The long career MMA long, strange and totally unique of “the strongest man in the world” Mariusz Pudzianowski walks on

You have always come across one of these Wikipedia pages where the more you learn, the more questions you have? Mariusz Pudzianowski has one. This is only suitable for the life he has lived and the many different careers in which he tolerated. Professional man. Fighter mixed martial arts. The leader of the Disco Group. Amateur rugby player. Polish general celebrity and Tabloid lightning rod. And of course, he also had a trucking company and a school for professional bodyguards. Because a man must have hobbies.

If you were around and you follow combat sports when Pudzianowski made his debut in MMA in the promotion of KSW Poland at the end of 2009, you probably thought of the same thing that the rest of us did: Oh well, another act of show.

Sport was not lacking at the time. The MMA exploded and finally swept in the dominant current. The unleashed athletes and the celebrities on list C came from everywhere to relaunch their fame in the cage. Slugger MLB Jose Canseco. Bozer for a long time in boxing boxing. Former NFL player Johnnie Morton. It was quite a time.

Mariusz Pudzianowski was a surprisingly resilient attraction in the promotion of the KSW fight in Poland and will face his colleague Strongman Eddie Hall this Saturday in Ksw 105. (Photo by Foto Olimpik / Nurphoto via Getty Images)

(Nurphoto via Getty Images)

So, when the broadcast of the word that Pudzianowski, a strongest former man in the world, had to tie the little gloves and slide leather, we thought we knew what to do with it. He would fight once, perhaps twice (if the first was not a total disaster), and that would be all. We were, of course, very false.

Now he's 15 years later and Pudzianowski is still there. He made it a whole second (or third or fourth) career, which is almost never as well as these things happen when someone wanders in MMA from another niche sport. Pudzianowski has won a fight for a few years, but this Saturday at the age of 48, he returned to action against Eddie Hall, a strong British man who recently fought two men (much smaller) at the same time.

Now he faces Pudzianowski in Ksw 105 on Saturday in Gliwice, Poland. If you think it looks like a gadget fight, you are especially right. It has sometimes been presented as “the strongest fight in the world”, which honestly is not bad with regard to slogans, although some have simply chosen to focus on almost 600 pounds of humanity thrilled in this fight. But just because it's a bit silly that it is not as a serious matter.

Pudzianowski has had a fascinating life all around, but his career MMA is particularly interesting. This is the kind of career you can't even have.

It is almost entirely a local attraction – enormous in Poland, with only a handful of fights outside his country of origin. He fought a former UFC champion (shouts in Tim Sylvia, who beat “Pudz” via TKO in 2010). He fought some former heavyweights of pride (shouts in James “The Colossus” Thompson And Bob SAPP). He even fought a member of the illustrious family Gracie (he actually eliminated Rolles Gracie Jr. in 27 seconds in 2015). He fought “Butterbean” himself – the boxer whose parents saw fit to name him Eric Esch – and made him submit to strikes.

It was a long, strange and surprisingly profitable journey through the ranks of the MMA for Pudzianowski, all without ever really becoming other than what he had to start – a strong man of the famous region that also fought sometimes.

This does not mean that Pudzianowski is not a real fighter or that his skills have not improved over the years. You do not do it as long in this world, with 27 professional fights and almost twice as many victories as defeats, if you do not know your job at least a little.

But Pudzianowski seems to know what he is. He is a KSW star, where he fought all his fights except one of his MMA, and a monster show almost everywhere else. Its value is its celebrity, but it is a largely larger celebrity (without puns) in Poland than any place outside these borders.

This Polish celebrity brand is sometimes a complicated thing for Pudzianowski. Examine the Polish news and / or tabloid sites and you see all kinds of stories about it, both positive and negative. They don't lack a lot of chance of sticking his name in a title, even when it means calling it for perceived offenses ranging from driving a gas hummer to attract his fans to buy train tickets for a football match

It would be easy for the celebrity of the strong man to become a kind of joke simply by the overexposition. You look at the proportions of a guy like Pudzianowski, and it looks almost like a parody of weightlifting or bodybuilding culture. For example, look These photos of him descending a slide.

There is something intrinsically funny about them. To look like this, to be such a massive example of the human form, while striking the posture of any regular 12 -year -old child spending a good time on the slide? It's ridiculous but in a way delicious.

If Pudzianowski had come to North America to get seriously in a promotion like the UFC, you can almost guess how it would have disappeared. It would have tightened its new value for all that this was worth while considering it publicly with a kind of skepticism of the length of the arm. Then he would probably have surpassed it so that he could deceive the supremacy of his product. It is not as if we have not seen it before (simply ask James Toney and Sean Gannon).

Instead, Pudzianowski remained where he is most appreciated. In the process, he has proven that you don't necessarily have to be excellent to fight for a long and prosperous combat career. However, you should know how to choose your opponents carefully.

Hall has about a decade younger than Pudzianowski and a little bigger. He has much less combat experience, but from what we have seen, he is a great man who strikes hard and would especially prefer not to have to move as much. You were trained with the acting heavyweight champion of the UFC, Tom Aspinall, before this one, but you can imagine that there is only a lot of novice and a seasoned pro can really be said on the carpets.

Pudzianowski enters two consecutive losses. Normally, this is where you would start to call these fights a must for a fighter of almost 50 years. But then Pudzianowski is not a normal fighter and never was. He could probably continue to do so as long as he wishes, because it is not as if sales of tickets for his fights have never been motivated by a burning desire to see the best heavyweights in the world.

Pudzianowski works as a fighter because he is an attraction. And at this stage, it is an attraction because it is an attraction. You hear “the strongest man in the world” and you become curious. If you know what type of KSW show is, you also know that you, in one way or another, will be entertained.

And isn't it enough? Isn't that something, at least? Because this world has many MMA fighters. More than anyone could reasonably follow. But it really has only one Pudzianowski.

Source Link