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Notes -
Opportunity cost. MMA fighters also have to be technically skilled and have a gas tank and be at the best weight for their professional prospects . All of that takes training time and conflicts with being as strong as possible.
And at a certain point height does just matter. Jon Jones comes from a family of athletes. MMA fans joke that he's actually the worst performing of his entire family. He has a horrible vertical and just can't seem to put muscle on his legs. But he had the perfect body type for light heavyweight because he was a great wrestler and out-ranged everyone. Daniel Cormier was an Olympic wrestler and he couldn't get past the height difference to take Jon down.
And maybe that is the other thing: MMA simply doesn't attract top talents as easily as other sports. Jon Jones - one of the greatest of all time - is essentially a fuckup who ruined his wrestling career which is why he jumped into MMA so young.
makes sense. Too bad though because it would be interesting to see what happens if you take one of the powerlifting freaks, get them to maintain strength as much as possible, and get them proficient at MMA. I know there are some dudes in MMA that would probably have high powerlifting numbers tho, Ngannou probably does.
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