What are some things that Dana White/the UFC has done that you approve of?

I understand where it originated from, that's why I said the pioneers of modern MMA, e.g. Chuck, Tito, Hughes, Couture.

That was just a little bit of backlash left over from arguing with boxing fans around the Couture/Tony fight and HENDO about how it isn't street fighting anymore, and has evolved into it's own sport.

:hop

 

i just think it's the evolution of the sport....you had the early years where guys came in under one discipline and sometimes it worked, but usually they ran into serious problems (ex: boxer vs. bjj), so people realized they need to cross train....then it got a little homogenized, because everyone was basically training the same exact things (ufc rules watered it down a little too), and now, you have guys breaking free from that (machida, jones, cruz) while having a nice solid well-rounded base, they get to add their own flair into things

 

Absolutely. But when you take something that should be part of everyone's base, like Wrestling and you value/reward aspects of wrestling that aren't conducive to ending a fight, then that is where there is stagnation. We have wrestlers who focus more on control than actual gnp or submission fighting, and from here the sport stagnates.

Example is a prime Matt Hughes. He had a great mix of wrestling and submission game in his prime, he looked to end every fight he got into and at the same time he didn't appear to try to force anything. Watching how he utilized his medley of skills, which was probably a smaller medley than many current fighters was more the type of thing I enjoyed watching. Watching guys control, and use the control to go for subs or gnp is great. But going for control, for the sake of control and winning a decision isn't in the spirit of the sport. I don't think it was ever intended, rather its a side effect of rules which are supposed to make the fight game more humane..

 

Some people will always hate but generally, and I mean 90% of the time, the fans don't know what they have got in the UFC. Generally we get stacked cards of competative match ups of the best mixed martial artists in the world. Incredible production, loads of marketing and an accessible organisation from the fighters up to the president. I don't see the head of the FA giving such open interviews on a weekly basis.

 

it's the watered down rules....in pride, and now dream...if a fight goes to the cards, one of the key elements to the scoring is which fighter is trying to end the fight, whether by KO or sub...that doesn't exist in the UFC, so fighters can get away with lay and pray....but like you said, not their fault...they are maximizing their risk/reward under the scoring system in which they are fighting

 

again, this comes down to rules.....no knees on the ground...no holding the cage for TDD, no soccer kicks stomps (for people to worry about should they miss that low single), no small joint manipulation....lay and pray only works because of the rule set, and scoring system

 

yeah, the refs need to be a little faster on the restart...but i can see that getting messy too....guys just immediately closing their guard and hanging on for dear life looking at the clock...17, 16, 15....

but i think we all agree...the scoring blows at this point

 

Actually with GSP I appreciate his style. He actually attempts submissions. He wasn't able to finish Hardy, but he did put himself in positions where he went for the submission and as a result lost top control. What I like about Georges is he is willing to take controlled risks. With Kos the fight should have been stopped.. So I don't really mind his fights.

Wanderlei is a fighters fighter. Eventually guys that bang go out on their shields, and that is just part of their style.

 

That's not what I want either. I want fighters to try to finish fights, finishing a fight, attempting to finish a fight can be tactically done. GSP has shown it... There are strikers out there who do it as well, Anderson Silva has a careful approach but he always puts himself in a situation where he gets the opportunities to finish fights.

As professional fighters, that is what I come to expect from them. If you are up against a tough opponent and the matchup is bad, like say Rampage vs. Rashad? What should Rashad have done you may ask?

I say he should have worked on his submission game and gnp, Rampage isn't known to be the sort of guy to throw a triangle on someone from his back, he also isn't someone known to protect his legs in the standup.. All he did was stall that fight. If he knew he wanted nothing to do with Rampage's standup and wanted to avoid that, then good for him, take it to the ground. But when your on the ground, I want him to work his gnp, use the gnp to open up submission attempts. Not just press his opponent against the cage while holding onto a single leg for 2-3 minutes at a time. Or getting mount and never throwing any meaningful punches, and never attempting ANY subs.

What has ended up happening is this.. A, "fighter" can sit in his opponents guard all night, throw a half hearted hammer fist every couple minutes, while his opponent on his back is doing everything he can to slap on a triangle choke.. The guy chilling out in his opponents guard, defending against subs gets credit for dominant position, where the guy trying to end the fight gets penalized, and at the end of the day would be better rewarded by simply controlling his opponents head from the bottom, grabbing the back of his opponents head and stalling himself to force the ref to stand them back up.. What sort of **** is that? The guy trying to end the fight gets penalized, when a huge aspect of MMA is, and should be countering from the guard.

Is it a good thing to punish a guy like Shinya Aoki for pulling guard, where he could slap on any number of submissions from that position? It just seems like a backwards thing to do given how important that aspect of the game is, and how incredibly skilled some guys are. To me it's like telling everyone they have to have vanilla ice cream even though there are so many more flavors readily available.

If you haven't seen this guy, check him out.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIuYaoMbhX4&feature=related[/ame]

This sort of fight game was not honed and refined as a result of UFC rules. If we want to see more of this sort of fighting, and promote and develop this sort of fighting further, then we should reconsider the way top control, and cage control is viewed/ scored. We could promote, develop and help the submission game evolve by changing up the rules.

 

Bad decisions, destroyed PRIDE, lay`n pray,.... :good