Tim Larkin explains self-defense techniques | MMA...

[Jimbo]

So, here is the thing and we have discussed this quite a bit:
The issue here is that those two idiots have become so "comfortable" with violence ( which happens to the vast majority of fighters) that they either failed to realize or have never realized that there is a difference between "controlled violence" ( full contact sport fighting) and "uncontrolled violence" ( the so-called real world).
Their over confidence is what cost them.
MMA tends ( and I have seen this first hand) to give people a false sense of security because they can, typically, handle themselves very well and a fight.
Well, real world isn't JUST about being able to fight.
It is JUST as much IF NOT MORE SO about:
Situational awareness
Violence DEESCALATION
The ability to fight multiple opponents and weapons and survive
And so forth.

In the real world one must always assume:
There is more than one.
There is always a weapon.
You have VERY LIMITED time to deal with an attacker.

Now, MMA is a sport and as such they do NOT address this anymore than boxing does or wrestling BUT, and we all have to be very honest here, neither do the vast majority of MA, period.

This whole situation could have been avoided and THAT is the REAL lesson to take from this.

Sad thing is that pretty much every MMA coach and trainer I know do NOT advocate or condone fighting in the street and ALL will tell you that it is a very different environment so these people and fighters going around spewing crap and so forth are NOT speaking for MMA anymore than TMA that never fight and get their asses handed to them are speaking for the TMA that DO fight.

Great post that sums it up nicely.

I've mentioned this before, but at least 20 years ago and not far from where I live, a former AAU national wrestling champion/wakeboarder named Dusty Harless initiated a street fight with a guy in a car who had made a pass at his girlfriend. He pulled the guy out of his car and took him to the ground, but the guy pulled a knife and stabbed backwards once, severing his aorta and killing him. He was 25. Harless had been well-known in the area, and prior to this incident, he had engaged in numerous street fights and had always won. The guy who killed him had no training or fighting experience. This case was featured in an episode of Forensic Files.

This is only one perfect example of fighting ability NOT being a guarantee of survival on the streets; that situational awareness, avoidance/deescalation, etc., etc., etc., are far more important. Because no matter how good you are (or think you are), willfully engaging in brawling/street fighting is playing Russian roulette. There is always someone who has the capacity, the willingness, or enough fear/desperation, psychopathy and/or numbers to go one step further than you might be prepared to handle. They don't need to be bigger, stronger or 'better' than you.

I'll also mention an instance of a woman who was known to be trained in a self-defense-oriented MA. She was kidnapped by a serial killer who took her at knifepoint into the woods. At one point, the woman fought back at her kidnapper and had actually defeated and disarmed him. But out of bad habit almost certainly acquired in her training environment, she tossed the knife back to him. Wherein the killer regained the advantage and she ended up brutally murdered, just one more of his victims. This fact came from the killer's own mouth after he was captured.

So it isn't an 'MMA or wrestling vs. TMA in the street' argument, but context (between competitive sport fighting; practicing self-defense techniques in a safe environment; and 'real life', where literally anything can happen) and situational awareness. And in the case of the 2 guys in the gas station, dropping the machismo BS that gets so many people killed. The specific art or method you train (or don't train) has far less to do with it.