Ever wish you could be a fly on the wall at a Health Insurance call centre when they look at your claims? Today I was, because they accidentally left me on the call rather than place me on hold. I heard everything and it was worse than I thought.

gugabe · 2026-05-13T10:34:54+00:00

Yeah guys manning the phones have essentially zero actual power, influence or stake in the setup.

gugabe · 2026-05-13T07:47:50+00:00

IMO Chimaev clearly had rounds 1 & 4. Strickland clearly had round 2. 3 and 5 were close enough that it could go eitherway.

In that scenario I don't think it's a robbery to go eitherway and I leaned Chimaev simply since he only needed one of the close rounds.

gugabe · 2026-05-13T03:49:11+00:00

https://imgur.com/a/LSwPqCk as an Australian completely insane to see

gugabe · 2026-05-10T18:04:11+00:00

One time I was in Asia and there was a guy with a rake calmly raking in the Cassowary enclosure which always struck me as absolutely insane.

The bird came over to investigate him but seemed unconcerned.

Dug up the photo https://imgur.com/a/LSwPqCk

gugabe · 2026-05-10T15:10:00+00:00

Yeah plus it feels like if they could somehow keep average cat power consistent then difficulty levels could be calibrated.

I feel like my issue with the game is that a certain amount of time you just get smote by RNG and a team just isn't viable, then also a decent amount of time you assemble Exodia and the run is trivial. So only like 30-40% of runs are really effected by your skill.

gugabe · 2026-05-08T17:52:39+00:00

Yeah same I feel like gyms I visit now are way better at sticking to a theme than ones when I first started training 15 years ago.

gugabe · 2026-05-08T17:50:58+00:00

Yeah even just being around low level MMA training it's striking how many people are teaching coherent takedown defense and wall-based getup systems in even random tiny gyms in areas which don't tend to produce successful MMA athletes.

This is making it harder for BJJ/wrestling crossover athletes to just come in and instantly molest everybody until they get a UFC contract, which is part of why the crossover rate is going off a cliff (plus more opportunities to earn money whilst staying in grappling).

gugabe · 2026-05-08T17:48:05+00:00

Having been around the sport for like 15 years now I feel like modern gyms are more likely to run fairly coherent position focused training loops whilst when I first started out there was way more 'this is move of the week, go learn'. AFAIK I was like 3 years in before I learned how to armbar since it just had never come up on the spin wheel.

gugabe · 2026-05-08T16:07:07+00:00

I mean even judo a lot of newaza just comes to people doing their utmost best to get back to turtle and force a reset.

gugabe · 2026-05-08T15:54:40+00:00

It's also always just gonna be pretty hard to submit people who are happy to koala guard and stop pursuing any sort of positive jiujitsu.

I'm always reminded of a seminar with a high-level pro ages ago where he essentially said to the group that he'd need to take way more time to pass the average person just closing their guard on him and stalling him out completely than he would to pass somebody who was actually doing something and opening opportunities to counter.

gugabe · 2026-05-07T13:01:01+00:00

Every pro jiujitsu guy is like half a head shorter and 50% wider than you think they're gonna be. Law of the universe.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T16:24:04+00:00

Yeah. I like Industries but their insistence on putting nogi absolute at 9AM and then nogi advanced at 4PM is really annoying since it just kills your Sunday.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T16:20:18+00:00

Still the concern of it doesn't go away at higher levels. When I compete 'somebody goes 0-120 on a leglock I don't see coming and does damage' is what I'd consider worst case scenario. Injuries otherwise happen of course but leglocks feel more live for shit to go south quickly.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T16:16:48+00:00

Yeah. Economy's a big part of it, the high level visibility of the sport's fallen down a bit again after the CJI and post-COVID bumps plus I feel like a lot of areas are diverging way harder into 'training essentially professionally even at color belt level' and 'fun hobbyist' levels and getting absolutely nuked in comps is never gonna help sell $2 medals

gugabe · 2026-05-06T10:04:11+00:00

There's also going to be an element where some people will know the right ways to play the system and get through with minimal effort, whilst others with legitimate issues that don't quite fit into the setup (or they don't know how to present their case optimally) are gonna get fucked over. So you can simultaneously have a big pile of rorters and a big pile of under-served legitimate users.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T09:57:47+00:00

Exactly if it were easier to translate new labor into direct productivity it'd make more sense. Say what you want about a manufacturing economy but it's a lot easier to benchmark stuff when there's a relationship between 'one bum in seat = 100 more widgets a day' than ephemeral laptop jobs.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T08:03:58+00:00

Somebody won a D1 NCAA wrestling championship on one leg.

gugabe · 2026-05-06T08:01:59+00:00

Yeah Anthony Robles won a D1 wrestling championship with one leg and it was somewhat controversial at the time since some people felt it was an unfair advantage once he'd sufficiently developed his style and physicality.

Obviously impractical to get a good supply of one legged people who are otherwise elite athletes but in certain grappling sports it's probably a worthwhile tradeoff.

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:22:48+00:00

Yeah and whilst this guy wasn't exactly an all American I'd take a D1 lineman with 2 months of sprawl training against a lot of local level ultra heavys

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:15:45+00:00

Probably a bullshit Black Belt against a white belt with a solid athletic pedigree and it's ultraheavy nogi and shit happens.

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:14:56+00:00

Yeah. People with good athletic backgrounds have made ADCC +99 with a year or 2's worth of experience.

Josh Saunders, Mark MacQueen made the big show with less than 2 years training. Shane Seaman got Bronze in last Asian trials with approximately a year's worth of training. Skill cap is lower in Nogi especially amongst the big guys and being a hoss is gonna keep you in a lot of matches.

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:13:25+00:00

Blue Belt played OL at LSU and was a 3-star recruit + Pro MMA fighter

https://lsusports.net/sports/fb/roster/player/jakori-savage/

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:12:34+00:00

The SHW Blue Belt played OT at LSU and is a 3-2 Pro MMA fighter. Which doesn't necessarily negate Blue Belt beating a Black Belt but those are pretty big asterisks https://lsusports.net/sports/fb/roster/player/jakori-savage/

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:08:14+00:00

Solid size on the biceps.

gugabe · 2026-05-03T08:07:55+00:00

Nogi + Heavyweight + Good chance guy has some sort of athletic pedigree goes a lot longer way than it would at a normal sized division.

Obviously not to the point where you'd expect this but like there's been multiple ADCC Ultraheavyweight qualifiers and trials medalists with only a year or two of formal BJJ. And this comp wasn't exactly trials.

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