Just found out Holly Holm is boxing again

Have you ever trained with lower level pro fighters who trained inconsistently or seemed to not take the technical aspect of fighting seriously, and have you ever tried to talk sense into them? I’ve seen this phenomenon as a 5-year hobbyist Purple Belt in BJJ, and just can’t understand how somebody could sign up for something as dangerous as an MMA fight without doing everything possible to prepare.

Afternoon Jack! Repeat question but here goes: are there any techniques/training from the golden age of Pride that fighters in Japan/Rizin could take advantage of? I watched the most recent Rizin card while listening to your old Pride 2005 Middleweight GP history episode, and was struck by the fighters general reluctance to engage in grounded strikes with their opponent. Shoutout to that Chute Boxe/BTT rivalry, and hope it gets its own history ep one day. Cheers! Luke

Do you think the belt & braces approach Rico had would have success against other heavyweights like Joshua, Fury, or Dubois? What about Ngannou (the boxer)?

I know you have talked about get ups in the past, for example the cross wrist get up from bottom position/halfguard in MMA. Could you do a deep dive or breakdown of different fighters successfully standing up against strong wrestlers and their tactics? examples like Rob Whitaker, sandhagen/yan vs merab, Sean Strickland, and any other notable examples

Asked this before but I wanted to again: Given that fouling is de facto legal in MMA, how do you think fighters should be using their freebies? I reckon you’d want an early eye poke to maximize debuff time, and the fence grab is reactive; should fighters be saving their free low blow for when they need a break late fight? Or maybe right when their opponent lands something clean. Appreciate your insight as always

Have you seen any of AMO pankrations work? It’s cool to see academic research on the actual techniques of an ancient historical martial art

Hey Jack, I was wondering how one can reliably land the rear knee in sparring? It’s probably one of my favorite strikes and I can land sometimes, others I get clobbered with a hook like tawanchai against Noiri. Also sometimes I go to throw the knee and some people tend to raise their lead leg up to check in response and their knee goes right into my nuts lol. Thanks!

Why do Tai Tuivasa and Dave Allen spiritually feel like the same fighter?

Why do we never see anyone use the Shoulder Crunch position from Jiu Jitsu in MMA? Its utilized quite effectively in No-Gi BJJ, and in MMA I would think it would control posture very well so the person on top can't posture up to strike, present good sweeping opportunities, and seems like entries would be available when the person on top is attempting to throw strikes.

When kicking someone against the cage, why do you kick the trailing leg and not the leading one?

With all this discourse surrounding boxing vs Muay Thai in MMA, could you discuss what made the difference between Topuria vs Oliveira and JDM vs Prates, and what boxers need to succeed in MMA against Muay Thai? Both fights featured small boxing centric fighters vs taller, longer, bigger, hyper aggressive Brazilian Muay Thai fighters, but each had drastically different outcomes. Cheers Slacky. Been listening to your history of boxing and I hope you continue it!

What's the best way to work on head movement?

If you could shrink down MMA fighters and keep them in a cage in your home, as one would with pet mice or hamsters, which 3 fighters are you choosing and what fun little things would you add to their cage?

I couldn’t help but notice that Malcolm Wellmaker was given a terrible matchup after losing his last one when he was on track to be a star not too long ago. With the UFC hating stars as much as they do, will this become the norm and if so would it actually be good for the sport? Or do you think the UFC just wanted to bury Wellmaker in particular?

Can we expect Judo to contribute more visibly and effectively to modern MMA, due to the prominence of Eastern European/Russian (and Caucasus) fighters? Can England’s participation in the world of MMA and BJJ experience some gains due to Eastern European immigrants (with a strong judo background) and their kids entering the sport?

Any advice for a southpaw who generally steps to the open side? I get in trouble when I miss my left hand, I tried to learn to retract it fully but I seem to still get caught so I have been crowding in orthodox, framing away and trying to include the reverse shoulder roll (if you have more content on this I would like to read it). I also have trouble on exits as when my foot is inside, I tend to pivot deep inside and it seems to put me at a high risk of getting caught. Thank you 🙏🏻

Can you please narrate all of the articles you release? 🙏🏻 You are acting on the assumption MMA fighters can read

Options for controlling the back without using a body triangle, or good back attackers with short legs

Tits or ass?

Repeat question that you liked in the last question thread. You've been covering mma for a long time. How has your content and skills evolved from when you first started to where you are now? I’m not familiar with anything you wrote before 2019 so I can’t make a comparison. Two examples of growth I have seen- are my friend from uncrowned drake riggs who started out as a sherdog writer of basic news, has since written big deep dives on obcsure mma stories like Megumi Fuiji and Rousimar Palhares for uncrowned, and my other friend Ghost (9h6st21) who actually started out using microsoft paint and the photos app to do his analytical videos to now where he is combining animation and analysis. Do you feel like your skills and talents for watching fights and writing about them have seen remarkable growth over the years when looking back at your old pieces? Why do you think most content creators and writers choose not to grow and stay stagnant? I'm not talking about people like Garrett Kerman that are lazy and use AI, im talking about content creators that just do the same interviews or write pieces with no visible growth in their style.

Why don’t leg locks work in MMA ? Especially since they work pretty well in No-gi competitions, and most people in MMA don’t use ground and pound very well

Why is it best to attack the centerline first after taking an angle? If they're rushing, sure. But after taking an open side angle, why not throw the rear hand and *then* the lead hook down the centerline?

Hello Jack, do you think we dont see as much good Clinch fighting and elbow use because it is more difficult to train? I tried clinching more in sparring but the missing barrier and most peoples instinct to Just Retreat makes it very difficult to get good rounds in. Cheers

Should we mandate that every boxing champion faces a fighter of another sport to validate their ability? With that being said I'm officially picking Sean Strickland to beat Bivol by split decision

Whats the craic Jack? Neil Melanson gave up a toe to continue training, Bisping gave up an eye to become a champion. Do you know of any other mad martial arts stories akin to this?? Cheers Brolly

Hi Jack, What does a regular week of training look like for you?

What are some of the most important/fundamental learning materials (books, dvd, instructionals, YouTube videos, matches etc.) that shaped modern sports and MMA grappling? OR What events in modern grappling acted as turning points for how the sport developed? Think Sakuraba vs Royce in MMA, but for grappling

have you seen Holzer vs Taha at Oktagon MMA? Holzer might be one for the UFC...

As we plunge deeper into the dark age of Mma, who do you see winning at the inevitable Brand Risk influencer event: Bedtime MMA or Krazy Kev. (they both fight at atomweight)

What do you make of the Harry Greb hype? Do you think he was as good as the articles say, or do you think our imagination inflates him? What if all footage of Daniel Dubious Dubois was lost and we only had the legends of him headbutting Hrgovic into submission?

Hi Jack, was just wondering if you think that the particular shorts that fighters wear actually influence the fight in meaningful ways? In my own training I have only ever worn generic gym shorts and the MMA boardshorts while training and have always considered the tight short shorts off limits because I'm a fat lad. I just wonder if there is a meta to shorts lol

With Rico arguably beating Usyk for 11 rounds, Usyk beating Dubois, Dubois beating AJ, AJ beating Ngannou, and Ngannou arguably beating Fury: Just how bad is Deontay Wilder?

Have we seen the best of Jack Della Maddalena? He seems to be bit undersized against bigger WW strikers. Is there future of WW weight cutting +200 pound monsters?

The weird kickboxing angles amirite? Ps: imagine with only a slightly different universe we might have had 1-0 Francis vs 2-0 Rico boxing to be the heirs to Muhammad Ali and Tyson.

Wushu watch moment for you Slacky. I recently got to attend a dope ass martial arts festival (my main goal was to do the catch wrestling and sambo seminars while was there) and I had the unique experience of attending a seminar on Monkey style Kung Fu. I was surprised to see that when the techniques were presented "at fighting speed" , as opposed to how they were shown in a form, they usually looked similar to cross step and level change techniques I had seen elsewhere in boxing, TKD, and judo. So my question is 1.) What is the craziest and most obscure "that might actually work" moment you've had with a TMA. 2.) How much of martial arts do you think is actually just different ways of teaching people the same 2 dozen techniques or so? Thanks for the work as always. P.S. what's a boi got to do to bring back the Wushu watch articles?

with the need to fight illusively being ever present in combat sports and my love of a bladed stance, side kick wizard knowing no bounds, i've been wanting some of that for myself. however, i fight from a more squared stance and i haven't seen many avid lead leg front kickers in MMA. except for Semmy Schilt and Sean Strickland but i'm not 7 feet tall or a white suprematist and there is still gaps in their defence, so i'm unsure if it can work. my question is: would the evasive, hard to hit, minimalist, lead leg kick centric style of a bladed stance karateka still be as effective from a squared stance? if so, is it a one-for-one swap (side kick for teep) or should i become a full time karateka instead? Bill Wallace's busted knee bless.

Has the UFC and combat sports in general ever had such a barren run? I've been following MMA since 2007 and I don't think my interest has ever been as low as it is now

Can you please talk about south paw infighting in boxing? I’d love to know the optimal positions to be, entries, and exits. The south paw vs orthodox in fighting feels like rear hands to the body are open for both. This makes it totally different than closed stance. Please shed some light on foot, head, and body positioning for me.

Whats up Jack. I've been paying more attention to boxing over the last 5 years. And even tho i enjoy it, it has a very "old man stuck in his old ways" mentality. Not promoting much change or innovation. Not even that long ago south paws were literally not trained or forced to switch to orthodox stance, because trainers, promoters and other fighters just didn't want to deal with it. Why do you feel boxing has this feeling, or is it just me? Love from the netherlands

Hi jack, been a boy for 5 years. Who have you got in a possible Oliveira vs Arman rematch? And also are you ever going to release an article on guard play in mma, and the few that made it work and if it is viable to a certain extent?

When you talked about Islam being the best fighter of this generation, I realized I credit his success largely to his team and preparation. I always thought that he has people that do very intense film study and create great, very detailed game plans for each of his opponents, and he excels at executing those blueprints thanks to his meticulously structured camps (also created by other people for him). I don’t know why I only have this thought in regards to Islam, because literally everyone at the top does this. This brings me to my question(s): How much of being the best fighter actually is being the best FIGHTER? What does it even mean to be the best fighter nowadays? What would the best fighter look like without film study and game planning? I think fight IQ becomes less critical if the 'puzzle' has already been solved for the fighter before the actual fight starts. Edit: After the Usyk/Verhoeven fight (and Fury/Ngannou) I think what makes these fights more difficult for the boxing champions is the fact that there is little tape to study their opponents or at least little tape of them only boxing.

What's the deal with Hasbulla?

Do you think pushes could be utilised more in MMA? And I don’t mean anything technical by that, literally just shoving the guy back after kicks and clinches etc. Also, I’m trying to learn about the British Empire this year, any book recommendations for smaller more focused reads (not the Jan Morris trilogy)

What are your favourite ways to set traps with movement? Ala Walcott, Pacquiao, Volkonovski etc

What are your most hated false MMA wisdoms (e.g. to be the champ you have to beat the champ, underpaying fighters keeps them hungry)?