MMA World Championships - Irish Team

IFS.NI

Hi guys,

I have been emailed by Andrew Brownbridge who is acting middle man for the World MMA Championships in Edinburgh from the 23rd of Oct to the 31st of October 2010.

The event is 1 week long and has K1, Thai and MMA World Championships under the WKA.

He has asked me did I know of guys who would be interested in representing Team Ireland in the MMA section.

Now I would like to make it clear from this point I am only making an initial post to spread the info and gather feedback to see if someone would like to get this together?

The competition will be for semi-pro fighters with 3 fighters in each weight catagory which are -

65kg
70kg
75kg
80kg
85kg
-90kg
90kg+


I would imagine this would run similar to the M1 Challenge.

On first glance it reads well with an excellent oppertunity for Irish fighters gaining experience against fighters world wide but the down side imo is the week long tournament which is going to cost people a week off work plus travel, food and accomadation. (perhaps sponsorship could be gathered for this if people were interested?)

Anyhow I am spreading the word and letting the irish mma community aware of it.

If someone would like to take up this oppertunity and can get together a rosta of fighters from a selection of clubs to represent Ireland let me know and I will pass the direct contact email for them to get a team sorted,

Thanks

Paul

phpmcl@yahoo.com

OLDMAN1

does anybody have a full set of the rules for this? just a suggestion, why not have a open competition to find out who are the best 3 semi pro fighters at each weight, theres your team...

IFS.NI

Hi,

Yes there is a full set of WKA rules.

Getting fighters in general probably wouldnt be the problem, getting fighters who can take a week off work would

r_obric

whats WKA?

roo1981

I'd hazard a guess at World Kickboxing Association?

Francis Galvin

i've someone who might be interested in trying out for a -65kg spot

how is the team going to be chosen or any qualification criteria?

thanks

IFS.NI

Team selection would be down to the team leader and picked from guys who are available I would guess.

Sure we could fill the team with great semi pro fighters on paper but how many are going to be available to take the time off? Because of this I would hazard a guess that it will be picked from the guys who come forward as available?

OLDMAN1

IFS.NI wrote: »

Team selection would be down to the team leader and picked from guys who are available I would guess.

Sure we could fill the team with great semi pro fighters on paper but how many are going to be available to take the time off? Because of this I would hazard a guess that it will be picked from the guys who come forward as available?

i really hate hearing things like that, a irish team should be picked by open competition or its not a irish team, i understand availability can be a problem but if someone is not available to go in october dont enter the selection competition or if they find out afterwards that they cant compete then the next guy inline goes...

DeVore

That sounds reasonable but is it practical? Its not like a chess championship where you can play game after game.... so even if you have a knockout system, a fighter will have to fight 4,5, maybe 6 fights before a "champ" is crowned and selected to go, no?

Dont want to be negative, it sounds awesome but it presents some serious difficulties in selection...

DeV.

Clive

WKA RULES AMATEUR 2010

there have been made some changes in WKA rulebook. You can find up-dated version of WKA amateur official rulebook 2010 which will be apllied on WKA Worldchampionship 2010 on following web page: www.worldkickboxing.com. WKA HQ would like to apologize for delay with publishing up-dated version of WKA rulebook 2010.

These are the main changes which have been made for 2010:

General part:

1. page 6 – professional defenition:

Professional is competitor who is under a professional contract and simultaneously earns more than 100.000,-EUR per year by pro-fights.

So presumably everyone under 100k from fights (which includes a vast number of UFC fighters) falls under semi-pro? Madness. This kind of thing leads to people being fed to the dogs chasing ghost "world titles" that mean nothing.

Anyone who is semi-pro shouldn't even be thinking about international competition - why would any coach put a fighter into an event where they have to spend a week there and pay their own way? There are plenty of shows in Ireland alone that will pay semi-pros a small honourarium at least as a token of respect, along with matching fights fairly, using recognised rules and weights etc.

cowzerp

Clive wrote: »

So presumably everyone under 100k from fights (which includes a vast number of UFC fighters) falls under semi-pro? Madness.

read again Clive, there is a decimal point after 100.000, so over 100 euro is what there saying.

Clive

There's three zeros after the decimal point which means they're using it to seperate thousands. Lots of countries use it rather than a comma.

DeVore

yeah I was confused by that too.... on the continent they use . to separate thousands. But the organisation is based in the UK it seems and 100k frankly seems unobtainable in kickboxing.

Very confusing.

DeV.

cowzerp

I'm pretty sure it's not 100k, if it is that's just ridiculous-most UFC fighters don't make 100k a year from fighting..

OLDMAN1

Clive wrote: »

So presumably everyone under 100k from fights (which includes a vast number of UFC fighters) falls under semi-pro? Madness. This kind of thing leads to people being fed to the dogs chasing ghost "world titles" that mean nothing.

Anyone who is semi-pro shouldn't even be thinking about international competition - why would any coach put a fighter into an event where they have to spend a week there and pay their own way? There are plenty of shows in Ireland alone that will pay semi-pros a small honourarium at least as a token of respect, along with matching fights fairly, using recognised rules and weights etc.

The WKA has been around for a long ,long time and to say that there titles are ghost and that they mean nothing is wrong and unfair, the UFC is for pro fighters and thats great, but it has to be remembered the vast amount of people that get involved in combat sports will never fight at pro level, and thats fine, there is nothing wrong with being a amatuer and repesenting your country any ANY level...

IFS.NI

Other than being contacted to let the Irish MMA community know about this I have nothing to do with the organising of this event.


If this had of been a weekend I would have put guys forward for it, they would snap my arm off for the experience however asking them to take a week off work is too much to ask.


For this reason IFS are unfortunately out.


Saying that if there were guys off at that time or willing to take time off there are things you could probably get for representing your country -

1 - Sponsorship, The event is in Scotland and not China, it is relatively cheap to get to lol. I am sure the organisers will have some kind of cheap hostel or B&B set up for all the teams.


Anyhow if anyone wants to take it on let me know asap and I will forward the details

IFS.NI

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

The WKA has been around for a long ,long time and to say that there titles are ghost and that they mean nothing is wrong and unfair, the UFC is for pro fighters and thats great, but it has to be remembered the vast amount of people that get involved in combat sports will never fight at pro level, and thats fine, there is nothing wrong with being a amatuer and repesenting your country any ANY level...

I agree with this, any chance of getting experience fighting guys from all around the world is one hell of a good thing - as long as the rules/standards are all cosher, wether its set up by WKA or NASA is irrelevant imo.

cowzerp

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

The WKA has been around for a long ,long time and to say that there titles are ghost and that they mean nothing is wrong and unfair,...

Yeah doing Kickboxing, MMA wise there not around a long time and to be straight out, no 1 cares for them.. just another organisation putting on shows..

OLDMAN1

cowzerp wrote: »

Yeah doing Kickboxing, MMA wise there not around a long time and to be straight out, no 1 cares for them.. just another organisation putting on shows..

thats a fair point, but as IFS.NI said its the rules and standards that are important, not really who is running it, although i would say that the WKA would probley do a good job at it,getting international experience can only be good thing for fighters and by the way i have nothing to do with the WKA and have never held one of there titles...

_oveless

Shouldn't some sort of tryouts be set up to select a team? Also taking a week's holidays shouldn't be too difficult as long as they give their jobs plenty of notice.

cowzerp

_oveless wrote: »

Shouldn't some sort of tryouts be set up to select a team? Also taking a week's holidays shouldn't be too difficult as long as they give their jobs plenty of notice.

It will be hard enough to get people to give up there time at all, especially when in reality there paying to fight, if there accomadation and flights where sorted i'd say some would jump at it but with the amount of shows over here fighters can easily get on shows if they want fights,

So for that reason try outs would be a bit optimistic, in saying that if the demand was there then that would be the way to go, even if it was just a spar to see who was more suitable.

DeVore

I've been biting my tongue because I dont want to be that "I told you so" guy. I hate that guy. But wouldnt a national organisation be the answer to this? Both in selection and also approaching sponsors as a recognised and singular entity?



Really. I'm not that guy. I'm just sayin' :^/

DeV

OLDMAN1

cowzerp wrote: »

Yeah doing Kickboxing, MMA wise there not around a long time and to be straight out, no 1 cares for them.. just another organisation putting on shows..

DeVore wrote: »

I've been biting my tongue because I dont want to be that "I told you so" guy. I hate that guy. But wouldnt a national organisation be the answer to this? Both in selection and also approaching sponsors as a recognised and singular entity?



Really. I'm not that guy. I'm just sayin' :^/

DeV

YOU are that guy but you are also right...

_oveless

DeVore wrote: »

I've been biting my tongue because I dont want to be that "I told you so" guy. I hate that guy. But wouldnt a national organisation be the answer to this? Both in selection and also approaching sponsors as a recognised and singular entity?



Really. I'm not that guy. I'm just sayin' :^/

DeV

No the organizers of the event should set it up, as it stands they're leaving it all in the hands of the fighters and coaches to do the legwork with no criteria on selection or local support.

Sid_Justice

MMA just doesn't really suit team based competitions. The IFL attempted it and so far M1-global is currently doing a good job but at the end of the day, the tournament style of Pride and UFC with no team set up works best.

The idea of having all the non-Pro fighters fight out for spots on the team is great but again just doesn't suit the MMA concept. Trying to get 6/8 guys fit and ready for the same night or group of nights to have a tournament in the first place will be tough.

And finally, just because you win that tournament etc. it doesn't necessarily mean you're the best person to go on team. In MMA style counts for a lot, obviously really quality and well rounded perseveres regardless but potentially the guy who loses in the first round of the Irish tournament could match up much favorably to a guy from the UK etc.

These kind of amateur tournaments are suited to amateur martial arts where the stakes aren't as high. Does anyone really care who the best semi-pro fighter is at 77kg? Semi-pro is just a stepping stone to Pro I don't think anyone should aim to carve out a name for themselves as an amateur. This isn't boxing.

Mrs Lynch

Dream dream dream imo:(

Paul love the idea but look what it caused in the forum and we really havent heard from most important guys which would be the coaches (personally I dont think you will be hearing from many though!!!)

Like setting up the (wait for it......) governing body there may just be too many chiefs and not enough indians:eek: Team selection, training, coaches, sponsorship, loss of earnings etc etc Current finances for people are extremely tight for a lot of people and at the end of the day how will it benefit them

I'd love to see Irish Fight Team (Jez plenty of Yanks use our name :mad:) and how proud would it be to have a "real" one :cool:

Anyway I hope you the best, love the idea but in theory unless you get serious backing from majority coaches (and finances) I think it goes in the drawer with "governing body" - sorry this is just my opinion, maybe down the line when Irish fighters can get more local (and serious) sponsorship;)

Urs
x

Tim_Murphy

Hi guys,

I competed in 3 WKA World Championships back in what seems like another life time at this stage. They were big, generally well enough run, competitions. They run full contact divisions as well as semi and light contact kickboxing so there is no reason really why they couldn't run semi-pro MMA divisions either I suppose. I reckon it would probably be good fun to do.

As for governing bodies, no don't need really one for these events. When I competed in them the trials were organised over one day by the Bushido guys in Palmerstown, the top 3 from each division qualified. They called themselves the Irish Amateur Kickboxing Association they weren't an assocation in any real sense as far as I could tell, all they did really was organise the trials. Nowadays the Light Contact (continious) is organised by the IUTF (Patricia Dalton in particular I think) and that would be a similar deal.

Competing in this would probably be a good experience for some up and comers, whether it would be worth the expense or not is of course another question.

kid chaos

can just 1 weight class travel over or does 3 from each weight HAVE to show up?