TKD is very dangerous in a street fight...to the user. The LAST thing you want to do in a street fight is kick high. It's about as useful as ballet. Really. (I have what's known as bodan in TKD red/black belt). Great exercise though.
Silva is freaken deadly but sometimes it's could be style vs. style, he might have trouble getting closed to guys like Le or Machida because of their ability to keep opponents at a distance, he might get his arm broken by a kick like the fight between Le vs Frank Shamrock in EliteXC championship, even Silva personally personally requested this fight so I think it going to be fun and exciting no matter what happens.
Funny thread. 1. Most traditional masters are not fighters - they are messengers passing down the arts, period. They think they know how to fight, but they do not unless they were taught specifically to do so. Most are not from direct lineage thus they learned the usage part from direct or indirect guess works. Parallel - there are tons of books and seminars out there, that can open your mind, but it all comes down to you to find the stuff that fits yourself. 2. Fighter training involves 3 extra things - pain tolerence, reflex moves in actual combat, endurance against maximum countering forces. These things help you survive. A side note - those masters (#1) who also trained in sparrings can sometimes figure out part of the real usage of their arts. Parallel - Your risk management is the key in real trading so that you can SURVIVE. 3. UFC fightings are close to real fights, but not quite. You are not allowed to a. intentionally break a weak joint like fingers, b. destroy the eyes, c. direct impact on neck or groin area, d. shout at ears to destroy the hearing, e. bite. All 5 are the KEY elements to beating someone with more brute force than you do. The weak one can beat the stronger one if and only if all of these are allowed. i.e. On any day, if the rule says someone is allowed to sniper a super fighter from 100 miles away, that person wins every time. Parallel - The big guys with tons of $ behind them, making them so strong they can take hits again and again. For a beginner or a trader with limited capital and resources, find and learn the forbidden thing, your edge Have a nice day.
A very short story. Some martial art dude and friend got hold up in a back alley by several thrugs. The martial art dude punched directly into the mouth on one of the thrugs. Broke his jaw and teeth threw away. The martial art dude got cut on his fist and died from infection a month later.
I trained martial arts for close to 20 years, and half of that time as an instructor. I have been through Judo, Sambo, Tae Kwon-Do, Kickboxing, Hapkido and some other variants (like full-contact Tai Chi of all things, hehe). Here's my take... Top MMA practitioners like Sebastiaan Rutten and Anderson Silva have black belts in Tae Kwon-Do... so one could think that they are McDojo - only evolved... but, take Lyoto Machida - unbeaten and very smart with a mix of BJJ and traditional Karate... Also the number one icon of MMA - Fedor Emelianeko - a combat Sambo practitioner, and that's all he does - no other styles. So, my experience training as well as going through many instruction courses and personally knowing some MMA fighters - e.g Gleison Tibau who lost to Joe Stevenson at UFC 86 - is that... it is all about the person who fights - not their "style". So many people have all kind of distractions on their mind when going to fight, as well as not having the proper mindset. Any decent martial artist from any style - except stuff like Tae Boe - can potentially kick your ass. I have friends who are powerlifters - from my home town, and some of them are European champions, world champions and regional champions; and a training partner of mine from Tae Kwon-Do is now a world strong man competitor as well. TKD is efficient at longer distance to medium distance, and useless up close. Judo, Sambo, BJJ, wrestling is great up close. Boxing is great at short distance, Kickboxing at short and medium distance. For someone who knows how to use techniques and have the right mindset - they can be efficient against normal people, even other martial artists. When I worked as a bouncer, I had to disarm a crazy guest drawing a gun to shoot the police - and in situations like that you better know how to be street smart than anything else. Being able to effectively communicate with people is way better than knowing how to punch their lights out... MMA is different than a street situation, primarily because you don't fight naked with other guys - unless you really are in a shit load of trouble, with YOU being the winner's prize... It IS all about the persons - not their styles... If trading needs some changes - it is in the lack of transparency, honesty of the systems - lending to corruption. Any trade should be flagged as long or short position, as well as having the complete instrument log/position and id of the trader. The most effective self defence is also one of the most used and popular - running as hell! It beats any "style" hands down...
there are people walking around with oral hygiene so bad, that, that in itself is a great defense against an opponent striking the mouth. I have delt with people that I would never dare punch them in the mouth for the exact same reason. I think this style of defense is called "mouth of komodo dragon"
I think kicks can be very affective, the weakness of Karate and TKD were that they don't train in full contacts to really fine tune their techniques; a side kick to the rib, groin, or the knee can bring an opponent down just as good. Although kicks are fine in Karate and TKD I think punching and blocking are something else, they are horribly bad, it's so rigid that it can only be good for kata.
My take on this is that each TKD club is different, and WTF are more woossies than ITF. Where I ran my club, we did full contact - and we also used elbow strikes extensively - and this was even before the 1990s... Then at university I instructed semi-full contact classes for a WTF club. There are e.g some kicks that are "impossible" to block, but which are quite slow to execute - like spinning heel kick and the backward kick ("horse kick") - and these are pretty devastating kicks if they hit. If you have the height and speed - a side kick Yop Chagi is pretty bad to take in the face. Most MMA pro fighters have dreadfully bad kicks, and mostly do the Muay Thai kicks to the thighs. Joe Rogan also pointed out how there is still a good ways to go in the kicking department for MMA fighters. Mirko Crocop Filipovic had a simple strategy akin to Bas Rutten to go for the liver...
The dirty boxing and unorthodox boxing is what makes MMA so different from pro boxing. Pro boxing is much more dangerous as a sport than MMA because of the repeatedly and long-wound strikes to the head. I know several now retired competing boxers who absolutely hate boxing and the damage it does to your brain. Chuck Liddell is primarily a counter boxer, and he got knocked out cold by an overhand right from Sugar Rashad Evans in UFC88. The thing is that they have to deploy a very different defense than pro boxers because of the varied techniques of MMA. Therefore the monkey boxing defense is so popular as well.