Dan Hooker--Pulling Guard has no place in High Level MMA (New Podcast w/ Jessy Jess, Hooker, Pichel)

It depends. Who's pulling guard on who. If, let's say, Ortega pulled guard on Conor if they ever faught, that would be a pretty legitimate tactic imo. There are still fighters with glaring strenghts and/or weaknesses at the highest level of mma. If these match up well, there is most def a place for pulling guard in high level mma.
 
Laying in someone's guard doing absolutely nothing should not win you the round by default.
 
RiotWyatt said:
Only one that does it is Werdum.

People claim that Nate did it against McGregor.

The truth is not that it’s a bad position to be in to fight, it’s a bad position in for scoring.

I remember seeing stats back then showing that PRIDE had a higher rate of triangle and armbar finishes and the UFC had higher rates of guillotines and RNCs.

It’s because PRIDE scores guard as a neutral position. That made fighters more willing to fight from guard. It also meant that the fighter on top worked hard to advance position instead of laying in guard.
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Hogwash, sub defense is better now and Pride had less wrestlers with good top control.

The guy on top is winning. In every BJJ tournament if you get the take down and lay on top it doesn't matter how close the sub attempts are, it's a win two nothing for the guy on top.
 
MikeyB said:
Hogwash, sub defense is better now and Pride had less wrestlers with good top control.

The guy on top is winning. In every BJJ tournament if you get the take down and lay on top it doesn't matter how close the sub attempts are, it's a win two nothing for the guy on top.
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Sub defense may have gotten better but you can also argue that submission skills have also gone down. Maia, Jacare and Werdum are sort of the last of their kind. They’ve only recently started to fall off due to their mileage, not because of their lack of submission skills.

Also, PRIDE didn’t have a cage, which allowed BJJ players more space to work.

Also, Kawajiri and Ishida were absolute wrestling studs to name a few.

In tournaments, you get the the point for the takedown. Not for laying on top.
 
That's a generalization. Maia has successfully pulled people directly on top of him, then got deep half guard and sweeped them to end up on top. He did it to Brown, gunnar, and masvidal if I remember correctly both top 15 or top 10 fighters at the time.

Maia is a bit different because he'll pull people on top of him because he's very confident in his ability to sweep them and end out on top--he doesn't waste time playing from his guard, whereas most people who pull guard waste time trying to work from guard and end out just getting controlled.


Disagree with hooker, but I'm fine with him thinking that way because no way in hell do I want to see hooker pull guard.
 
Arm Barbarian said:
He's right about that, unless you have god-tier finishing off your back.

I can't really think of a single guy that does today though.

The risk to reward ratio makes it a really dumb thing to do.
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Werdum would be the only guy I can think of off hand. Maaaaaybe Pettis on his best day.
 
Ortega, Pettis, Maia, Lovato Jr., Werdum would most likely have the upper hand pulling guard
 
He needs to go watch Shinya Aoki & rethink his position.
 
Well, he's right. Unless you want to get your face smashed or have a high level bjj off your back, but even bjj aces like Marcin Held who did a lot of High bjj stuff got smashed in the UFC.
 
yeah i agree, unless you're someone like ortega who can snatch shit out of nowhere.
 
It’s fucking cool tho

Love fighters with good guards like Pettis and Condit before he got old
 
Nah, there is a moment for everything. Spamming guard pulls isn't a intelligent decision. Neither is spinning head kicks, but they have their moments.
 
It has a place.

A grappler would rather give up bottom to begin a grappling exchange in many instances, rather than stand with a superior striker. Damian Maia/Werdm would be the extreme of that.
 
I agree, if you still need to pull guard or jump guard, get off the big show.
 
Yea. Unless you have a Shinya Aoki/Fabricio Werdum type guard, it's pretty much a death sentence.
 
The only way I would say pulling guard is okay is if you can get a hold of your opponent and pull them down with you and then instantly start throwing up submissions. But even then, you better be damn good on the ground and your opponent better suck.
 
Now if you are top-tier against a striker that is piecing you up... worth a shot. But if they are pretty much even on the ground... not smart and should get pounded.
 
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