My first amateur beatdown!

**murderethic** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 9:17am

ok. This is my first amateur fight. It sucks. I know this. I have excuses, but they all boil down to the same thing: I sucked.

I'm ok with that. I'm going to get better. Or I'm going to die trying.

I would love some feedback on this match, as long as it is something more than: "stop sucking"

Match details: we are both 200lbs. I don't see how, but they swore he was 200 lbs. He is 6'0 and i'm about 5'10. both 29. both having our amateur debut.

Things that I know I need work on:

My hands: wtf? I've never had so much trouble keeping my hands up. Even during kicking. and why do my shoulders roll up like that now?

My movement: not enough movement, I didnt set up any approach angles, and definitely didn't get out of the way enough.

Follow up: combo? whats a combo?

I haven't been rocked that hard before, and it seems to have driven a lot of my ability to fight out of my head. I see a little panic in the video that I didn't actually feel during the fight. My body is betraying me.

side note:
Any advice out there for toughening up the skin on my face? It seems that I cut fairly easy. The last left (not the one where Im kneeling) cut me open pretty good on the brow. I just gave up when I saw the blood cuz I knew they were gonna stop it either way. I should have waited for the doc to stop the fight, but i was demoralized.

Sorry for the crap quality, cheap cameras ftl!

<embed src="YouTube - My first amateur beatdown type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed>

**Grappler** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 10:08am

I saw lots of aggressive arm and leg flailing and little skill from both fighters. It was several months too early for you to start competing, IMO. Are you impatient, stupid or both? If your opponent was skilled - you could have ended up in the hospital for months. As far as striking goes - you just need to learn how to strike. Start with the basics of MT, Boxing, or both. That is the best advice anyone can give you in your situation.
As far as tactics go... How's your ground game? You were getting beat up on your feet, taking a lot of damage. Or at least more than your opponent. To me it would be common sense to take the opponent down and try to submit him, or at least to just hold him there. If he is under sidemount, he is not going to do a lot of damage to you. However, although you took the guy to the ground once, you never really followed up. You've shown you can take him down, so just keep on doing it until you get to sidemount or mount. Some guardpassing skills would obvously help you... Take some BJJ classes.
Alright, you've shown courage under pressure, keep on training and good luck!
P.S.
Train smart and fight smart. Don't fight again until you are ready - there is no point.

**Yohan** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 10:46am

Yeah you weren't ready. You didn't have the technical skills, and you weren't prepared for the pressure. Not like I know anything, I've never fought, but you could start by moving back when people start throwing punches. Do you train?

**anza** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 11:06am

Well, you had courage to get up there and give it a go. Kudos for that.

Your opponent seems aggressive and a little cocky. You're smaller and you're sure you weigh less, so why not make him work to get to you? Wear him out a little. Make him mad. Looks like he'd be provoked easily. Makes it harder to concentrate when you're mad ... (then again, making a bigger guy mad at you might just backfire :))

**hoodedmonk** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 11:21am

Hey I thought ya did alright! It did look like you're nerves may have gotten the better of you. You're opponent had a bad habit of dropping his hands a lot while throwing punches. You should have made him pay with a counter rh.

**Sang** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 12:32pm

Just out of interest (fighting my first fight soon), how long have you trained for and how many days a week?

**Happy Panda** · Posted On: 7/30/2008 5:11pm

You sound pretty positive about the whole thing, which is good. You know approximately what you're up against now, so you have something to aim for when you're in the gym. Stuff to work on:

The most specific thing I noticed was that you were leading with your kicks a lot, and you were getting drilled for it consistently. That's what finished you in the 2nd round too. Lead with the jab instead to set up those kicks.

I don't know anything about the way you spar, but a general thing I notice is that in sparring (especially lighter sparring) some people will use the 16oz gloves as sort of a wall to stop punches. It doesn't work very well with 4oz gloves, especially when someone's trying to knock you out. Stay conscious of that fact, and make sure you're using head movement, footwork, and parries to defend yourself, not the gloves. Like I said, I don't know if this applies to you, just a general tip.

The strength difference was obviously a huge factor. You absolutely cannot come into a fight with extra weight on you. Most people in the amateurs don't have the technique and experience to balance out a strength disadvantage, so it's even more crucial in lower levels of competition I think. Spend some time with the weights and drop to 185 next time, that'll improve your chances dramatically.

By the way...damn. You took some serious shots. Props for lasting past the first round.

**murderethic** · Posted On: 7/31/2008 1:41am

Originally Posted by Grappler

I saw lots of aggressive arm and leg flailing and little skill from both fighters. It was several months too early for you to start competing, IMO. Are you impatient, stupid or both? If your opponent was skilled - you could have ended up in the hospital for months. As far as striking goes - you just need to learn how to strike. Start with the basics of MT, Boxing, or both. That is the best advice anyone can give you in your situation.
As far as tactics go... How's your ground game? You were getting beat up on your feet, taking a lot of damage. Or at least more than your opponent. To me it would be common sense to take the opponent down and try to submit him, or at least to just hold him there. If he is under sidemount, he is not going to do a lot of damage to you. However, although you took the guy to the ground once, you never really followed up. You've shown you can take him down, so just keep on doing it until you get to sidemount or mount. Some guardpassing skills would obvously help you... Take some BJJ classes.
Alright, you've shown courage under pressure, keep on training and good luck!
P.S.
Train smart and fight smart. Don't fight again until you are ready - there is no point.

I agree and disagree. As far as I am aware, amateur means:

1 : devotee, admirer
2 : one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession
3 : one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science

So I can't really complain about my apparent lack of skill, as I am by definition, an amateur. Hospitals don't worry me much. Besides, the promoter had health and life insurance. I was worth a whole $5000.00 that night. :)

Am I impatient? At times. I promised myself that I would fight if I dropped below heavyweight. I dropped 50 lbs. I signed up to fight, and in a week had one scheduled. Am I stupid? If I was stupid I couldn't very well be expected to answer that question with any sort of acuity.

Was fighting blind a good idea? Not in hindsight. Little did I know I would be matched up against a shaved gorilla. (no disrespect meant to my opponent) And since I had agreed to the match, if I backed out I would have had my license suspended the same day it was issued. I tried to make the best out of the situation.

My ground game is coming along, I'm currently studying catch wrestling and basic jj. I have a small arsenal of submissions that I'm comfortable using from in and out of guard, halfguard, sidemount, scarf hold. north/south, and in mount. I've actually been training ground a lot more than striking lately, and I think that hampered me more than I expected. My takedowns were MIA against someone that much larger though.

I plan on healing up properly and getting a better match next time, but that is months away.

**murderethic** · Posted On: 7/31/2008 1:46am

Originally Posted by hoodedmonk

Hey I thought ya did alright! It did look like you're nerves may have gotten the better of you. You're opponent had a bad habit of dropping his hands a lot while throwing punches. You should have made him pay with a counter rh.

Thanks. I definitely got rocked too hard too soon for my taste. Tunnel vision kicked in and I had some issues fighting intelligently. He does seem to swing from the waist a lot. Wish I had noticed that during the fight.

I've got a huge list of shoulda, woulda, coulda's everytime I watch that fight.

**murderethic** · Posted On: 7/31/2008 1:56am

Originally Posted by Sang

Just out of interest (fighting my first fight soon), how long have you trained for and how many days a week?

Train? for this fight? Umm. I didn't really. Can ya tell?! lol

Honestly I work full-time, around 60 hours a week or more, on a 3rd shift schedule. I only get to roll for a few hours each weekend, and I have about an hour and a half a day I get to work out. I rest on Saturday.

The last time I sparred was...... march? yeah. march 31st. I'll see if I can post some vids of that sometime, as I didn't look so weak.

As far as my background goes I wont go into that here... you can search the forums for all 2 of my threads and find my intro post in newbietown for that :D

Good luck on that fight!