Well Im convinced, there is no reason to argue since your points are dead on flawless.
Thats the thing though, the ufc was created to see which martial art works and which is the most effective. Now time has changed and rules have brought favoritism to different styles. My question is whether Aikido works and that modern mma has gone from self-defense/realism to sport fighting.
the gracies fought against aikido masters in the past, they steamrolled them of course. And yes mma is nowadays a sport, we already know what works and what doesn't. Martial arts that train full contact work because they throw away what doesn't work, theoretical martial arts don't. Of course "dirty" stuff like Krav Maga also works, but if you actually train krav maga you will realize it's just part of it, they train a lot of boxing, kicking, throws etc, just like mma.
Also, you can't always use dirty tricks in a real fight. If you get into a fight with somebody in a bar you can't go on and gouge their eyes out and break their spine or you will get arrested for life.
Or if you're a kid and need to defend yourself at school it's not the best idea to bite the balls off your bully and stick a pencil on his neck.
That may be good if you're fight palestinians in gaza strip, but for a more usual self defense you need a combination of mma, good fitness and knowing dirty tricks but only as last resort. So you can train krav maga or judo or bjj or boxing etc all of that will help
But since mma is a sport and we don't want fighters to die we remove the techniques that cause too much permanent damage, which doesn't mean some Krav maga dude would beat JDS or cain, any pro fighter could learn the dirty tricks in a few days and it would add perfectly to their already deadly arsenal, since you most of the time need to combine dirty tricks like eye gouging with traditional stuff like punching, kicking and avoiding takedowns.
