So anyway im going to try to make it short-ish....alot happened.I got 1 hour of sleep for the tournament. I got there weighed in at 11lbs (I was fighting at 135lbs). I agreed to an exhibition match with a handicapped kid (Couldnt use his legs, would have been a grappling match) because no1 else would fight him. That was supposed to happen before i fought in my division.I fought to stay awake all day and felt sick, lightheaded and dizzy all day. They did hours of kickboxing matches before the pankration started. They asked one of my teammates to fight in the kickboxing fight because the other guy was huge and couldnt fiND an opponent. Our guy knocked him out in 1 min 30 seconds.They then started the tournament and we went over the rules. They explained all of the illegal stuff we couldnt do. The tournament starts and (there was suppost to be skill level divisions, begginer, intermediate, advanced) they match one of our guys who had 2 weeks of training versus a guy with 4 years training.Needless to say the 4 year training guy whooped our teamamtes ass, and did a number of illegal overhead slams on our guy (that could have resulted in our team mate breaking his neck) also needless to say his mom was furious and in tears. That was the first straw for our team and my coaches. My assistant coach confronted the guy who was runing the tournament on what happened and the guy called us a bunch of whiners and said "Our guys dont care about overhead suplexes"So later on i look over to one of the mats (there was also suppost to be age divisions) and our 12 year old is fighting a guy with fucking tatoos. I looked over to the mat and said 'WHAT THE FUCK?" really loud and everyone looked at me and i said "That kids fucking 12" and everyone watching said "This is wrong". Needless to say the crowd was very upset with the tournament also.Our coaches werent even informed our 12 year old was fighting so i told them and they ran over to coach him. He ended up losing but he lost 19 points to 15 points, he did fucking amazing and almost won against a full grown man.That was the second straw and im sure you can imagine my coaches once again got into it with the guy running the tournament. (Also the guy our 12 year old fought was 2 weighclasses above him).So this was the third straw. Another one of our guys was fighting this really fucking cocky kid who kicked him in the nuts, they stopped it so our guy could recover. They started fighting again and the guy kicks him in the nuts again and our teammate drops to the ground and the guy backs up raises his arms and goes "WHAT!! WHAT!!!"So at this point our coaches blow up at the guy running the tournamnet (who was also reffing) and the kids mom (who kicked our guy in the nuts) yells at our coaches and kid and says "ILL GET IN THERE AND KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS". So the stupid bitch keeps screaming at us and tries to get on the mats and fight us and it was just ridiculous,Meanwhile on the other two mats there is a guy choked out unconcious and the kid is still choking him and the ref is just watching, and on another mat theres a kid getting punched in the back of the head (illegal) and gets knocked out while the ref watches. The crowd blows up at this point.Our coaches fought (verbally) with the guys running the tournament and we all decided to just leave the tournament.The whole tournament was very very unprofessional and as ran like an underground fight club. We are never going back there and i never got to fight. They never called me up and they also gave away my exhibition match.I was absolutely furious about what happened at the tournament and my coach told me "I dont want you fighting because i expect you to go full force, and the way this tournament is being ran i think your going to seriously injure someone" I really wanted to fight all 3 of the kids that fought our guys (the tatoo guys versus our 12 year old, the guy who almost broke our teammates neck, and the guy who was like "WHAT! WHAT!".But my coach was right, at that point i would have really seriously seriously injured anyone of them and it wasnt worth it.I didnt want to fight at that point anyways because it wouldnt have been for sport anymore it would have been out of anger and thats not who i am, im glad i didnt get to fight because i would looked just as bad as they did, because i would have hurt them very bad.The whole tournament was just fucking bullshit, and im very sorry for my teammates and their parents and everyone else that had to be in or whitness that sad excuse for a pankration tournament.
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Tournament Results for MMAfighter90
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holy shit, did anybody report them? is there something you can report them to?
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My mom asked the same thing, and i want to find out about it. It was seriously ran like a underground fight club, it was horrible and disgusting and is not even worth of being called Pankration.My main coach (who wasnt there) knows the guy who ran the tournament and im sure once he finds out about this he will do something about it. Because people were seriously injured there and we are fortunate enough that our fighters, while they did get fucked over, they werent seriously injured.
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We knew there would be good people there. But there is suppose to be age divisions and skill divisions and the way it was ran was just a mess. They had our 12 year old s a 18 year old with tattoos. They had begginers versus advanced people it was just messed up.Our gym has always supported their tournament and we are usually half the competition because we bring so many guys up there, and they totally shit on us this time.We will obviously never be going back to that tournament, and im glad i didnt fight there. On the bright side i will be representing Santa Cruz CA by going to the United States National Championship in Novevember!
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Wow, dude. I'm sorry that you had to go through such a sorry excuse of a tournament. Hopefully the next one goes much smoother.
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Very disappointing when things aren't properly run. But I hope you become National Champion in November!
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Thanks for the replies guys. Im disappointed i drove 8 hours (there and back) on 1 hour sleep and didn't get to fight. But im glad we left that tournament. I wouldn't have felt right fighting in such a barbaric tournament. I enjoy competition not barbaric street fighting. Im about respect between me and my opponent and testing our skill versus each other, and being friends afterwards. I dont enjoy/want to hurt anyone, thats not what its about.But at the time i will admit i did want to fight those 3 guys i described earlier very much, and at the time i did want to give them everything i had and make them wish for the match to end. All 3 were bullies and should be ashamed of their "wins".But now that its all said and done im glad we left and i didnt get to fight because my team and I are better than that, and the guys running the tournament and those 3 kids will get their own someday in the future.
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Man, I was hoping for some excellent news, especially after how excited you seemed about it. Bad luck on how it all turned out.
Good luck for November!
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I hate to rain on the parade and I've never really said anything about this sport, but... I really question and dislike this whole MMA thing. To me it seems like a glorified training camp for the UFC. Sports like wrestling is somewhat different since the object is to overpower the opponent with strength and technique. MMA just seems to be a training ground for a violent fight camp. Are people training their kids to be fighting gladiators? The experience at this shady "tournament" seems to corroborate this fear.. I also saw an episode on Primetime the other night which also questions this sport for kids.You can see it HERE.
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I was seeing a kid the other day who is either 14 or 15. He was talking about being in the cage-fight competition at the county fair and about fighting another kid who is about 16. I was listening, trying not to be judgmental, but at the same time was astounded that the fair board let kids this age do this.
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I'll be judgemental, that's fucked up.
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Originally Posted By: OldFolksI'll be judgemental, that's fucked up. I second that!!
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Well what you guys need to understand, you, damien, etc, is that Pankration is not CAGE FIGHTING or whatever you guys may have seen. Pankration has NO head shots, there are many safety rules for the sport. They are usually very strict in tournaments, you get warned once for making a mistake (ie Punching someone in the back) and after that your DQed.This past tournament should have no reflection on the sport, it was the promoters and refs allowing the illegals moves (That arent allowed in the sport period) everything that happened at that tournament was illegal and would have never happened in a bigger, better ran tournament, thi one just happened to be a shady underground tournament, which we didnt know about until we got there.As far as cage fighting, kids fighting each other in cages, thats ridiculous, it should not be allowed and thats obviously a very shady promotion thats letting kids fight in a carnival, and also the parents should be at fault for letting their kis do it in the first place.As far as our dateline NBC shows and abc programs they love to take the sport out of context and shit on it. They took footage from our state championship and edited it and fast forwarded it to make it look more brutal than it really is.As far as the wrestling comparison to MMA or Pankration, MMA and Pankration rely on alot more skill than wrestling. Theres alot more skill in trying to set up a jui jitsu submission than there is to putting someone on their back. Pankration and MMA is all about skill and technique.As far as the violent training camp thing i take strong offense to that. I come from a highly praised gym, that has a sign that says CHECK EGO AT DOOR, right when you walk in, we are all about respect. Never have we been told "Ok im going to show you some moves so you can go out there and really inur and hurt your opponent". There is tons of respect between everyone in the gym and in competition. Competing is about testing your skill versus each other, and seeing who has the better technique, not charging each other and killing each other. Just because there are fist involved doesnt mean the opponents hate each other and want to hurt the other.Dont let the dateline NBC bullshit fool you, it easy to believe that shit when you've never been involved in the sport, trained it or been apart of it. Take it from me someone who has done years of wrestling and half a year of MMA that, whatever cage fighting kid fighting carnival bullshit you guys saw, thats not my sport, thats bullshit.
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As far as the violent training camp thing i take strong offense to that. You can take offense if you wish.. Your outfit may be well controlled, but how many aren't? You obviously ran into one this past week. You think ALL other outfits run controlled outfits?IDK... Seeing little kids punching away at each other, even if face shots arenot allowed, just doesn't seem right. UFC cage fighting is all teh rage now in the US and apprently it's taken hold with the little ones too.
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Yah but you have to understand there are shady promotions in every sport, its apart of the sports world whether people like you and I like it or not.As far as the kids thing im going to stick to my opinion of parents shouldnt let their kids do it. Who in there right mind lets an 8 year old participate in a cage fight? I dont think thats blame on the sport, its blame on the parents. I know my mom wouldnt let me do it when i was 8....or10...or 16, im 18 now and she doesnt even like me doing it and shes a fan of UFC.
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But isn't this whole MMA thing basically a cage fight without the cage? If you're there slugging away at someone, using kick, punches and wrestling... well I don't see the difference.
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Originally Posted By: MMAfighter90
Well what you guys need to understand, you, damien, etc, is that Pankration is not CAGE FIGHTING or whatever you guys may have seen.
I understand that. Cage fighting has essentially no rules, which makes it even more despicable that minors are allowed to participate.
That being said, I kind of have problems with any kind of sanctioned fighting.
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UFC = MMA. The sport itself is called MMA, UFC is just an organization. But what im competing in atm is Pankration, ive never done an MMA match, i train MMA but i fight Pankration which has rules and no headshots.Alot of the "Cage Fighting" promotions are very shady, the only one i really give credit to being legit is the UFC. They do have rules, there are no shots to the back of the head, no small joint manipulation, no eye gauging, etc etc. The refs are always on top of the action so if someone is getting pounded on and they arent defending it gets stopped.I know MMA looks so dangerous but the reality is, there has only been 1 MMA related death during its whole lifespan of over 20+ years. People are dying yearly in virtually every other sport, boxing, football, etc etc.It looks so brutal because you are in an enclosed environment and have tiny gloves but it isnt as dangerous as it seems. While in boxing you have big gloves but ur getting hit over and over and over in the head, you get knocked down you get back up and get pounded on the head more, thats where the deaths and brain damage come from.In MMA you take 1 good shot and your out, or if your being pounded on and take more than 10 unanswered punches (most of the time) it is stopped.
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Im not so much getting offended im just defending my sport. This may come as a shock to you but us MMA/Pankration fighters get alot of shit!!! Surprising huh? We are labeled as violent, ruthless, worthless, human cock fighters. We are labeled as stupid, never can amount to anything, cant use their brain, human beings. Im fine with people having their opinion, thats fine. But when people catch a Dateline NBC coverage on MMA (which 90 percent of the time is blown out of proportion, they cover the 1 injury out of 500 fights at the tournament)and start ranting on about how horrible the sport is, and their automatically geniouses on the sport, then thats when i get mad.No one here did that obviously, but im just saying it happens alot in the real world and i hate it. Like i said earlier i was not getting mad about people giving their opinion but if their going to give their view im going to give mine and defend my sport, especially since im the one thats dedicated to it and lives it everyday.
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I miss the original UFC, before it was legal and had all those pansy-ass rules added.back when having a black belt in Taekwondo meant you would do fine until some 300lb street fighting monster got his hands on you.good timesbut there again, that wasn't for kids and there was no expectaion of safety. What you experience at your bout was horrible and I hope the organisers get shut down or atleast loose any sanctions they carry.