Olympic Combat: Final Thoughts

**Matt W.** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 7:31am

Well, it's all over. Here' my thoughts for what it's worth.

Taekwondo: See my thread "Olympic TKD" for my thoughts on olympic TKD after watching the first couple matches. I have to say, though, that after watching as much of it as I could, I have changed my opinion. I did eventually see fights with speed, power and good technique. The two matches I saw with the Korean heavyweight were especially good (the KO!!!). And I'm left with the thought that sport TKD could be a great combat sport (that even develops real fight skills) without even changing the rules that make sport TKD unique. Here's 3 things I would do...

1. Score punches. If they just scored the punches that would solve so many of the problems. You don't even have to allow punches to the face, but just SCORE THE PUNCHES! That would encourage them to keep their hands up more (ready tp punch) and would help reduce the ridiculous "stand and do nothing" clinching that I saw.

2. Change the focus of sparring when it is taught. Teach it as practice fighting, instead of as a game of tag unrelated to fighting. Encourage fighters to try for knockouts and to use the power of their kicks to wear down their oponent in addition to scoring points.

3. Reduce the amount of protective equipment. It's ridiculous. If you're going to have the chest guards and headgear, leave it at that. If you're going to have pads on your hands feet and shins, get rid of the chest and head gear. Let there be a little more pain in it. Let them treat it a little more like real fighting. And reducing the amount of protective gear might also lead to more KOs.

Wrestling: Greco and Freestyle were easily the most exciting combat sports in the whole olympics. Greco had the high throws and slams, and Freestyle had really fast paced action with lots of takedowns. Very cool stuff. ...Not that I'm biased or anything. ;)

Judo: I was expecting sub-wrestling, just with more of a focus on throws and takedowns. What I got was jacket wrestling. Once I realized that, I enjoyed it.

Boxing: It was boxing. A bit "boxing-lite", but then it was amatuer competition so that was what I was expecting. The scoring sucked.

Fencing: Didn't watch it.

Over all I really enjoyed these olympics! It was great getting to see all those combat sport (wrestling, Judo, TKD) that never get shown on TV. Left me inspired to train harder.

**Ronin** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 7:39am

My 2 cents:
TKD can be better if they were more like Kyokushin, bring in low kicks, BUT, considering they use HEADGEAR in TKD, I see NO reason NOT to punch to the face.
Wrestling has the same probelm as judo, THE PIN !! I say get rid of the pin !!
Make victories about winning on points for throws and such and put the emphasise back on submissions.
Fencing, is and awlays will be a game of tag, NO WAY around that though.
Boxing: Smaller gloves OR no head gear, we need to bring back the KO in boxing, we need to give points for body shots.

**Matt W.** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 8:42am

Ronin, KK is of course, very cool. But I think TKD can be improved while still keeping it's unique rules. They want to leave out punches to the face so that the focus is on kicks? Fine. But that doesn't mean that they have to lose all realism.

As for the pin... Well, I've always like FOlkstyle pinning rules the best, but I don't have too much of a problem with pins. They rarely happen anyway. Most times they did win on points.

Boxing... The scoring needs to change. It also needs to be standard for amatuer boxing around the world.

**Osu** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 12:43pm

I thought judo was most fun to watch of the olympic MAs.
I think they should keep the pin because else they'll soon have no groundwork at all left. Even now there was very very little groundwork. Also, the refs are sometimes very annoying with their penalties for passive judo. Good to have it, but it sometimes determed the outcome of the match, which I feel is sad.

Wrestling was almost completely ignored here. I can receive 6 channels that gave coverage of the olympics, from Holland, England, Germany and an international one, but their was hardly any wrestling. The little wrestling that I did see was annoying IMO. Especially the folkstyle. I just saw a couple of guys leaning against eachother and according to the commentator they are not allowed to attack the legs of the opponent, nor attck with your own legs. Made me curious of what they WOULD do, but I never saw much action.

Tkd. What can I say... Made me laugh and cry. Arms down, jumping around, and after each contact yell, and raise fists to celibrate the "score", even if there was no score. Adult men were screaming like little bitches when they thought they hit the opponent in a pathetic attempt of influencing the judges. sad.

Boxing. Never seen this on the olympics in previous years. I was kind of disappointed when they showed up with headgear. No offence to amateur boxers, but I believe the best boxers go pro, so what does a gold medal say? It's not like you're the best boxer in the world if you have a gold medal.

Didn't see much fenching either. It did once again suprise me how thin their weapons are. I expected to see western kendo in the saber division, but it looked like "normal" fencing to me...

**TylerDurden** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 1:03pm

They need to lose those stupid chest protectors in TKD and let them punch. If I see one more TKD fighter with their hands at their hips I will slap them just to prove a point. But it will still suck, it will just suck a little less.

**wakinonioi** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 2:51pm

Originally posted by ronin69

Wrestling has the same probelm as judo, THE PIN !! I say get rid of the pin !!
.

:confused:

**wakinonioi** · Posted On: 8/30/2004 2:54pm

Originally posted by Osu

The little wrestling that I did see was annoying IMO. Especially the folkstyle. I just saw a couple of guys leaning against eachother and according to the commentator they are not allowed to attack the legs of the opponent, nor attck with your own legs. Made me curious of what they WOULD do, but I never saw much action.

...

That was greco.

You know what? American football is boring to a lot of people because they don't understand the game.

...

**Beneath Contempt** · Posted On: 8/31/2004 10:48am

I thought the boxing was pretty cool. The scoring system makes it accessible to those watching that know nothing about boxing, and that's the important bit, really.

I think they should alter the fencing so that the foils deliver mild electric shocks.

Judo is just Judo. What more is there to say that hasn't been said? The only thing I would do is make it more like Pride, and invite that annoying woman that screams when the fighters come on.

Wrestling only needs to change the uniforms. That's all.

Get rid of the beach volleyball finals and make the gold, silver and bronze positions decided by mud wrestling.

**Jolly_Roger** · Posted On: 8/31/2004 11:07am

Originally posted by Beneath Contempt

Get rid of the beach volleyball finals and make the gold, silver and bronze positions decided by mud wrestling.

Man, I love you.

**Left-Hook** · Posted On: 8/31/2004 9:29pm

I didn't even waste my time with watching the olympics, I know all I would be doing would be screaming at the boxers to jab, shouting at the judo guys to quite playing graby-ass and go for a kimura, and flat out hang myself when TKD came on.