Originally Posted by
Knifefighter
I was there.
The guy was not WC. He was a San Soo guy.
The San Soo guys actually wanted to have five fights, each against different styles, but no other styles stepped up. Because of this, there were going to be three fights, each occuring every other week... John was first, Mauricio was to be second, and I was to be third.
Since his arm was broken and he couldn't fight anymore, he offered to back any other TMA guys who wanted to step in, but none did.
Before the event, all his students were convinced that he was going to destroy John... probably because they had never seen him fight for real. Like most "masters", he had a huge rep. The stories I heard about him before the event were pretty incredible. He had supposedly done some serious damage to people in street fights. He had taught law enforcement and had endorsements from a variety of people, but no one had ever seen him fight for real against someone big, strong, and skilled.
He is a nice guy and I still see him around. He was just a bit deluded about his abilities.
Fortunately for me, I was able to learn what I could do with wing chun (and what I could not) in an MMA environment without getting a shoulder wrecked....
Cross-training with MMA fighters will be an extremely enlightening experience for anyone who has trained exclusively in TMAs.
I don't think Wing Chun is so limited that I can't do it when I wrestle, box, kickbox, or fight by MMA rules, nor am I so limited a student that I can't improve by training in each of those forums. -Andrew S
A good instructor encourages his students to question things, think for themselves and determine their own solutions to problems. They give advice, rather than acting as a vehicle for the transmission of dogma.
-Andrew Nerlich