool in rowing was relatively thin, and China's success partially supports this viewpoint.
Some projections have the Chinese olympic team edging out team USA in the overall medal count in Beijing.
Prof.Hsu, sorry for this very late comment. I am watching from time to time MMA fights and this sport is becoming increasingly popular (which means that the salaries of the athletes increase as well, a good thing considering the nature of this sport). Kimbo's fight was successful though not impressive. He lacks ground skills while he is not using very effectively his legs. Of course his upper body power is as good as it gets but not enough against different opposition. Since you are far more experienced than me in this sort of sports, what do you think about Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Filipovic? They are pretty amazing athletes. Your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Fedor and BJ Penn are two of the most impressive fighters in the world -- I guess I should add St. Pierre and Anderson Silva as well :-)
ReplyDeleteCrocop is mainly a striker, but I'm impressed with his dedication to the sport and his effort to learn groundfighting.
Kimbo doesn't deserve to be mentioned with any of these competitors.
We've been seeing a steady improvement in the quality of talent in MMA. Eventually we'll see world class physical talent (e.g., St. Pierre) combined with superb technique (e.g., Penn), but at the moment that is still rare.
Thanks Prof. Fedor has natural power since he does not train much with weights. His brother, Alexander, can be great as well if he shows the same dedication to the sport as his brother does. Much more massive and very fast hands.
ReplyDeleteCrocop has lost some fights he should not have, like against Gabriel Gonzaga but he intends to fight Fedor again. He is one of the few fighters who forced Fedor fight for 3 full rounds.
St.George is great as well. I have seen many fights of him. Don't know much about B.J.Penn though. I will research a bit in the future...
Thanks!