MMA Catch All Thread.

if anything, it appears that mma (and Dana white in particular) has made the conscious decision to cater to the least common denominator. Folks don't have the smarts or patience to understand good jiu jitsu so he instructs judges to stand folks up unless they are throwing nuisance strikes. Or for that matter good muy thai and breaks up solid clinch work that the likes of Carlos Condit or Cowboy Cerone are known for.

It's all turned very Vince McMahon xfl.

I hate the way CMcG markets himself. But I'm clearly in the minority on this one.

I used to wish for him to lose painfully. But the only time it happened was when he went up to a weight class where he didn't belong. So I finally had to admit that CMcG is a true phenom of the sport. He is incredibly gifted.

I think it's time to put the Mayweather fight behind us. Years back, we had a pro boxer try MMA. It didn't go well. Now we've had an MMA fighter try to transition to boxing. It was a train wreck. It will probably happen again. Let's just hope it's a long, long time from now.

Paleocon wrote:

if anything, it appears that mma (and Dana white in particular) has made the conscious decision to cater to the least common denominator. Folks don't have the smarts or patience to understand good jiu jitsu so he instructs judges to stand folks up unless they are throwing nuisance strikes. Or for that matter good muy thai and breaks up solid clinch work that the likes of Carlos Condit or Cowboy Cerone are known for.

It's all turned very Vince McMahon xfl.

The UFC loves cash more than anything else. But it's not as bad as you make it seem.

Refs stand fighters up, not judges. I have seen very few early stand ups. I see WAY more early stoppages. Usually on the ground, BTW. But that's for the fighter's safety, so better to err on the side of caution.

MMA is not BJJ. Feel free to watch as much pure BJJ as you like. Frankly BJJ can be really boring. Many matches end up looking like two guys holding on to each other for dear life. I don't want to see that in MMA. When two fighter's ground game are nullifying each other, it's a stalemate. That's why refs stand the fighters up. It's usually because one fighter is defensively holding the other. I don't want to see 15 minutes of that. I don't know who would.

I disagree that clinches get broken up prematurely. Did you see the Latifi fight on Saturday? It was great! If one or both fighters are hugging each other against the cage, and not moving the fight forward, it's time to reset the fighters.

These resets don't happen instantly. The refs give the fighters time to work.

The rules of MMA are pretty clear when it comes to resets.

McG isn't all that impressive to me as an MMA fan (as far as historical greatness). The Aldo win counts for greatness but I think Diaz beats him in a Trilogy fight, and he certainly isn't better than Aldo career-wise. He's not even the best MMA guy of his era (Mighty Mouse is better, as is, unfortunately, Bones).

He's benefitted from marketing. Am looking forward to his next loss.

ETA: looked up some of the advanced metrics and McG is 6th P4P and barely 9th in divisional dominance (how much he's owning his peers).

RawkGWJ wrote:

I disagree that clinches get broken up prematurely. Did you see the Latifi fight on Saturday? It was great! If one or both fighters are hugging each other against the cage, and not moving the fight forward, it's time to reset the fighters.

These resets don't happen instantly. The refs give the fighters time to work.

Cage-humping is my least favorite MMA activity. If anything, refs too often err to the side of letting two guys just stand there and do virtually nothing.

Yeah, yeah, I know there's a lot going on when the fight is against the cage. But it's boring AF when it goes on for two minutes and no one's trying anything.

It's rare to see a ground fight get stood up by the refs. It's usually the fighter on top who makes that call if he can get away. A fighter who's great off his back really gets my attention. More arm-in triangle chokes from bottom, please!

As for the idea floated elsewhere in this thread (not by you, Rawk, I don't think) that you have to know a lot about boxing or MMA to enjoy watching it -- have you ever watched either sport? Boxing is two guys (and rarely women) beating the hell out of each other with their fists. MMA is two guys (and sometimes women) beating the hell out of each other with their fists, knees, elbows, feet and multiple other parts of their bodies. How hard is that to understand?

Boxing is dying in the U.S. largely because too many of the fights suck, they're held at sh*tty casinos in sh*tty places you'd never want to go and there hasn't been a famous American heavyweight champ since Evander Holyfield almost two decades ago. Elsewhere outside of the U.S., boxing is still kind of a thing. The Klitschko-Joshua fight drew something like 90,000 to Wembley Stadium. Any pro sport would be thrilled to draw 90K fans to anything.

I would agree with that. What killed boxing is that every swinging dick decided they wanted to start another belt to compete for.

Yet another problem with boxing (and maybe 1a to the issue of top boxers dodging top challengers): the damned judging.

Here are the scores from last night's Alvarez-GGG fight:

115-113 for Golovkin
118-110 for Alvarez
114-114 even

See if you can spot the score that stands out. (Spoiler alert: ESPN and HBO experts had it unofficially 116-112 for GGG.)

Back on topic: I think (but I could be persuaded the other way with actual evidence) that MMA judging isn't quite as awful. It seems like MMA Fan beefs largely about the refs (Steve Mazzagatti's career, RIP) but I can't think offhand of a recent fight where one judge's card has been so off that it skewed the result.

There is the occasional botched scoring card, but none that have risen to that level that I can remember.

On the Fight Night on Saturday there was a split decision that should have been unanimous. It didn't cause the actual winner to lose. The winning fighter fought an extremely defensive fight. That judge may have taken points away from the winner for inactivity. The fighter who lost was quite aggressive during the 3 rounds.

Thanks for not spoiling the result! (I DVR'd it but haven't yet watched the card.)

Effective striking and grappling is supposed to outweigh aggressiveness, but I suspect some judges, assuming the striking is about equal (and sometimes when it's not), will give the nod to the guy going foward.

I honestly don't mind a 29-28 28-29 29-29 card. Sometimes rounds are close! But MMA doesn't seem to produce a lot of 29-28 29-29 26-30 kind of cards. In boxing ... well, that's part of the reason I tune in to watch Teddy Atlas doing boxing on ESPN. He has the best judging rant in all of sports and showed it again Saturday after the GGG-Alvarez fight.

I'd like to see combat sports move away from subjectivity. KO/submission = you win. No finish = draw, unless all judges are unanimous on who won. Judges submit a card that says the winner's name. That's it. If no unanimity, it's a draw.

Top_Shelf wrote:

I'd like to see combat sports move away from subjectivity. KO/submission = you win. No finish = draw, unless all judges are unanimous on who won. Judges submit a card that says the winner's name. That's it. If no unanimity, it's a draw.

That was somewhat the format of the old school UFC. No timed rounds. No weight classes. Just whoever wins wins.

Paleocon wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

I'd like to see combat sports move away from subjectivity. KO/submission = you win. No finish = draw, unless all judges are unanimous on who won. Judges submit a card that says the winner's name. That's it. If no unanimity, it's a draw.

That was somewhat the format of the old school UFC. No timed rounds. No weight classes. Just whoever wins wins.

There are underground fight clubs in almost every major city in the U.S. I'm sure you could find one if you looked. It's the perfect place to go if you want to see a blood sport.

MMA has come a long way since the old days. Personally, I would not like to go back. Today's unified rules of MMA are not perfect, but I feel that MMA is in a really good place right now.

What

RawkGWJ wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

I'd like to see combat sports move away from subjectivity. KO/submission = you win. No finish = draw, unless all judges are unanimous on who won. Judges submit a card that says the winner's name. That's it. If no unanimity, it's a draw.

That was somewhat the format of the old school UFC. No timed rounds. No weight classes. Just whoever wins wins.

There are underground fight clubs in almost every major city in the U.S. I'm sure you could find one if you looked. It's the perfect place to go if you want to see a blood sport.

MMA has come a long way since the old days. Personally, I would not like to go back. Today's unified rules of MMA are not perfect, but I feel that MMA is in a really good place right now.

Huh? I don't want untimed rounds or any bloodthirsty stuff. I just don't think judges do a great job saying 10-9 this and 10-8 that (not nearly enough 10-8 rounds, imo). Especially since fighters don't know the scores between rounds. Can you imagine playing basketball and not knowing who's winning going into the final 30 seconds? Combat sports have too much in common with figure skating/other judging sports where the judges have a disproportionate impact on the final result.

Keep the exact same rules, just have more draws.

This might be one of the best submissions I've ever seen.

Spoiler alert: It's from last night's Johnson-Borg flyweight fight.

That guy's so good it's stupid.

And to think he's just a BJJ blue belt.

Last night’s UFC event was incredible!

Spoiler:

3 upsets. Each one in dramatic fashion.

- Namajunes - I think she’s amazingly talented, and just a great personality as well. I totally believed that she would win. Everyone else in my house wanted Joana to lose, but thought she would beat Namajunes. It went even better than I had expected.

When Joana was a coach on TUF, she said some horribly racist sh*t to Claudia Gadalia. That was enough to make me an anti-fan of her. Only after the fight was over did I learn about the horrific things she said to Rose before the fight. Verbally attacking someone on that level should not be tolerated by the UFC. But I’m sure that all they care about is the potential profit they will reap from the controversy.

- Dillishaw - I wanted him to win. I didn’t think he would. I tried to ignore the dramatic storyline from outside of the ring, but found that to be difficult. Dillishaw did a great job of finishing Cody. And yelling in his face after the stoppage was an expression of pure vindication.

- GSP - I’m shocked! But I’m also a little disappointed about the jock strap controversy. The ref should have put the fight on hold until Bisbing could get the proper protective gear. When Bisbing’s jock strap broke, he just took the cup out and shoved it into his underwear. Foolish on his part and the ref’s part too. To Bisbing’s credit, he made no mention of it when the fight was over. I’m hoping for an instant rematch, based on the controversy.

I you hope you all got to see it.

Not MMA but boxing. Video of the only fight (Wilder-Stiverne) of the weekend that went according to plan. I've seen some terrifying MMA knockouts in my time but this one is truly scary.

Gamer streams fights and gets away with it because he pretends he is playing a game.

That’s kind of funny. I doubt he will actually get away with it though. It seems to be public knowledge at this point, and the UFC is very aggressive about protecting their brand. That streamer may end up getting sued to death.

I meant get away with it in the sense he was able to stream the whole event without it getting taken down. But yeah, probably isn't going to go to well for him in the near future.

My anarchistic side applauds him. But it really wasn’t very smart. I hope the reprocussions aren’t too harsh for the guy. The US courts certainly tend to favor huge corporations over human beings. He will probably be made a pariah.

I may have known a guy who got a cease and desist letter from the UFC attorneys for downloading a torrent of, and not seeding, a then 4 year old UFC main event. So yeah, they're super protective of their brand.

Kehama wrote:

I may have known a guy who got a cease and desist letter from the UFC attorneys for downloading a torrent of, and not seeding, a then 4 year old UFC main event. So yeah, they're super protective of their brand.

They have a premium streaming service, which has the entire back catalog available, so I can understand where the UFC is coming from. I may have known a guy who got a nasty email from his cable company for DLing a torrent of a UFC event that had happened the night before. He stopped doing that. But he may have used acestream in the recent past to watch a UFC PPV that he didn't feel was worth $55 USD. It should be noted that this friend of mine buys an average of 3 UFC PPVs per year at full price.

I know a guy hasn't bought, streamed, or torrented (in a long time) but would love to watch UFC events if they were played at a reasonable hour on the East Coast. Seriously some of these events go to 1:30 AM. I'm too old for that sh!#!

Any sense if the McGregor nonsense might be the Tyson-biting-the-ear moment of his career?

Honestly, I just assumed McGregor was done fighting. He's got the money and fame to to live on that for the rest of his life.

My guess, though, is that his going rate to fight in another match, whether it be boxing or MMA just went up. So, he might take another run at the octagon or ring. But I figured he was done fighting when he fought Mayweather.

If nothing else, he can walk over to WWE and pocket millions any time he wants. Why on earth should he continue fight for real?

Jayhawker wrote:

Honestly, I just assumed McGregor was done fighting. He's got the money and fame to to live on that for the rest of his life.

I bet he's burned through a lot of it. Floyd, too. Otherwise there wouldn't be talk about Mayweather-McGregor II.

Interestingly enough, UFC 223 was shaping up to be a pretty decent card. But no one talked much about it (outside the MMA trades and MMA Fan) until McGregor showed up and started throwing stuff. That's how f--ked the UFC is these days. The fighters are better than ever, and the matchups are good, but it has no star power, and there's zero buzz about the sport from outside until its biggest star attacks a bus.

It's like golf and Tiger Woods, but with Tiger throwing golf carts into ponds or something.