Amateur careers?
Why do so few fighters value their amateur career?
It's not a race to turn pro. Amateur careers allow a fighter to actually learn their trade. A good and varied amateur career, enables a fighter to develop and will lead to an even better pro career.
In Amateur boxing, fighters can have dozens of fights before considering turning pro, but in MMA it appears fighters have 2-3 amateur fights and then are eager to turn pro. Why is that?
I've already set my mind on atleast 10 amateur fights before I consider turning pro.
Our own Jimmy Saville has seemed to do it right, he's got 12 (I think) amateur fights under his belt
What if someones ground game is more suited to pro? i.e the headshots?
What if a person weak point is striking so his best chance of winning the fight is GnP?
could this be a factor?
That's an issue with no head shot rules, not with an amateur career. There are amateur shows out there with real MMA rules, so that would be my counter.Originally Posted by steve_langford
(It does bring us back to the stupid diverse rules we have in the UK, which make the AM and PRO sports very disjointed.... if we had a governing body, maybe they could make the rules similar and make the AM MMA options more accessable)
its a must this day in age.
I wish when i first started MMA that there was more Amateur shows, just to be able to learn the skills and be a more complete fighter. that is why i think alot of the "old school" guys have mixed records. there were learning the trade in the pro ranks.
You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get
Team Colosseum
Scraps is a little different, as he was a junior, so had to fight AM. I think a real good example of a fighter he developed in an amateur career and then moved on to a very successful pro career is Alex Owen
Alex has a 20-2-7 Am record, 10-0-0 in SP and went on to a 11-1 pro record... with that loss being his last fight. 30+ AM fights is an excellent basis for a successful MMA career (although I would suggest 10-15 as a good average)
There is zero downside to taking a longer amateur career. The experience will mean that the UK's pro fighters will be even better!
please let there be a governing body one day.....
Ive heard from coaches in the past that the reason they want their fighters to fight amateur first is because thay dont want them fighting with head shots on the ground.
Where do you stand on those rules Aaron? (amateur with head shots on the ground)
Is not just a PRO fight ........ for free?
C'mon, everyone knows I think AM MMA should have headshots... GnP is what makes it MMA.
I don't think it's pro for free, simply because it should be a lower level of fighter, with less experience. That's one of the key points. Amateur fights should be less experienced fighters, with less knowledge and less training. They fight AM, building up the experience, etc and when the time is right they fight PRO.
What we get is a much more populated AM sport, which demonstrates the credibility of MMA and shows a real grass roots development, followed by a much more skilled and experienced pro division. So instead of having fighters fighting for world titles who have had 5 fights (!!!!), they have a long AM career behind them and can demonstrate some experieince and skill.
I really can't see a downside. Better AM sport, more credibility, more accessibility and a better pro sport with more skilled fighters.
They should do submission wrestling or maybe the no headshot rules are more suited to interclubs. Personally, remove the headshots and you no longer have MMA. But accept that opinion on this is divided
ReD_mIst and Kainer2 for leaders of the governing body!!
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