No Holds Barred: What Do They Know of the Combat Sports?

(Photo credit: Tom Hogan - Hoganphotos/Roc Nation Sports/Golden Boy Promotions)

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman discusses some of the issues around Saturday's unanimous decision victory by Canelo Alvarez over Miguel Cotto, the formation of the Pro Wrestling League in India which will air real wrestling matches on national TV there, how American wrestling needs more competent people to run it, why wrestling does not automatically teach positive values, how we can understand the role of the combat sports in society, and more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here and here. If one link doesn't work, please try another.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

You can also listen to No Holds Barred via Stitcher through iOS or Android devices or on the web, at http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/no-holds-barred-with-eddie-goldman.

The PodOmatic Podcast Player for iOS is available for free on the App Store.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

MMA World Expo. The mixed martial arts community comes to New York City December 12 and 13, 2015, for the sixth annual MMA World Expo, featuring submission-only grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, MMA fighters, seminars with world-class trainers, vendors, panel discussions, catch wrestling competition, and much more. The MMA World Expo takes place Saturday, December 12, and Sunday, December 13, 2015, at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

Defense Soap, an effective, deep penetrating body soap with natural antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial soap ingredients. Defense Soap is the best cleansing body soap for men and women athletes who are involved in contact sports such as MMA, wrestling, grappling, jiu-jitsu, and judo, to help their antifungal, anti-ringworm, anti-jock itch strategy. Check out their web site, at DefenseSoap.com.

Gracie Tournaments, featuring regional, national, and world competitions in submission-only Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. For more information, go to GracieWorlds.com.

The National Registry for Wrestling, whose mission is to increase wrestling's fanbase, to build a registry of all wrestling fans, to serve as a connecting point for all wrestling fans, and to provide TV and Internet listings for wrestling. For more information, go to NR4W.com.

No Holds Barred: Olympic Boxing Corruption, Teddy Riner Superstar, Combat Sports at London 2012 Olympics So Far

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman comments on some of the developments at the 2012 London Olympic regarding the combat sports after the first full week of competition.

Among the topics discussed are the latest Olympic boxing scandal involving the Satoshi Shimizu-Magomed Abdulhamidov fight whose verdict was overturned, the need for a World Anti-Corruption Agency for sport, Olympic heavyweight gold medalist judoka Teddy Riner of France as an international superstar, doping at the Olympics, the disgraceful Olympics coverage by NBC, the xenophobia and narrowness in American sport, amateur MMA and the Olympics, the role of social media, and much more.

You can play or download No Holds Barred here. You can also download No Holds Barred here. If one link does not work, please try another. The show is in MP3 format, so may take some time to download.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher.

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", by Ian Carpenter.

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship. ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com.

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American Top Team. Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com/.

Fight Is Fight

In the early 1990’s, when no-holds-barred fighting was beginning to take hold in America, a lot of the Americans including myself who were covering this sport were introduced to a generation of fearless fighters from Brazil, mostly trained in the Gracie style of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This new sport was rapidly breaking down international barriers, as well as misconceptions about what fighting was and was not, but one barrier that took a while to break down was language. While few Americans understood Portuguese, these Brazilians were learning or improving their English, although sometimes imperfectly.

One of the favorite sayings of many of the Brazilian fighters of that day was, “Fight is fight.” What this meant, besides a matter-of-fact attitude to whatever fight happened to be next, was that in whichever style they might be competing, it would still be a fight. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, of course, was just grappling in a gi. NHB, as we affectionately called it then, had very few rules, and allowed punching, kicking, submissions, wrestling, etc.

The fact remains that all these styles of combat sports are in essence forms of fighting. Whether emphasizing grappling or striking, or some combination of both, they are still a fight.

Today I leave for St. Louis to cover the 2008 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship, which runs Thursday, March 20, through Saturday, March 22. These days, not many people recognize a sport like college wrestling as a form of fighting. Still, it is not some type of analogy for fighting, as team or ball sports can be, but it is actually using some of the key techniques of real fighting. Just think about how many street fights go to the ground when one fighter takes the other one down, and you will understand that all these techniques are, and must be, used in unarmed combat.

All these combat sports have their own rules, restrictions, traditions, techniques, histories, and cultures. They remain, however, forms of fighting, using specified fighting techniques.

Most of the people around NHB in the early days were big boxing fans. Many people in the wrestling world have been, too. Boxing’s documented problems have driven many of them away like so many others. But at heart, they still like the fights.

Yet the cultural and political disconnect between the combat sports has hit boxing and wrestling, two sports with exceptionally parochial cultures, particularly hard. There is only minor crossover, for example, between the media of these two sports. As far as I know, I remain the only member of both the Boxing Writers Association of America and the National Wrestling Media Association, and have had this unusual distinction for years.

The style vs. style angle of the early NHB fights respected all styles, including boxing and wrestling. Virtually all of these fighters regularly trained in boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu. That is one reason for the mass appeal of modern mixed martial arts. That these sports, which utilize specific fighting techniques and at far higher levels than when they are used in some combination like mixed martial arts, have had trouble capitalizing upon the recent popularity of MMA, only reflects their basic shortcomings in marketing, promotion, and use of the media, especially the Internet.

These problems also result from their attitudes that their style is somehow the only legitimate form of combat sports. That makes it uncomfortable for the fans and aficionados of one of these sports to drop in on the others.

Can you be a purist in more than one or even all of these sports at once? Perhaps, if by “purist” you mean someone who cherishes and defends the highest level of integrity and technique in that sport, and not one who looks down upon or denigrates anything outside one little box.

So check out the NCAA wrestling, boxing people. The finals are live on ESPN Saturday night, March 22, with extended coverage of the earlier rounds on ESPNU Friday and Saturday. And when you do so, keep in mind that fight is fight.