oops,, haha

I never understood the appeal of wrestling.

You know Jim, that kid had ample opportunity to go for a flying triangle choke/flying armbar when Kurt had his arms up high. Furthermore, if it were an MMA fight Daniel Puder would’ve palm clinched his ass and brought the knees.

Guess I don’t see the point in comparing WWE wrestlers with real fighters.  That point is kind of silly.

Your comparisons with Angle are more important, but not surprising in any way.  It’s a completely different sport.  That’s like comparing a US football player with an Australian rules football player.  Depending on which rules you went with, one would be out of their element.

If Kurt were wrestling to a pin, I bet he would have won handily because that’s what his training is in.

I haven’t seen the video (taking forever to download) but there are a lot of rules in Greco-Roman wrestling that would hinder an MMA fighter.  By going outside of those rules you are going outside of Angle’s training so it’s little surprise he would have lost.

If you want a more realistic comparison, look to Dan Severn. The guy was an excellent Greco-Roman wrestler.  When he got into UFC he was good, but not the greatest.  This was simply because he was used to his Greco-Roman training.  But you can see from year to year and fight to fight how much better he got once he learned the nuances of UFC-style fighting.  And he was one of the best UFC fighters of all time.

You have to compare apples to apples.

LD, while you have a valid point, my comparison here was more on the faux-tough guy feelings these wrestlers develp.  Ask ‘em, they’ll be glad to tell you how great they are at real fighting.  ;)

They don’t understand the difference between being tough as it pertains to working with imjury and tough as it pertains to actually defeating a guy who intends to do you harm.  Angle is probably the most highly skilled grappler in the business, and Puder embarrassed him.

Imagine what Randy Couture could do.  Or even Tito.

Anyway, I agree with most of what you said...I just really thought this was funny because it points out how little skill the best of the best have in real fighting techniques.  But if you have ever met a pro wrestler and heard them talk for a few minutes, you’d think they were the Gracie family and the Marine Corps all rolled into one. :)

I am a huge Bruce Lee fan and this falls into his line of thinking.  Things like Greco-Roman wrestling aren’t fighting techniques.  They are too traditional, too rigid, they can’t adapt.

UFC-style fighting doesn’t have traditional rules.  Gracie jiu jitsu doesn’t have traditional rules.  They have room for and encourage creativity, adaptability.

While a traditional wrestler would kick the crap out of a normal person, a trained UFC-style fighter would likely kick the crap out of a wrestler.  When i used to watch UFC a lot in college we always got excited for the matches with traditional wrestlers because they were always over-confident then got their ass handed to them.