the problem is: why would gary shaw and other promoters looking at MMA as an opportunity to make a buck eat the costs associated with introducing people to the ground game that many of them don’t understand or like?

this is a collective action problem— promoters aren’t going to invest individually in something that yields a benefit for the sport as a whole but not for them as businesspeople. the way to solve it is for athletic commissions to license and provide referees only for fights that use standard MMA rules.

The ground game looks like a random tangle of limbs to the unintiated.

Mir does a good job of explaining it, but I also think the cage plays a part in making the cage look boring. The cage itself limits the ways to tape the fight, and the ground game doesn’t look too interesting from the standard 45 degree angle they have to shoot from in the cage.

On the other hand, rings are a PITA and I get sick of the fight constantly being moved to the middle when they get near the ropes. But the cinematography is way better in Dream.

I think Gary Shaw and $kala are just marketing a product they think will appeal to the masses. Fat ,milk fed, man titted wanabes. Understanding the ground game and also using it requires more general skill and time commitment than the stand up. You can have really good stand up in five years of constant training. With very few exceptions you cant be a jujitsu,judo, or greco expert in that same time. Five years in Thai land you are nuts. Five years in Brazil, Japan, or Iowa you might be a purple belt but chances are you’re still blue or a senior in highschool. Some people want microwave popcorn and some want to grow the corn first.

Yeah, you can’t take what you think is exciting about a sport, minimize the balance, and expect to have a sport at all. It’s insanity. I saw this early on with EliteXC. They just don’t want to promote MMA. They want to promote a hybrid of their own creation. Look, MLB has tightened the strike zone to encourage more offense. The NFL has come down hard on physicality from defensive backs to foster more explosive offenses. I personally don’t like measures as these to favor one side of a game, but this is not the same as what it appears EXC has done with their KO bonuses. These bonuses were there to influence specific fighters in specific fights to abandon part of their game. It’s flat out wrong.

Heavy handed rules changes should be avoided. You can’t frequently adjust the rules to match the whims of a fickle audience. The unintended consequences are often more detrimental to the product than doing nothing at all, and holding true to the original sport.

good write up. i know most of the hardcore fans can easily tell the laynprayers from the guys who are constantly trying to go for something from the top or the bottom. sometimes the judges have alot to do with this, not realizing that a fighter on the bottom landing blows or going for subs is being more dominant than a fighter who is “just on top” or octagon control as they call it in the ufc. octagon control is all up to speculation and it shoud’nt be. it should be the same across the board (in a perfect world, i think)the casual fan will always think that the fighter on top is automatically winning b/c they see it as a dominant position. also, of course i have always thought the shaws were only in it for the money, i knew it the minute they signed gary who had previuosly said that mma was a fad and wouldnt last. why else would any say that and then “jump aboard”? has’nt elite folded yet damnit?

Some things can be done. First of all I really, truly, can’t stress enough how sick I am of listening to fighters constantly talking about how they ‘aim to please’. It sets expectations on MMA out of proportion. When I’m watching the world cup qualifiers between Sweden and Portugal, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the ‘entertainment factor’. In fact, if our star player even hinted that he was out there to please I’d have to slap him.

This comparison is not entirely adequate, but there is some merit to it. The aim to please mode is simply not result oriented. To say that one is aiming at a KO, or, for a footballer, to say he is aiming at destroying the opposition, is perhaps not very cerebral, but at least it’s focused on a way of winning. Aiming to please is perfectly compatible with losing. Stop it.

Some MMA fights are boring, just as some football games are boring. For me, this is trivial knowledge. Why are some fights boring? Because they lack a certain effort to finish, are very sloppy/technically poor etc. I can accept mistakes in MMA and football given that the errors are forced. I can accept that in very important fights/games the players involved get more careful and defensive. The urgency and importance outweigh the negatives in these cases.

I think that the break up rules are fine the way they are. I wouldn’t want to go back to the days in football when it was allowed for the goalkeeper to pick up a pass from his teammate with his hands. That slowed the game down and made it less technical. It could, ofc, be argued that those rules were proper football, and since we have changed them we’re not playing proper football anymore. Argue that all you want, football is still more popular and enjoyable today than it was back then. Sight.