It’s about practice. Hearing Demetrius Johnson talk about his preparation was eye opening. He goes harder in any training camp than he would in any given fight, so he is always ready. So of course the ring rust will be there if you are not practicing
GSP's title win at UFC 217 after 4 years of layoff to me is one of the greatest moments in sports history. He's my favorite fighter of all time and everytime I go to that fight and rewatch the finish, that crowd pop still gives me goosebumps.
It's bittersweet for me, GSP looked better than ever and even said he had made massive improvements from where he left off and he's the one fighter I believe when he said it. And then he found out he had a chronic illness and retired. Such a tease of what could have been.
@@FaithRox , exactly! Just imagine how much better he would of been if he could of kept on fighting. Nobody has come back after 4 years out and won the championship fight. Definitely #1 goat!!
@@FaithRox Frankly I don't agree with the assessment that GSP 'looked better then ever' against Bisping, he definitely looked bigger but he also looked slower and less explosive compared to his prime years. That being said, there was technical improvements to his game in particular to his boxing which helped set-up the finish against Bisping. It should however be noted that Bisping was no spring-chicken either, he was less athletic then GSP ever was and he came into the bout with a rib injury which for sure impacted his performance. Still, given the fact both men were in the late 30's and Bisping's size advantage offset some of the attribute advantages GSP may have had levelled the playing field. Finally, I have to mention the only reason GSP returned at Middleweight was because Bisping was the champion. As good as Bisping was, he was a very beatable champion who would most likely have dropped the belt to any of the top contenders. GSP would not have returned if Rockhold was still the champion, or if Jacare was the champ for that matter, he was never going to defend against Whittaker either because its a nightmare matchup for GSP.
@@madgavin7568 - Of course GSP would have defended his belt if he wasn't sick, why would you claim he wouldn't? He spent so many years defending his WW belt against a murderous row of hungry contenders, but he would retire instead of fighting Rob or Jacaré? Kinda random accusation. GSP had started the process of un-retiring when Rockhold was still the champion, which is why Luke was so salty afterward and felt like he deserved a fight against GSP And Bisping and his "broken ribs" excuse is sketchy as hell... as many have pointed out, if he was so badly injured in the GSP fight, then why did he take the Gastelum bout 2 weeks later? Ribs don't get better that quick.
I think it completely depends on how active the fighter is on there off time like sparring ect. Say if someone’s injured there more likely to show ring rust
@@miketschabrunn6012 also other factors like age and cumulative damage, fighters who have had long layoffs are often coming out of retirement or from an injury, it's not often a young, fresh fighter in their prime.
@@markzuckergecko621 shoot, now we get to see the opposite of ring rust. Guys come back too fast and lose themselves. Moraes, now Tony. Moraes killed his own chin. Tony looked good versus Chandler before being KO’d. Against Nate… it was just embarrassing.
I haven't watched this video yet, but I bet GSP should be at the top after that spectacular performance after UFC 217...it's a hard path to perform that good after a 4 year lay off
Crazy that Volkanovski used to weigh 214 lbs when he played Rugby, and now he is the 145 lb Champion. I'm sure he retains a lot of the raw power he had at 214 which he showed against Aldo, Mendes, Halloway, and powering through Brian Ortegas submissions. That was impressive watching him power through a Gracie jiu-jitsu black belts tight submissions. They call Brian T-City because of his triangle which Volk powered through.
I feel you guys could compromise a list of ten fighters that prove ring rust is real. Recent examples being nick diaz and Luke rockhold. It's person to person and to me the rust comes from how much practicing you're doing in the off time
You gotta do a video on Bald headed powers man. It doesn't work for everyone, but for certain fighters when they decide to go bald they start kicking ass even more. look into it. 😂
I think every fighter is different. Ring rust exist if the fighter lets it. When you talk about rust. It means their timing and range and other things are slightly off. But there are always exceptions. Cruz is the best example
dominik cruz is actually in my goat list and ppl should have him in theirs aswell. 1. Jon Bones 2. Demetreus Mighty mouse 3. GSP 4. Anderson Spidey 5. Dominik Cruz dominik is TRUELY underrated by the community.
@@demibasan1714 can we really count jon jones though after all of the steroid tests? dont get me wrong great fighter but now i always wonder how much of it was from drug use
@@kyle21843 jebus H, can someone not say they appreciate Jones without this argument starting? Its 2022. It's been happening for years. We have all seen this conversation 5000 times. WHERE DO YOU GET THE STRENGTH? (I think Jones is a horrible human before someone feels the need to call me a fanboy)
@@sonny9493 you can appreciate Jones of course he was a great fighter you can’t just be that talented from Roids alone but the fact he used PED’s means he’s not one of the greatest of all time as that my friend is cheating
I’d say it depends on the level of experience, fitness, and temperament of the fighter. I speak from experience with bjj that early in my training I got injured and had to take a brief hiatus, and I really felt it, losing all the progress I’d made close to the injury. But someone who’s been doing it all their life already knows how to fight and knows it well, and in that situation I believe they can return to a competent proficiency much easier. If you already know how to fight you likely won’t need more than a really good tune up, if you aren’t experienced yet then not training can really hurt your skills.
consistency is everything. Im sure people may experience an off fight if they havent been in there in a while. being in a gym is very different than flying to another state, province or even country, the massive crowds, and the lethality of your apponent. hard sparring only takes you so far.
A couple of corrections. 1) GSP was against WADA, he actually wanted the UFC to adopt VADA, as GSP was basically sponsored by VADA. 2) During the Cruz return against Mizugaki, y’all called Cruz, Chris.
Definitely a different kind of rust, but honorable mention to Randy Couture dominating Champion Tim Sylvia in his first Heavyweight fight in over 4 years (last one before that being a loss to Ricco Rodriguez, remember him?) after spending 2003 through 2006 down at Light Heavyweight
Still one of my top 5 fights ever. Not necessarily because of what happened within the fight alone. But because of what it meant, and how everyone viewed the outcome.
Randy Couture tapping to strikes against Ricco Rodriguez is still one of my worst MMA memories... Ricco keeps beating my favorite guys, like when he armbar'd Zelg "Benkei" Galesic into a living death (hey, Ricco was a *Team Punishment* guy after all) or when he kneebar'd Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira at ADCC and then arguably beating him in MMA (or at least went to a draw with him, if we go by modern rules), finished Andrei Arlovski... And when I want him to win, like against Bigfoot Silva or Tim Sylvia, he takes a beating. Ricco is definitely a strange animal, capable of the best but fought on waaay too long. He would probably be remembered at one of the great MMA heavyweights had he retired after losing to Seth Petruzzelli in Bellator back in 2011, when it was clear he was not a top contender anymore.
I think its less about "rust" per se but like you said being in shape. Also I see that since the sport has evolved so much so quickly that guys who were taking even a few years off came back and by then the whole meta of fighting had changed.
Check how much a favorite each of these examples returned to as well as the other fighters recent history. Eg Love Bisping but there’s a reason he retired a single fight later. Korean zombie had lost 5 of his last 12. Point is, much of this can be explained by an opponent who was vulnerable vs examples of very strong fighters returning. Two things can be true at once: ring rust is likely real but usually these great fighters aren’t put in there first fight with someone who can starch them. Not always the case but it’s just interesting many of these examples had some element of that at play
Respectfully, Cruz didn't wait 3 years after the Mizugaki fight to fight TJ for the belt. The fight with Mizugaki took place at UFC 174 in September of 2014, and the fight with TJ was a fight night in January of 2016. Year and some change, that's it for the second go-around
GSP coming back and defeating Bisping after 4 years off proved in my mind that ring rust is only real in the sense that it's an excuse you tell yourself.
Ring rust is real, no matter how many times MMA on point tries to deny it. People usually take easier fights after a long layoff. Most guys don’t train as hard if they don’t have a fight scheduled.
I think that's a fair criticism for some of these, but GSP and Cruz when into tough title fights, Brock was against a top 10 fighter, Faber was fighting a very real prospect who it's only looked fantastic outside of that fight, Diaz fighting a former champ that just KO'd a top 10 welterweight in Wonderboy at 170. O'Malley and Sage fought guys at their levels in the division. Khabib for sure got a squash match last minute though. So there are some examples to go with. I definitely just think it's down to staying motivated and on task during the 'off season'. The "stay ready so you don't have to get ready" mentality. Whereas guys like Paddy or Johny Hendricks famously blow up in between fights.
@@MMAOnPoint yea guys like GSP and Cruz (to the extent which he could) were definitely still training so ring rust didn’t affect them as much. Whereas for McGregor who was drinking instead of training ring rust made him lose to who was previously his easiest opponent (his words) in Dustin Poirier. For your other video where you went into ring rust where you basically said statistically there’s no ring rust, but there’s also the case of people don’t have enough time to recover in between fights which also hurts their performance. With exceptions, people do best with 4-10 months in between fights. There are definitely many variables that go into fights from both fighters and in the examples you listed ring rust wasn’t a significant factor, but that doesn’t mean ring rust doesn’t exist. But yea I do enjoy your content and most of your points were fair.
I believe ring rust is how the lights hit the day of the fight. Some people come back to continue and some come back because it’s all they know and can’t move on. I think it all comes down to how bad you wanna be there
One quick question about jury. You said "at one point he was 15-0 with a 6 fight win streak" pretty sure that would make it a 15 fight win streak but math isn't always my strong suit!
I knew GSP would be number one on this list. He's the goat to me and he is a heck of a nice guy to took a picture with him at a club in Toronto he was little shorter than I expected but I know he kick my ass pretty fast lol.
Just fyi: Ostarine is a pretty mild PED but it doesn’t really put on much muscle, it’s mainly used to preserving muscle and strength when you are cutting weight. It’s the most mild SARM and women take it even. And it’s pronounced like AAST-A-REEN
Pettis Diaz fought was definetly a different Pettis than the one that went on the pre RDA tear. People act like both guys were in the same shape for that fight but they obviously werent.
They found it to be tainted supplements, like four other people from his gym popped. The circumstances were very very weird. Everyone that popped served most of their time anyway due to arbitration but in the end it was ruled unintentional use. I think it was from Jon Jones and Picograms? Jon's sentence got reduced from four years to eighteen months because he cooperated with USADA agents in their other investigations. USADA has a specific phrase for that but I can't remember it.
I think sarms are not quite yet classified as P.E.D. in the MMA sports and American rules sports in general. While the World doping agency has it under illegal substance, within American sports the classification isn't yet as cut dry.
Bro cmon most of them are on something anyway. They’re competing at the highest level of mixed martial arts. I’m not making excuses for him, but let’s be honest most of the guys are on some form of gear.
The Diaz v Pettis one is a great example of timing. Had he fought him back in the day when he should have Pettis very likely would have taken that fight. The lay off mixed w/ time, wear and tear and mentality change are all factors. Same w/ the top pick. If that fight happened 4 years prior it would have been super 1 sided in GSPs favor, but the count improved his game a lot over that period and it made for a very good fight.
Idk some dudes come back and the first fight looks like a struggle yet the subsequent fights look better. Others look just as good as always. I think it depends on the person, style, and training method.
Yeah ring that absolutely exists, but it can manifest for different reasons and does not affect everyone. The guy who narrated this video is just oversimplifying it and looking for counterexamples that suit his bias
Ring rust I'm not sure Rust in the ring however, is definitely possible, as Joe rogan can't in proximity of all the bags of ice spilled in smaller shows across the world. That is an issue we may have to address, in the future.
So video idea…. I just seen where Joe rogan said once dana white leaves the ufc he’s done commentating leads me to wonder…. What will the ufc future look like? Who will do the jobs of the ones we are used too.. Dana white, Joe rogan, Bruce buffer, etc… it’ll be a completely different aura then.
GSP choking out a former light heavyweight Bisping after 4 years out of the game. It is unprecedented. Unthinkable . GSP was so far above everyone,even after that much time there was still a gap.
Lmao calling him a former LHW is just GSP d***riding. Bisping is significantly smaller than every top guy at LHW. He is no more of a LHW than GSP is a MW.
@@forwardmoving8252 agreed but the size difference was very evident and calling GSP at that point much more ahead to the rest is BS as well considering Bisping was obviously not the best guy in that division
@@forwardmoving8252 Bisping did compete at Light-Heavyweight earlier in his career and had a reasonable amount of success. But he did move down to Middleweight because he was a tad undersized, especially against the wrestlers of the division.
