Above: Jake Shields prepares for Saturday's fight against Dan Henderson.
Dan Henderson was laughable on the ground. There, I said it.
Dan Henderson, two-time olympian, (and not some bullshit Olympian like Herschel Walker) dominant two-division PRIDE champion, dude who wasn’t embarassed by Anderson Silva, was reduced to a pathetic has-been in many eyes by Jake Shields. Shields’ best offensive techniques have been passed down to him by a snuggie. Shields is the #1 contender for Jon Fitch’s cuddleweight championship pillow. I’ll let this sink in for a minute.
Many people would be quick to claim that Hendo’s wrestling is overrated, or that he was just physically outclassed, or that he puts too much faith in his ridiculously overpowered right hand. Seriously, that shit is OP, God needs to nerf that shit in the next patch. Not so, if you ask me. I think Dan has forgotten how to wrestle.
Last fall, The Sporting News’ dude-punching blog, The Rumble, had an interview with Jon Jones. In it, they asked Jones about how he felt his wrestling matched up to Matt Hamill’s. His response has had me thinking for a while.
People say how great of a wrestler Matt Hamill was, but he was a great wrestler a long time ago. You lose a lot of wrestling (over time.) The 2006 Jon Jones would beat the snot out of me in a wrestling match today. I’m a little more fresh out of the wrestling scene and he’s been out of it for a long time.
Now, I’m hardly a collegiate wrestling expert, but with my limited background in martial arts, I can certainly relate to what he’s saying, and recent performances by Hendo, Hamill, Matt Hughes, Mark Coleman, and, to a lesser extent, Rashad Evans have left me convinced that Jones may be on to something. We’ve all made countless criticisms towards fighters for “standing and banging” to try and become more popular fighters, at the expense of their chances of winning. We even give this condition a name: Gurgelitis. Now it appears there may be more to this than a simple desire for more money. Did Hughes and Renzo kickbox because they feared each other’s ground games, or because they didn’t trust their own? Does Rashad “shuck and jive” (fuck you if you use that term, by the way) because he trusts his boxing that much, or because he’s worried that his wrestling is slipping away? Did Coleman let himself get murdered by Couture because he’s an imbecile, or… because he’s an imbecile?
This brings up two questions to me: First, how the Goddamn fuck does Randy Couture wrestle the shit out of every motherfucker that doesn’t outweigh him by a hundred pounds? That bald-ass son of a bitch is older than Keith Richards. I didn’t even know you COULD be older than Keith. Second, what can fighters do to protect themselves from losing this major part of their skill set? Jones claims that he frequently goes back to his alma mater and wrestles with the wrestling team there to keep his skills sharp. Anybody know if this is common? If not, why the fuck are more guys not doing this? This seems like common sense to me. If you wanna sharpen your jits, go to a high-level BJJ teacher. If you wanna sharpen your boxing, go talk to Freddie Roach or another high-level boxing coach. Why not go to a local college and ask for help? It’s easy publicity for a sport sorely lacking in it.
I hope that guys like Henderson, Hamill and Hughes aren’t finished. I mean, shit, I’m wearing a shirt signed by Hamill as I write this. But unless something changes soon, these guys are gonna be mentioned in the past tense a lot more than as having any current relevance.
