2011 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[MMA_scientist]

Yeah that is an intesting way to look at it. All the ref really does is break fights up when they are standing or against the cage. It is a killer for BJJ. If it wasn't for that I think we would see BJJ dominate way more.

Not everyone on here agrees with me... but almost every modern rule is there to fuck bjj. The biggest thing is the short rounds and relatively short fights. BJJ is an art of endurance. One need not win, one must only endure until one can improve his position. But also no upkicks from guard really hurts. No knees to the head of a grounded opponent takes away the incentive for keeping guard. Lots of guys give up the pass and try to explode to the feet, but they wouldn't be getting away with that shit if you could soccer kick or knee on the way up. Then of course the standups. Basically every rule in MMA is there to give the strikers a better chance of winning, IMO. Props to the UFC for at least allowing elbows on the ground. Bellator and SF don't even allow that.

edit: almost forgot no strikes to the back of the head... WTF is that. You turn your motherfuckin back on someone, you are supposed to get your brain stem disconnected.

[zY|]

Mousasi is going to put the stomp on him.

[MMA_scientist]

Mousasi is going to put the stomp on him.

gtfo.

[zY|]

nou

[Svino]

Not everyone on here agrees with me... but almost every modern rule is there to fuck bjj.

I wonder what the sport would look like if all participants were required to wear a gi.

[zY|]

I wonder what the sport would look like if all participants were required to wear a gi.

It would be held in a high school gym with like 5 fights going on at once and nobody watching.

[Svino]

It would be held in a high school gym with like 5 fights going on at once and nobody watching.

LOL, probably true. Might be more likely to make it into the Olympics, though. People think gi's are respectable for some reason.

[SPX]

No knees to the head of a grounded opponent favor BJJ guys and wrestlers as far as I can tell. It for damn sure doesn't favor strikers.

It's not like BJJ guys don't shoot. They do, and get the luxury of not getting blasted when that shit doesn't work out. Also, BJJ guys get to work on the ground without having to worry about getting kneed in the face.

[zY|]

The rule against knees to the head of a grounded opponent has nothing to do with some insane anti-BJJ conspiracy. It's specifically because Gan Mcgee caved some dude's head in with them a decade ago in the very first regulated event in New Jersey.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/josh_gross/12/15/mma-rules/

[MMA_scientist]

No knees to the head of a grounded opponent favor BJJ guys and wrestlers as far as I can tell. It for damn sure doesn't favor strikers.

It's not like BJJ guys don't shoot. They do, and get the luxury of not getting blasted when that shit doesn't work out. Also, BJJ guys get to work on the ground without having to worry about getting kneed in the face.

it punishes the failed shot, but it also rewards passing the guard. I would happily take the trade off. You can damn near kill someone with knees from north/south. It also allows guys to stand up with a little more impunity.

[MMA_scientist]

The rule against knees to the head of a grounded opponent has nothing to do with some insane anti-BJJ conspiracy.

It is not a conspiracy theory. The rules favor strikers. It may not have been intended, but that is the result.

[zY|]

It's not BJJ that's punished, but MMA as a whole.

And yes, you worded it like an angsty teenager.

[MMA_scientist]

It's not BJJ that's punished, but MMA as a whole.

And yes, you worded it like an angsty teenager.

Some things are too dangerous, I get that. Strikes to the back of the head, soccer kicks, and knees to a grounded (from a dominant position like side control or NS or even a Severn style cradle), I get that. But there is no rationale to allow upkicks to a standing opponent and not to one on his knees in guard. Referee standups. Knees from the front headlock are fine if on two points of contact but not 3? 5 minute rounds. 15 minute fights. It is fine, I get that the have to entertain... but all the rules skew to the view that grappling is less entertaining (which it probably is). I value the realism more than the entertainment though. It makes me sick when I see a guy get saved by the bell from a sub, then go on to win a decision.

[Svino]

I value the realism more than the entertainment though. It makes me sick when I see a guy get saved by the bell from a sub, then go on to win a decision.

I agree with this soooo much. Sometimes I feel like getting "saved by the bell" should be an automatic point deduction or something. I also think I might like to see a system where the clock doesn't end the round: Instead the referee ends the round when there's a break in the action (at some point after the bell). As long as there's still good action, they keep going.

There is one major rule of MMA that massively benefits grapplers: There's only two fighters in the ring at once.

[zY|]

Some things are too dangerous, I get that. Strikes to the back of the head, soccer kicks, and knees to a grounded (from a dominant position like side control or NS or even a Severn style cradle), I get that. But there is no rationale to allow upkicks to a standing opponent and not to one on his knees in guard. Referee standups. Knees from the front headlock are fine if on two points of contact but not 3? 5 minute rounds. 15 minute fights. It is fine, I get that the have to entertain... but all the rules skew to the view that grappling is less entertaining (which it probably is). I value the realism more than the entertainment though. It makes me sick when I see a guy get saved by the bell from a sub, then go on to win a decision.

Hey I'll agree with you about most of those things, I want as much blood spilled as possible to be honest. Just the tone of your initial post sounded much more accusatory towards a hatred for BJJ than merely the effect being a byproduct.

I think a lot of the rules are dumb as well. The upkick one I find particularly putrid. That one definitely is an obvious detriment to the guy on the bottom. It takes away basically the only significant strike a fighter can land from his back, and for no good reason. It seems to only be in place by virtue of precedent, precipitating from the blanket rule of "no knees or kicks to the head of a downed opponent".

That, along with knees to the head on the ground is the biggest change I feel that needs to be instituted. The whole game becomes more dynamic when those options are available, even if they aren't utilized. It's the same thing with disallowing elbows on the ground. It's just another thing a fighter has to look out for. If he knows he can't get elbowed he knows all he has to do is tie up the arms and he's relatively safe from strikes. Simply the threat of more types of strikes makes it all the more interesting and dynamic.

The only time I'm wary of soccer kicks or knees on the ground is when a guy gets his head pinned against the cage and the ground and is just blasted with nowhere for his head to recoil. This was never something that occurred in PRIDE or DREAM, for obvious reasons, and is the only time I could see where it might be truly dangerous.

Referee standups are the absolute worst. Not only are they completely arbitrary and crowd influenced, but there is nothing in the unified rules from what I've read that even gives the ref the authority to do so. I think the worst part of standups that people overlook is a lot of the times the idea of getting a standup actually encourages stalling. Everyone complains about wrestlers 'laying and praying' and whatnot, but many times it's the guy on the bottom who will just attempt to tie up his opponent's arms and look at the ref hoping for a standup. If he knows it's not coming and he has to rely on his own skills to get back up, he'll damn sure do more than just lay there.

As far as rounds go, I think they are necessary, but not from an entertainment perspective. Considering that fights can't realistically go on forever, and eventually must go to a decision, having rounds dictates a much more practical scenario of getting an accurate decision. It forces the judges to evaluate set periods of time as the fight goes on, and not simply judging a winner at the end. Going by the recency principle, if we have a straight up 15 or 25 minute fight with no rounds, whoever is winning late has a much better chance of getting the decision, regardless of how ineffective he may have been earlier in the fight. It's just human nature to value more what we see last. Having the fight broken into sections forces an objective accountability for the entire fight.

Obviously it's not perfect, as your saved by the bell example is a downfall of having individual rounds, but I believe it's better than the alternative. I'm sure there are ways to get a happy medium. It probably won't ever happen, but I always liked PRIDE's 10 minute first round as a good compromise.

tl;dr Long-winded complaining about rules.