Do you call matches "fights"?

Cash Bill 52 said:
One more...Montanha, who doesn't post here any more, once told me "If some one attacks you, they should know that they're in a fight."
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Awww... I was wondering what happened to him. Did we make him angry or something? :-( Did he ever get his blackbelt?
 
I think some people call it fights to accent the fact that the goal here is to dominate and cause the other person to submit/tap/quit rather than score some arbitrary point. I tend to see sub only tournaments as fights and IBJJF competitions more as matches.
 
My instructor constantly yells at me to fight for the underhook in half guard. Though I don't refer to my competition matches as fights....I guess to each his own.
 
From my experience, it is mostly mma wannabe's that call their grappling matches "fights"
 
I've never referred to the matches in a grappling tournament as "fights" but I often say, fighting for this and that, grip fighting, fighting to pass, fighting for the td, etc.


Also to people who don't grapple and have no idea what rolling is, I'll refer to rolling as sparring because that better conveys the fact that you're going against a live resisting opponent in a free form fashion.
 
I say it because my coach says it.

What makes it a fight? Striking? Does it have to be kicks and punches? Does boxing count as a fight? It's very limited in the legal techniques... How about TKD? It's all kicks and punches. Is it likelyhood of injury? I've torn ligaments, broken my orbital, nose, and finger. Not to mention all the black eyes and minor injuries.



I don't really know but when you're out there competing, it sure feels like you're fighting.

In my opinion, it's a jiu jitsu match but it's also a jiu jitsu fight. Any time you compete in a fighting art... You're fighting.
 
Mikey Triangles said:
I personally compete in MMA, Boxing, and Grappling. I don't call any of them fights, and think it sounds weird. Fighting (at least between people) is what happens when people are too immature to control their emotions. The way I see it what I do is competition.


I use the word bout, compete, etc. I only use the word fight every now and then when I think it will help me better relate to a client, but even when referring to MMA it bothers me a little. My wife calls everything fights though. This doesn't bother me nearly enough to get an emotional response out of me ;)


with that said you want to call MMA a fight but not BJJ it seems logical because one has striking, but really you're watering down your own definition if you do that. All combat sports have rules that limit what is allowed to be done. I can understand people that define fight as two opposing forces looking to defeat each other. In this case you can call any combat sports match a fight... to me it just sounds strange. more used to it from striking styles because boxing has been drilling that into the publics subconscious for generations, but it still sounds kind of strange to me.


To me people that consciously choose the word "fight" to describe their bout in a combat sport are doing so out of some subconscious desire to be viewed as a super tough badass. Which, in all honesty is probably the reason most people start training in the first place; for this reason as an instructor I don't call those people out. This is often helping them get past insecurities and achieve a status in their own mind that they never thought they could, being a "fighter" ... but at some point along the line that mentality should really change.
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Just read this.... Awesome
 
Personally I would never say I had a fight in the morning if I was competing but if asked how it went after I would say I had 5 fights,I've never even thought about this to be honest,sure are you not fighting for submissions.

This probably only only affects mma tough guys though,I have never heard a problem with it in my mma gym as most do both mma and bjj comps.
 
Nozza said:
I'd call it a fight and not stay up all night worrying about the definition or analysing my ego.

When I did judo the club called them fights too. Not sure why anyone would really give a shit.
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Yeah any Judo guys I know are forever reminding me they fight for their belts.
 
BJJ guys tend to think they're tougher than they are. A lot of em are older or middle aged nerds, like me. We think we're a lot tougher than we actually are because we train. But in truth we'd get smashed quickly in a fight. So saying we "fight" just sort of herlps us out. Don't hate.
 
I don't see where it matters. It's semantics. But why do punches make it a fight whereas breaking somebody's arm or choking somebody to sleep is just "competing"? That's an arbitrary distinction that can actually run contrary to potential violent damage. Especially given that ALL combat sports are simply regulated versions of Parts of an actual violent fight. If it's not okay to refer to a grappling match of ANY variety (BJJ, SW, Wrestling, Judo, Sambo, etc) as a fight, why is it okay to call a boxing or kickboxing match a fight, when they are equally limited in scope?

In summation, regardless of common terminology, I think any combat sport competed at full contact is validly a fight. Unless it involves double guardpulls and footsie! ;)
 
Cash Bill 52 said:
Nice post...

There are many ways the word "fight" can be used. My favorite is the "fighter" who doesn't give up. As in, "He's got a lot of fight in him." There is always a way out of a fight. People give up all the time in combat sports. I remember being down in a "match" by lots of points and the guy almost had me arm barred, but I kept "fighting." I was able to make it to the bell without tapping. I could take solace in the fact that I put up a good "fight."

"Way too many quotes"

One more...Montanha, who doesn't post here any more, once told me "If some one attacks you, they should know that they're in a fight."
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Yah, where is Montanha now? I always really enjoyed that guy's posts! One of the originals, that guy!

And I always relate back to "my" Montanha (Daniel De Lima), who always referred to us a "Lutadors" (fighters). But there again, he is from the very early Brazilian school where BJJ was fight prep, not as sportive as some guys. AND, we are a very MMA oriented school. Very few of our BJJ guys do NOT cross over into our MMA program to some extent.
 
irc said:
BJJ guys tend to think they're tougher than they are. A lot of em are older or middle aged nerds, like me. We think we're a lot tougher than we actually are because we train. But in truth we'd get smashed quickly in a fight. So saying we "fight" just sort of herlps us out. Don't hate.
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????

I guess maybe that applies to some people. I guess if you train all the time and you still think you'd get smashed quickly in a fight, you could round out your training quite a bit. At my gym, and at many others that I've visited, BJJ "players" are regularly training their wrestling/judo/takedowns/positional control/submissions, and often doing so with strikes. Given, we aren't a medal chaser-type school who are specializing in sport bjj to that degree (which is probably necessary to win matches/fights in THAT particular rules-set.).

It (the training style mentioned above) may not be enough to beat an actively, specifically trained MMA fighter in a sanctioned sporting event, but I would hope the BJJ guys who train thusly could at least avoid getting "smashed quickly in a fight".
 
No, I personally refer to it as a match or bout or competition.
 
I've never met a wrestler who has referred to his matches as a fight. Why is this distinction for hard for the guys who wear pajamas?
 
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