HAHAHAHAHAHAHA......everyone usually misses the point....

But SDiscool caught it....

Traditional ("true") fighters do compete in the UFC and MMA tournaments. Almost every good fighter has a solid background in a traditional, non-watered down art. They study techniques of other arts to round out what their training misses out on, and to cover personal weaknesses.

But soooooo many MMA guys miss out on that point. Guys like Lidell and everone else are labeled MMA, so they say....I'll go learn MMA. But they're buying their tacos from Chick-Fila, and their burgers from KFC.

If you want to fine-tune your striking, study a traditional striking art. If you want to fine-tune your grappling/throwing, go study a traditional grappling/throwing art. If you want a little bit of this, and a little bit of that (which doesn't add up to much, when the sum is laid out on the table), go to your local MMA school and get bilked out of money by jacks-of-all trades.

You rely on your strengths, and some of the best MMA fighters are far better strikers than grapplers......and they almost always studied traditional arts.......

Is it a coincidence?

Plenty of the Gracies were terrible strikers in their heyday.....do you think they asked other terrible strikers (grapplers) how to strike in order to round out their repertoire?

For those of us not planning to join the UFC anytime soon, we don't really have to deal with lots of grappling or groundfighting, so we don't necessarily train them. Kind of like taking a gun with you on a visit to the Moon.....do you really need it?

Maybe, if an alien happens to come along......but that's a battle I'm fighting in the Kung Fu Forum........props to RD.