In the World of Modern MMA, the Fat Man Is King

OK, so maybe he's not quite a king, but bear with me.

After a decade of watching mixed martial arts, certain truisms are becoming obvious even as the sport continues to evolve. In the early days, the styles of combat were more compartmentalized and scattered as the rules were more fluid (or virtually absent).

Now, the rules have condensed to a more-or-less uniform standard across the landscape.

An exotic strike may be legal in this organization and illegal in that, but the basics remain the same. Similarly, strictures placed on equipment may be tweaked, but you'll invariably see fundamental constants like lightweight gloves with open fingers to allow for grappling, some form of shorts, etc.

Finally, parameters governing the actual fights unfold comparably.

Contests are usually divided into sets of rounds in the neighborhood of five minutes with title bouts getting a couple extra frames in which to decide matters. Meanwhile, the action can universally be stopped via knockout, technical knockout, or some form of voluntary submission.

One consequence of this relative homogenization in the rulebooks has been a parallel phenomenon in the participants.

Gone are the days of seeing water-and-oil styles clashing for technique supremacy. For better or worse, we'll never see another Tank Abbott (pure brawler) or Royce Gracie (pure grappler).

These days, you better be well-versed in all three major facets of the game.

A spectacular single dimension such as striking can get you into the big leagues, but that's where the ride will end. You're gonna have to develop the other areas if you want to stick around and be a sincere player.

Consequently, the difference between winning and losing at the highest levels usually boils down to the subtleties—stuff like who has the better game plan, who sticks to said strategy, who makes that one tiny-but-fatal error, and so on. In other words, victory usually depends on who remains mentally composed and executes precisely.

All of this conspires to make excellent cardiovascular training one of the most crucial assets for elite fighters to boast.

You can't think if you can't get enough oxygen to the brain and most people can't fight if they can't think—Chris Leben versus Terry Martin notwithstanding.

Which brings me to the portly gentlemen toiling in the mixed martial arts' arena.

Obviously, carrying around a bunch of excess weight isn't an advantage for anyone. The best fighters will almost always be those with minimal body fat percentages.

However, not all lean bodies are created equal.

Having seen many Greek Gods descend from the heavens to try their hand in the ring or cage, I've become suspicious that excess muscle might be a worse idea than excess fat as far as achievement in the Octagon is concerned.

Logically, it seems to makes sense.

Granted, I'm no physiologist (not even sure if that's who would know), so these are wild-ass guesses; but I'm under the impression muscle requires oxygen even when not in use. My quads don't just turn off when I sit down, so my circulatory system must still deliver oxygenated blood to them despite the inactivity.

Contrarily, fat is simply fat; it just sits there. I'm sure it needs some oxygen to exist, but it can't possibly need as much as muscle, right? Mother Nature can't be that cruel, can she?

Nah, even I've got too much optimism for that.

Therefore, it seems to me that fat is a burden because it's dead weight and the body has to work harder than otherwise to maneuver. But that's true of extraneous big muscles as well. So, if I've got this right, fat is preferable to muscle you don't need because it doesn't compound the problem by simultaneously draining oxygen reserves to survive.

There seems to be some anecdotal evidence to back the "theory."

For aficionados of The Ultimate Fighter think Roy Nelson compared to Wes Shivers.

Big Country looks like he spends his downtime on a bar stool with a beer in one hand and a fistful of pork rinds in the other. Next to him, the ex-National Football Leaguer's Adonis physique makes for a stark contrast. Yet Shivers looked gassed after about two minutes and it only got worse on the way to a loss while Nelson had enough stamina to win his fight in the second round.

Mark it, Fat Guy one, Washboard Abs zero.

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Nelson's vanquished adversary, the improving Kevin Ferguson aka Kimbo Slice, would've decimated Roy in a body-building competition. However, his chiseled bulk wasn't much help against Big Country's bulbous belly (or Nelson's vastly superior ground game).

James Thompson could play Conan the Barbarian in the remake, but—when his blundering lack of skill didn't doom him—his propensity to suck wind usually did. James Irvin is wonderfully dangerous if you're in the market for lightning quick KOs, but stretch him out and he becomes pedestrian. The same can be said of Melvin Guillard.

Skeptics would point out that I've mentioned some seriously flawed names so it's pretty convenient to pick one that suits my argument and run with it. They'd be absolutely right.

Nevertheless, if you look around at the current UFC champions as well as other dominant fighters from the recent history of MMA, you'll notice they fit in nicely.

Guys like Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Georges St. Pierre, B.J. Penn, Fedor Emelianenko, Mauricio Rua, Quentin Jackson, Dan Henderson, Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, etc. aren't (or weren't) hulking bulges of muscle. They're all absurdly strong and a guy like GSP or Captain America could've been sculpted out of marble, but they still aren't the action-hero freaks that populate many of America's professional sports.

Even the UFC's closest approximation—Brock Lesnar—isn't rippling with fibers that look ready to burst. The dude is big, no doubt, but there's a utilitarian density to his mass that looks built for endurance.

Like I said, I've got no scientific methodology to back this up.

There's probably a really good chance I'm completely and utterly wrong about the oxygen and the muscle versus fat. The victorious doughboys might owe their comparative success to something else entirely, maybe the blubber content is just coincidence.

But that's no fun.

And, in today's skinny-obsessed world, the bigguns need all the love they can get.

So I'm throwing the parade, someone else will have to rain on it.

**www.pva.org**