While I don't disagree with you that the -1 penalty for the guard pull may not be the best rule, I think you're overreacting.
What's everybody's first complaint at top gi tournaments? Guard pulling. Now an organization takes a fairly small step to discourage what everyone complains about, and now we complain that they don't pull guard enough.
Well, you have to make a difference, with the gi, its way harder for the other person to run away, you can still get a hold of him, no gi, its impos
Even though I detest guard pulling, though, it should only be penalized during the points portion of the fight - but that wouldn't fix anything. Calasans and Rocha would still be trapped fighting for takedowns because neither of them could afford a penalty (granted, they were able to apparently afford a total of 5 stalling penalties between them).
It would have saved us of 10 minutes of keenan vs yuri bitch slapping around, It would certanly not have avoided dopp vs sanchez, that trasvesty was meant to happen anyways. I didnt get to see Rocha vs Calassans, didnt get to see any of the absolute, I had to take off, I couldve have chose to stayed another day, and I would certanly have chosen to do it if I was being entertained, but I had to literally drink cafe to stay awake.
I'm not sure if a "mediocre wrestler" would win, because the penalty doesn't mean that you can't pull guard. A few people did, and if you're comfortable enough in guard, you may get the tap on a mediocre wrestler. They are free to enter the qualifiers to enter and win it all.
I'm also frustrated, but I think our frustration is pointed at the wrong people. A single rule is not going to ruin a tournament. I think that apparently so many of these grapplers completely ran out of cardio (especially the ones that only competed in the Absolute division in day 2) is suspect. If Calasans and Rocha could pull guard, we probably would have got exactly what we saw at the start of the match - one guy laying in the others' guard, doing nothing.[/QUOTE]
a mediocre wrestler with 3 months of subgrappling is going to win the whole show, I dont know wtf this shit is anymore. In the previous rounds, you only have 5 minutes to sub the person, if not, you are done. 5 minutes isnt much time, but thing is, the person on top is not force to engage either. in the no points part, if one person desires to stay on his feet, no one can force him to not stay on his feet, stalling calls are too soft and is ridiculous the lack of penalties. If the wrestler makes t out of the no pounts part, he goes onto the points part, wtf is a bjj going to do? he is not a wrstler, nor will ever be as good as the wrestler on his feet, he has to go down, even if he takes the -1 looking for the submission, still the wrestler goes on rustam mode and its impossible to get sub. You can just chill on the outside and pretend to be trying to pass and nothing happens, nothing. no one will be forcing you to grapple.
So the result is you have bunch of ground specialist doing what they suck at, putting a horrible show and allowing mediocre athletes to come and steal the show. Calasans when on judo mode and won the whole thing, imagine throwing in there some real judo or freestyle guys, they'll laugh their ass off.
If you are doing a tournament where everyone can enter all styles and shit, why are you only penalizing one style.
If you are going to take a point for guard pulling, do the same shit when people freak out and disengange all the time, you have to engage! if the person sat on his ass and took the -1 the least you can do is try to grapple with him.
We need more marcelos in this life, adcc 2003 had some real wrestlers, marcelo pulled guard on all of them and subed them all, are you going to tell me that you rather watch orlando sanchez vs dopp than what marcelo did to those guys? Mike van Arsdale got choked out by him for fuck sakes, mikes wrestling was a trillion ligh years infront of what dopp or sanchez could offer.
I know not every one is marcelo, but I rather watch 15 minutes of footsies than 15 minutes of bitch slapping, at least footsies can actually do some damage specially when theres hh allow....