It's continous now. Every time I watch a fight, I'll see a guy block a kick or a punch but the commentators will call the offensive manouver rather than the defensive manouver. In boxing it would be considered neutralising your opponent. In MMA, it is almost considered surviving the moment of offence. I think some of the only defence that is noted is takedown defence. Your thoughts??? Personally, I am looking for an emphasis on offence but I really appreciate and admire defence because it is so damn difficult in a sport where you have to contend with so many different approaches.
Shogun V Machida fight makes your point. Machida was blocking Shoguns attacks or punching him in the face as he walked in, the commentators said Shogun was the aggressor. The bottom line was Shogun attacked did not damage because of Shogun's work in defence.. but it was not mentioned.
I watched lyoto countering the crap out of shogun while rogan gave shogun all the credit for MISSING his strikes.
All I can say is you are right about the no calling defense but I saw Machida bloody and battered and his side all messed up from constant abuse. In my eyes Shogun won that fight by a landslide.
So agreed. Almost every shot Rua hit Machida with, Machida took and fired back. Simply because it was to the body, or even when he hit him in the face (which i remember a few times), Rogan would simply not say a word about. I don't think Rogan is bias as much as he is commentating on what simply looks pretty. But I guess it's just down to that defense simply doesn't catch the eye as much as a good smack in the jaw.
Maybe they are trying to get away from the stigma of MMA as "boring, rolling on the ground wrestling" and are trying to highlight "OFFENSE! OFFENSE! OFFENSE!" Like one basketball coach once said, "Offense wins the girl. Defense wins the game." I'm absolutely sure that the commentators recognize the defensive skills being shown, but they may be trying to market and hype up the fight to the possible newbie MMA watcher and show them how entertaining and action packed an MMA fight can be.
That's the way I saw it as well. Machida blocked, countered or moved away from everything shogun threw.
PS - I don't think this really applies to the Machida-Rua fight. It was a nip tuck fight where ring generalship and damage won it for Rua.
