We are frustraded because we like to see fighters not players

[Cpt Migraine]

As always.. it's up to the other fighter to stop the wrestling.. sure..

But it's also up to the wrestler to keep the fans interested in seeing them fight out of self preservation.. right now the best ww on the planet is looking in the mirror knowing very few people wants to see him fight again.. tough shit..

 

[empsim]

Fuck the sport. As a viewer I'm trying to be entertained. The viewers make the events possible. These wrestlers are costing us numerous matchups / potential stand up wars, and the UFC is always derailing their own hype trains because of their striker vs grappler match-up fetish.

If you only want to see stand up, why not watch fighting that only allows stand up?

 

[Bruce Lee666]

There were constantly bad decisions in PRIDE, and the ruleset was not superior. Constantly having to break the action to move the fighters back to the middle of the ring was embarrassing. Ring outs. No elbows. I loved PRIDE as much as every other fan back then, but it was not more "real" than the UFC, and Kamaru would be the PRIDE 170 champ if they were still around and paying top dollar.

soccer kick, without cage to favor wrestlers,different rules.

Usman gets nothing at Pride.

a wrestler would be in the dark at Pride,the rules don't save them.

PRIDE had SO many fights that were one guy would sit in the other guy's guard and very little action would happen, because elbows weren't allowed and there wasn't a cage to pin guys against or wall walk up. You're either remembering with rose glasses, or you weren't actually around for PRIDE and have only gone back for the fights that were particularly exciting. And if you haven't noticed the UFC has been extremely exciting this year.

LOL@ naive. I've been watching MMA and training since the 90s.

did you watch Pride? if you fall,you would suffer it.

Pride forever!

 

[Bruce Lee666]

where would Usman embrace Masvidal at Pride? without cage ?

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

Eh, I'm watching a sport, not fights. Sometimes it means I'm not as excited, but it means I'm watching the best.

 

[aichokyu]

With all the respect for the Kamaru Usman dominance, I think that the most frustrating aspect of his fighting is that even completely dominating his opponent he doesn't try to finish the fight. He stalls with all his ability to win the game, not the fight. He has the mentality an athlete competing in a fighting sport not a mentality of fighter trying to emulate a real fight with some set of rules to see who can finish who, that what must of us like.

This mentality is very common on wrestlers, maybe because they have this mentality all their life, because how the rules of wrestling are.

The majority of sherdoggers, like me, don't like this type of competitors.

the majority of sherdoggers would prefer the UFC to be a popularity contest rather than a fighting competition and care more about trash talking skills than fighting skills anyway

 

[Stagliano]

soccer kick, without cage to favor wrestlers,different rules.

Usman gets nothing at Pride.

a wrestler would be in the dark at Pride,the rules don't save them.



did you watch Pride? if you fall,you would suffer it.

Pride forever!

With Pride rules, Usman could have knee'd Masvidal's head several times when they were on the ground.

 

[Th3Sav4ge]

Nay

You must have forgotten Nick playing it safe vs Anderson, amist the rest of the clowning. I vaguely recall him asking if he was up between rounds late.

Diaz the Larger isn't damned, but he sure AF is no Son of the Most Bloody

At least Forrest had the decency to go out on his shield.

do you get out the candles and dim the lights when diego fights lol

 

[Pepy]

Blame Greg Jackson. Sport killer

do NOT pass guard!

 

[Gmork]

soccer kick, without cage to favor wrestlers,different rules.

Usman gets nothing at Pride.

The idea that Usman wouldn't still be a champion under Pride rules is a pure delusion. And yes, there were occasionally soccer kicks. There were also tons of fights of dudes humping in the missionary position, because of no elbows.

 

[Hotei]

LOL@ naive. I've been watching MMA and training since the 90s.

If you have been watching MMA since the 90s you know that current UFC is not just MMA, it's MMA under a strict ruleset.
In PRIDE you couldn't really stall because of the ring, lay and pray was there but it was definitely less common just because judging didn't value top position as much as today. You look confused about the comparison, it's not about having bad decisions and it's not about the best figher, it's about the scoring system. Whatever system you chose it's going to affect the fighters, they are going to plan to win the points. A round by round control-oriented judging IS VERY different from what MMA used to be.

 

[gono btw]

Spoiler

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

With all the respect for the Kamaru Usman dominance, I think that the most frustrating aspect of his fighting is that even completely dominating his opponent he doesn't try to finish the fight. He stalls with all his ability to win the game, not the fight. He has the mentality an athlete competing in a fighting sport not a mentality of fighter trying to emulate a real fight with some set of rules to see who can finish who, that what must of us like.

This mentality is very common on wrestlers, maybe because they have this mentality all their life, because how the rules of wrestling are.

The majority of sherdoggers, like me, don't like this type of competitors.

No snark, but why not watch toughman competitions? They don't allow anything but standing there and trading punches, which is exactly what you want to see.

Stalling, retreating, using delaying tactics are a big part of real combat. Anyone with any military training (or who has studied military history) understands this. For Americans it should be even more evident, given that's a large part of how the American revolution was won -- using those kinds of tactics instead of lining up against the British and having it out. The same is true for real fights between individuals, where running at an opponent who has a gun or who has backup tends to be a very stupid (and often short lived) way of fighting.

I can understand not wanting to watch intelligent tactics, what is effective for real fighting is often not entertaining to watch (there's a reason for the army saying "Hurry up and wait"). What I don't understand is why exactly the one kind of event that doesn't allow tactics (toughman) never caught on, given how many people prefer that to the use of tactics.

For my part, I want to see who can win under a given rule set (no rules means guns and plenty of friends). And that means allowing the use of intelligent tactics -- and intelligence is what separates humans from other animals in terms of combat, without it we're pretty far down the food chain. I've watched a few toughman contests over the years, and my problem with them is that it doesn't allow intelligence. But I really think people who don't like the use of tactics in MMA would love it.

 

[Thrawn33]

do you get out the candles and dim the lights when diego fights lol

More like torches, revel fires and the occasional burnt offering.

 

[skylolow]

I don't know, I never really had much of problem with how Usman has fought or even GSP for that matter.

The guy across the cage is there to pound your face in. You do what you do best and avoid that. Really is simple as that. I don't think any fighter on purpose just drags out a fight.

Some fights just don't come off good for whatever reason that is almost unexplainable going into the fight (ie: Lewis vs Nag.)

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

There are a few things at play. On one hand fighters don't realize that sports aren't real and are little more than creations for our entertainment which makes them entertainers first and foremost. On the other hand fans forget that mixed martial arts like many sports are bound to have boring moments.
Collegiate wrestling was never a brutal sport and MMA or the UFC for that matter has rule changed itself over the years to the point wrestlers were the toughest fighters to beat. Nick Diaz has been trying to tell us this for years

And in fact most soldiers will tell you that the ultimate combat (actual war) consists of 90% boredom, 10% action and terror).

You can have realistic fighting, or you can have entertaining fighting. But you can't have both, because often the most intelligent thing to do in a real fight (war or on the street) is to stall or retreat, to get your opponent to run out their advance and then counter.

If you're going to emphasise entertainment then you have to end up with scripted fights like professional wrestling, because that's always far flashier and more impressive than real fights.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

As always.. it's up to the other fighter to stop the wrestling.. sure..

But it's also up to the wrestler to keep the fans interested in seeing them fight out of self preservation.. right now the best ww on the planet is looking in the mirror knowing very few people wants to see him fight again.. tough shit..

If its up to a fighter to use bad tactics to keep entertained, what differentiates it from professional wrestling? The point of MMA (like all sports) is to see who is better under a given rule set (if no rules then everyone is bringing in weapons and friends). If that's to be put aside to make things more entertaining, then it'll quickly turn into fighters working together to make things more entertaining, because two fighters cooperating can make for much better action than two fighters opposing each other -- super entertaining, flashing moves only work when fighters cooperate.

Real combat (ask any soldier) is often boring, often involves retreat or stalling, involves waiting for your enemy to make a mistake, involves waiting for time to run out. Constant action is part of movie combat, not real combat.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

But it was. Broader ruleset and different judging system..
Just like early UFC was closer to a real fight than what we have now.

Maybe slightly, but not by much. The key difference between Pride and the UFC was the superior production values of Pride, the far superior hype, and the way they used squash matches to build up their best talent and then faced them off against each other. In other words, they put on a better show. But it wasn't inherently more of fight than the UFC of today.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I would argue that it was because of the broader rule set of what a fighter could do i.e. knees and kicks to downed opponent and being able to wear gis, shoes, yellow cards for inactivity and more importantly, judging a "fight" based on damage, aggression and coming close to ending the fight and judging the fight as a whole rather than a round by round basis. All these things makes it inherently more of a fight than UFC.

Those things you named gave better tools to stop takedowns and gave more weapons to wrestlers after a takedown. I'm all for knees to the head, which I think is a probably bigger difference maker than kicks to the head.

 

[Tito Tapped]

Speak for yourself. Lots of fans out there that enjoy the sport of MMA over the UFC's pageantry.