MMA thoughts: "Sanchez Syndrome"

(Frustrated, I originally wrote this article on August 30, 2009 the morning after UFC 102 and now, 2 years later, my position in this article has been proven wrong.  Completely wrong.  I post it now because I think we all need a little humility and, quite frankly, having seen how Diego Sanchez, Demian Maia, and Rashad Evans have evolved their striking game I think they deserve a huge amount of respect.  If this article serves any purpose other than making me look foolish let it be to document their evolution as true MMA fighters.)




Hello Friends,
Another UFC has come and gone.  Another night of interesting battles and lackluster performances.  Oddly, the two most lackluster performances came from the two most highly touted grapplers on the card, Demian Maia and Rolles Gracie who stumbled around the ring like Brazilian Shreks.  By all accounts these fighters should have put on a grappling clinic, but they didn't.  In fact, neither fighter spent any real time on the ground during their matches and couldn't complete a takedown, instead choosing to engage in an amateur boxing match that made both fighters look ill-prepared, a little crazy, and made we fans question who the hell devised their gameplans?!  Unfortunately, we've seen this script play out too many times over the years.  Enough so that I've coined a phrase to describe it, "Sanchez Syndrome."

It usually happens like this:  You're a top-level wrestler/grappler and you've competed and won for years using your wrestling/grappling skills.  You win a couple/few MMA matches in smaller shows, destroying your opponents with superior wrestling/grappling technique, which earns you a shot in the UFC.  You come to the big show and win a couple matches as a wrestler/grappler and people start talking about you as the next title threat.  Then, either as a result of a crushing defeat at the hands of a striker or sheer foolish pride, the pressure to become "well rounded" sets in and you abandon your wrestling/grappling skills in pursuit of the skills you feel (or the press tells you) you lack.  In your next several fights you don't use any of your superior wrestling/grappling skills, instead you rely on your brand new, amateur-at-best, boxing techniques that you just picked up in the gym over the past few months.  You step into the cage with one gameplan, highlight your new skills at all costs, and maybe you get lucky and leg out a decision victory or land a looping punch.  Or maybe you get dominated and put to sleep.  Either way, it looks bad to fans and proves only one thing, that ego is perhaps a fighter's greatest opponent.

It's become rather frustrating to watch wrestlers/grapplers fall victim to "Sanchez Syndrome."  They come onto the scene with devastating ground-n-pound and/or submissions and dominate their first few matches.  Like Diego Sanchez you might even smash your way through the TUF house and win a 6-figure contract.  Then everybody starts calling you "one-dimensional" and you begin to question your own place in MMA.  Your confidence drops and in a desperate bid to keep you motivated your coaches start focusing solely on your boxing or you change camps for one that will teach you the standup game.  The mistake comes when the boxing classes replace wrestling/grappling practice and your coaches start calling you "striker" or "heavy hands" or "Ali."  You're not a standup fighter yet.  You're still a wrestler/grappler, but you and your camp have lost sight of that.  It took you 10, 15, 20 years to develop your wrestling/grappling skills and now with a few months of boxing classes you think yourself the next De La Hoya and step into the cage with no wrestling/grappling gameplan at all.  You paw around for 15 minutes and everybody sits there angrily yelling at their TV, "Take him down!"  But you don't because you have to prove to yourself that you can stand and bang in the UFC.  It's sad when it happens and infuriating to pay $45+ to watch.  At least in Rolles' fight we got to see him put out of his misery.

In the case of Demian Maia he got knocked the hell out by Marquardt a couple months ago.  I mean, dude was asleep before he landed on the canvas. It was like something out of the Three Stooges!  The grappler wanted to play kickboxer and he got caught.  Rather than going back to the gym and refocusing on his wrestling & grappling so he could come out and reclaim his much-deserved reputation as a "top-of-the-foodchain" grappler (borrowed that hyphenated adjective from the poet, Joe Rogan) he laces up the gloves and decides that his next fight is standup or nothing, dammit!  (using my best Brazilian accent) "I gonna knock his head off, brotha.  I gonna show da world I can do it, man.  Bow ah!"  It's a bunch of bullsh*t and not what I, a paying fan, should be forced to watch.  Work out your self-esteem issues in the gym or on your therapist's couch, not on my dime on my TV on my time.  When I pay to watch you fight I'm expecting you at your best, a dominant wrestler/grappler who is going to highlight those skills and perhaps sprinkle in a few other tasty tidbits of burgeoning skills.  That's what a professional fighter does.

MMA has and always (hopefully) will be about the evolution of fighting.  To abandon everything and start over mid-career is not an evolution, it's a shame.  In fact, I can't think of anybody who has successfully and completely reinvented every aspect of their game by abandoning the original skill set that got them there in the first place.  Champions polish their skills and carefully add new ones.  Look at GSP.

What I love about Randy Couture, besides him spanking Tito, his legendary cauliflower ears, and his hottie-turned-fighter wife, is that he is and always will be a wrestler.  Over the years he has added great boxing and jiu jitsu skills, but his gameplan is always built upon his wrestling foundation.  It's odd that in a sport contested by martial artists it's the greco-roman wrestler who so eloquently represents the most basic of martial arts principles, that all technique must be built upon a strong foundation.  Growing up in traditional martial arts schools I was always taught that my foundation was everything, that technique would grow upon a solid foundation.  In martial arts, much like in life, a strong foundation is key.  Randy Couture stands as testament to the heights that can be reached if one builds upon his foundation, adding and polishing new skills along his journey, rather than abandoning his foundation mid-career and attempting to start over again.

To Demian Maia, Rolles Gracie, Rashad Evans, Diego Sanchez, and all the others who would forsake their masterful ground prowess for standup skill (you know who you are) be proud of what you are, respect the fans who have supported you as a wrestler/grappler, add new skills slowly and allow them time to mature before incorporating them so heavily into your gameplan or relying on them entirely.  Evolve, don't abandon, and for Christ's sake stop wearing those damn Affliction T-shirts, you look retarded.

Yours in fighting,
Dan Greene

Ps - I struggled with the decision to include Rashad Evans on that list because we share a Muay Thai coach and he has proven himself a good striker, but he's become so captivated by his knockout ability that he too has become a lackluster wrestler/grappler.  Didn't he win the Heavyweight TUF title as a wrestler?!  Come on, Rashad!


(See how wrong I was?!  I guess I, too, have evolved over the last 2 years...)