Bogdan Khmelnitskiy at a MMA forum (Russian) met with the Ukranian Mixed Martial Arts (48-10-1) and kickboxing (58-2) legend Igor Vovchanchyn and asked a few questions. Here is the translation of that interview.
Makes you think if MMA is really that much safer than boxing, as some claim... Fedor Emelianenko also had problems with his hand - he even had to go the a surgery. MMA fighters punch so hard that even their own bones can't take this kind of punishment. Fortunately they have gloves nowadays, unlike the "old good days" when Igor Vovchanchyn started fighting.Question: How did you do in school? Was there a lot of fighting in your childhood? When did you go in for sport?
Igor Vovchanchyn: I did OK in my studies. Fought a lot. Beat everybody up. I was naughty, a bit of a hooligan! (smiling) We had a track and field athletics section in the school, so I joined. I trained there for five years and was the fastest runner. And then I was invited to join a boxing section, where I started my training under the trainer Oleg Ermakov. Then eventually I was invited to join kickboxing: they were looking for a heavier guy. I agreed to. Was swinging my legs already during the training.
Question: During the Warrior`s honour 1 tournament (10.1995), Andrey Besedin managed to quickly submit you. But already a few month later in the Absolute Fighting World Championship 1 tournament, you showed a good ground game defence.
Igor Vovchanchyn: Well, after that loss, I went to Subbotin to wrestle. And wrestled 1.5-2 hours a day. That's how I learned.
Question: Tell about your training. How much different it became from the beginning of your mixed martial arts career to the moment when you were fully concentrated to your Pride fights?
Igor Vovchanchyn: IT was different of course. There was more ground (wrestling/grappling) aspect and I was training two times a day. In the morning I had striking exercises and cross-country running, in the evening wrestling and striking.
Question: What are you doing at the moment? Will you agree to return to a few fights if asked?
Igor Vovchanchyn: I am a businessman. I won't return. Sometimes I want to, but I'm already 35. And above all I have injuries. I can't punch with my right hand at all: I have three pins in the elbow. And additional one in the left. Soon I will go to the nose surgery because I can't breath in the usual manner. Therefore there is no sense of me coming back.Igor Vovchanchyn highlight
Question: How do you comment the collapse of Pride?
Igor Vovchanchyn: (halting for a moment) Well, it's bad. Americans took everything over, but aren't paying much. Monopoly doesn't lead to a good stuff. It would be better if Pride was still alive.
| Fedor explained that his injury was first diagnosed following the Gary Goodridge fight back at Total Elimination in 2003, the diagnosis by the PRIDE medical team was incorrect at the time and healed incorrectly. In 2005 he undertook surgery following his bout with Zuluzinho having broken his Thumb Metacarpal. |
10 comments:
So sad he won't make it in a ring. True legend!!
It's always been widely agreed that MMA has far more bone and muscle injuries than boxing, but that boxing has far more serious, life changing injuries like concussions and other brain injuries.
Vovchanchyn is a true mma legend and a class-act all the way. Watching his HL got me into mma and now I'm one of the more feared strikers in my country and weight division. We all love you, Igor.
The thing is that we don't know anything about health danger of MMA yet. I mean, the sport is so young that there is not enough information. We get it only when the guys with a 15-20 years of career will start to retire.
So where are you from, anonymous?
Boxing is still more dangerous because boxers suffer concussions more often. Boxers also hurt and break their hands in fights and they also get multiple facial and body injuries like nasty cuts, broken cheek bones, jaw, broken ribs and orbital bones yet they still continue to fight. I generaly believe boxers punch much harder than MMAists or kickboxers.
Vovchanchyn was a superb fighter and is rightly counted as one of the all time greats. His ever-evolving and constantly changing game was sometimes not noticed when his stunning punching power stole the spotlight.
He seems like a nice guy too. I hope his restaurant continues to be successful. Maybe if I ever go to the Ukraine I can eat there.
BTW, studies on MMA concussions and rib damage suggest that you are far less likely to get a concussion and the ones that do happen are on average much less serious than in boxing, which stands to reason, because boxing is purely punching. Rib damage seems to be much greater in boxing as well. I don't know if any studies on knee damage have been done for MMA fighters yet, but I would imagine that it is not nearly as bad as freestyle or folkstyle wrestling or judo.
Cool blog btw.
Almost 60 fights on record and most of them bare-knuckle... and who knows how many more went un-recorded? It's no great surprise that Vovchanchyn suffers this sort of injury.
It's a shame that one of the true greats is done for good and sad that he will probably never have the recognition he so greatly deserves among those new to MMA.
ok, STFU bout boxing vs. mma. much respect to "ice cold" igor vovchanchyyn, one of the greatest fighters in history.
great fighter!huge respect!
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