Aoki: ‘The American wrestling style is boring’
“The American wrestling style – punching a little bit, getting a takedown and moving to side control to win the…
“The American wrestling style – punching a little bit, getting a takedown and moving to side control to win the round has no risk. It’s an easier fight. It’s just using the judges. They don’t even have to worry about injuries or anything like that. There is no risk.”
The fact that Aoki uses the lack of risk as a criticism is interesting considering that he also recently claimed that his own goal is “to win against my opponent without being in any dangerous situations” and that fighting with risk “makes the quality of MMA lower.”
“Would you like to see Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard? Do you think it would be interesting?” Aoki asks.
I answer truthfully that I don’t think it would be very exciting.
“Right! I’m a huge fan of the UFC, but I think that it hasn’t been very interesting lately. There are good fighters of course but not so many interesting fights. They punch a little bit, then get a takedown and every round is just a repetition of that.”
“I am a big fan of aggressive fighters like BJ Penn, Joe Stevenson, Kenny Florian, Melvin Guillard and Nate Diaz.. Everyone else is just wrestling and it’s not interesting at all.”
Aoki’s thoughts on wrestling are eerily similar to those of Dan Hardy and like Hardy, Aoki has lost an important fight due to wrestling – Aoki was unable to takedown Gilbert Melendez while Hardy was unable to stop the takedown against Georges St. Pierre.
“Japanese MMA is totally different. We go for knockouts and submissions from the beginning and going for the decision isn’t an option.”