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Is GNP KO power the same as standing?

3K views 33 replies 18 participants last post by  No_Mercy 
#1 ·
For instance, people like to say jon lacks ko power.
But on the other side they say his gnp is the best and literally breaks people (see vera).

I personally see no difference, a knock-out is a knock-out no matter by which way. I think it's kinda a insult to elite wrestlers who prefer to knock their opponent out somewhere they feel more comftable. Your crazy if you think guys like munoz,jones,velasquez have less chance to stop their opponent by ko or punches then a guy like barry who goes into survive mode if he cant keep it standing.

what do you guys think?
 
#2 ·
It's all about the range of motion and the ability to generate power. Take a look at Sonnen, he drops a ton of little bombs on his opponents because he stays in full guard and doesn't try to posture up. Now look at JBJ, specifically his arm length. Because of the length of his arms when he does posture up and drops the elbow it is very similar to the way he caught Rashad.

So yes it is the same for the most part, it is just about the amount of space you have to throw you punches and elbows in and the angles you can throw them at.
 
#8 ·
I think no one punches the same way, a guy like hendo throws wild haymakers using his whole body.

While a guy like shogun likes to throw it all from the upperbody usually, except for his stepping hook of course:



And in the same way there are different kind of standing punches there is a variaty of gnp tactics.

And as everybody knows: Wrestlers beat strikers 7 our of 10 times.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I'd say it's 50% genetics and 50% technique, on average. You have guys like Hendo, Jackson, Shogun, Penn (p4p), Condit, and Silva who are guys who hit hard as hell standing and although less frequently, can blast people from the open guard with pretty much the same success.

Then you have guys like Tito Ortiz, Matt Hughes, and Rory MacDonald who can/could really mess people up in a short period on the ground but arn't quite as dangerous (yet for Rory) on the feet with pure punch power.

Then you have guys like Sonnen, Fitch, Sheilds who for some reason are very skilled in what they do but cannot deliver the same amount of damage as the above.

I think a guy like Ortiz had so much success because he had smaller legs but the upper body of a heavyweight; and he thoroughly developed his gnp technique from the guard.

I think a guys like Jackson/Hendo fall into the category of just being genetically blessed with lead in their fists.

I think a guy like Jake Sheilds, although very talented, partially chooses not to fight this way stylistically and partially just didn't have the genetics to really mess guys up from the guard.
 
#10 ·
You've also got to consider that if a fighter already has his head on the mat, it's got nowhere to go when it gets hit; less energy dissipation. It may also cause more damage if it's an inch or three off the mat, as you'll have the impact of the fist > impact of the head snapping off the mat.

Just some more food for thought.
 
#11 ·
Nice points. It's a good question (OT) but a difficult one to answer. This is a great physical approach where as mines a little more philisophical.

I'm still awaiting a mathematical take on it lol
 
#14 ·
Also worth considering, is that your opponents forward momentum can play to your advantage when standing. If you have your timing and footwork down, you get freaky power from punches. eg. Silva vs Forrest/Okami. If your opponent is on the mat, there is never any forward momentum. I really don't see how these punches can generate the power of solid, well timed strikes from standing position.

Hendo packs a lot of power in his GnP. He would pack even more power in a quality straight right. Except he doesn't have one.
 
#17 ·
I think when it comes to GNP power is more important, but standing is more technique oriented. How many times have you seen a glancing blow land in the right place and put somebody out.

I do however totally agree with Wooden when he/she says

'You've also got to consider that if a fighter already has his head on the mat, it's got nowhere to go when it gets hit; less energy dissipation. It may also cause more damage if it's an inch or three off the mat, as you'll have the impact of the fist > impact of the head snapping off the mat.'

:thumb02:

As I was thinking how I would word this point when I was lurking earlier.
 
#20 ·
It is in the sense that heavy hands is a real thing, some people are heavy handed and a well placed but semi-powerful strike is all that's needed to wobble you. Anderson Silva and Shogun Rua are two examples of heavy hands coupled with good technique. After using their technique to drop an opponent, their natural power is on full display when they KO their opponent on the ground with short, easy punches.

Of course their opponent is already wobbled, but so often we see guys get dropped then recover under a barrage of punches. Rarely do fighters survive once dropped by either of these two, because during frenzied GnP where technique is not priority, their raw power is enough to stop the fight.

Chael Sonnen is a classic soft puncher who'd be nothing without technique. He dropped Anderson Silva not with power, but timing. His strikes on the ground rarely finish opponents, but were it not for his ground technique, he wouldn't have the chance to strike anyway.

So I'd say yes, a powerful puncher will hit hard from any position, if Mike Tyson fought in MMA he'd have nasty GnP. People not blessed with power can strike hard standing by using the rest of their body correctly, but on the ground their strikes will simply not be as deadly. There are of course techniques to hit harder on the ground, but natural power is more pronounced there.
 
#21 ·
There is one essential thing that was not taken into account. You don't need a lot of force to knock a person out if you are hitting them in the right spot. To speak simply there is a nerve that runs behind the jaw, if you push the jaw into it, the person will go out. You can't take a lot of shots to the chin no matter who you are, but the face/temple/forehead some people can take KO punches all day. A good example of this is mark hunt vs melvin manhoef. Hunt has probably the best chin ever in mma history, but he got shut off by a middle weight because of how he got hit.

As you were saying this position is very advantageous to the man on top because the guy on bottom cannot generate a decent strike while the guy on top can. It also severely limits the ability of the guy on bottom to dodge a punch, hes pretty much stuck trying to block or slow down the incoming shots. The problem with moving on bottom is that if you let the guy on top get room to posture up his punches are going to have twice as much behind them.
 
#22 ·
Punching straight downwards would make a punch more powerful. If you have gravity on your side that's a factor of 9,81 m*s^-2. I don't know if that means that a straight downward punch would generate 10 times more force than a straight punch though, I was always bad at physics. All I know for sure is when a car hits you with 10km/h it won't hurt as much as when a car is falling on you with 10km/h.
 
#24 ·
Absolutely. I've knocked guys out before and I will never have the potential to hit anywhere near as hard as jones.

The only reason a person would consider this question is because he is fighting some of the best fighters in the world. If jon was to fight 5 normal guys at once, he'd knock 5 guys out cold and it would take probably 30 seconds or less.
 
#27 ·
It doesn't have so much to do with the person throwing the punch. When standing if you get hit your head snaps and you recover. When you're on your back, your head just hits the mat. Guys who lay their head flat on the mat get KOd all the time by short shots because their head doesn't move to disparate the blow.

So basically, a punch with the same amount of power hitting someone on the ground will do more damage than hitting them standing.

Have you ever done just sparring ground strikes, it's like hitting a cement sidewalk.
 
#29 ·
One word momentum. Momentum always beats stationary.

- Much harder to KO someone on the ground because you can't snap their chin or head back UNLESS you go for a full swing. Most GNP are short compact shots.

- I was practicing on a dummy on the ground and I'll tell you my strikes do not feel anywhere near how it is when I'm standing.

- Either the guy is running into your strikes, or you're torquing your entire shoulder, upper back/lower back, waist and legs into it. It's like saying can a baseball player hit a home run lying on his back, unlikely.

- JBJ is anomaly. He has a very long torso and limbs so he can generate more momentum (gravity) when he slams his opponents with his elbows. But everyone knows elbows can cause serious demage even with limited amount of space.

- Training is another factor.

- At the end of the day stats says it all. Mirko, Vitor, Anderson and even Fedor. They don't KO people on the ground as much as they would standing up. Vitor took out Rich and Akiyama standing and merely finished up on the ground along with Anderson against Yushin, Nate, Irvin and Vitor himself. It's usually the standing strikes that do the damage.

Actually Overeem's fight against Brett Rogers and Brock are prime examples of GNP if you have the right distance. He was able to swing his arms freely and with the right technique earn the TKO. If he was wrapped up in a full guard it's a bit more difficult.

- So the only exception to the momentum theory is if a fighter got a full swing on the ground vs standing...the opponent on the ground will probably get it worse only because the floor is in the way. But usually the opponent is moving out of the way, kicking so we rarely get to see it.

Overall good question.
 
#30 ·
to knock someone out you have to jar the brain. If the head doesn't move (flat against the mat) its very hard to get knocked out, now in this same position its easy to knock someone out with a hook to the chin because it is a point of leverage for jarring the brain, rather than pushing the head into the mat where it has no room to go..

the reason getting hit in the face hurts more with your head against the mat is because your face and skull are absorbing all the damage rather than your neck brain etc.

i hope that makes sense... its the G forces applied to the head that cause the brain to slam itself into the skull that causes one to lose consciousness. when certain parts of the brain are compressed from from different types of blows you get different results. certain blows effect the cerebellum and can cause loss of motor functions. other blows can cause what is basically a black out effect.

its all about movement of the brain and how it collides with the skull..
 
#31 ·
I think they're much more similar than you guys are making them out to be. The momentum thing is a big difference probably, but there isn't always forward momentum to aid the standing KO (I'd bet it is more or less negligible in the majority of cases), so something else is at play.

Ultimately, I think the big difference is that on the ground:
1) There is less space to work with
2) You have to control your opponent, so you can't throw with max power
3) Elbows are a much more viable form of striking

These points are supported by the fact that guys with ridiculous top control hip strength allowing them to posture up and still control their opponent (Munoz, Hendo) and guys with abnormally long arms/height (Bones, Struve) lose less of their power on the ground.

I think an appropriate way of thinking about it would be how much KO power does a guy lose when the fight goes to the ground.

EDIT: I wouldn't think gravity would have much of an effect on punching force, because your fist/elbow wouldn't be traveling for very long (momentum) and it isn't really "falling".
 
#34 ·
These videos shed a bit of light on the mechanics of striking mainly from the standup with dummies.

I'm pretty sure there's more power standing as opposed to being on the ground, not to say you can't KO someone on the ground because you easily can. It's just basic science. When you're on the ground you can only use your shoulder muscles rather than your entire waist and legs to explode. Too bad they don't allow knees.



 
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