Is it me or are we seeing less ground and pound ?

[burningspear]

to get leverage you need to reduce control

 

[Cameron]

To gnp you need to have a lot of control. People are too good at heisting and escaping. The ability to pin and strike is hard.

In the past fighters accepted being in bottom more. They tried to play Jiu-jitsu which is a mistake when strikes are involved.

The sport has evolved.

To prove this. Start in someone’s closed guard and try and just hold them down. Then add in strikes and see how fast they get up.

 

[RockyLockridge]

IMO, GNP is obsolete.

Controlling position is more valuable than damage. The judges will give you the fight for lying on top and controlling. Doing damage is a risk that gives your opponent a chance to escape.

To gnp you need to have a lot of control. People are too good at heisting and escaping. The ability to pin and strike is hard.

In the past fighters accepted being in bottom more. They tried to play Jiu-jitsu which is a mistake when strikes are involved.

The sport has evolved.

To prove this. Start in someone’s closed guard and try and just hold them down. Then add in strikes and see how fast they get up.

pretty much my thoughts exactly

 

[Skarsgard]

To gnp you need to have a lot of control. People are too good at heisting and escaping. The ability to pin and strike is hard.

In the past fighters accepted being in bottom more. They tried to play Jiu-jitsu which is a mistake when strikes are involved.

The sport has evolved.

To prove this. Start in someone’s closed guard and try and just hold them down. Then add in strikes and see how fast they get up.

This is why I still think half guard is criminally underrated and isn't used near enough.

 

[GOATRankings]

To gnp you need to have a lot of control. People are too good at heisting and escaping. The ability to pin and strike is hard.

In the past fighters accepted being in bottom more. They tried to play Jiu-jitsu which is a mistake when strikes are involved.

The sport has evolved.

To prove this. Start in someone’s closed guard and try and just hold them down. Then add in strikes and see how fast they get up.

ok from guard I can see it. But we have all seen fighters even in mount position not even strike, just pushing controlling... From mount!

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Guys are ditching guard-play in favor of getting back up

GnP requires you to create space for powerful shots, guys are using that space to scramble up

Guys that are willing to lay on their back looking for subs/sweeps get it the worst. Plus a locked guard is outdated as fuck

 

[Söze Aldo]

Yeah Khabib had a brilliant use of the GNP. When he would grapevine the legs, then just suddenly stand up, and land brutal GNP on a defenseless opponent and then lock back up the grapevine before they could escape or retaliate.

Just constant harassment hahaha. That's one of the bigger differences between Khabib and Islam.

But Islam is great at positional dominance.

His win over Conor would not have had the same impact without the vicious gnp, and if he had just controlled him for 25 minutes to show "dominance".

One of the reasons Khabib did get a lot of casual fans interested despite being a grappler, is that when he got someone down, it wasn't just to hold them.

 

[Deceasedxo]

I said in a previous thread how at least with the dagis, the GNP seems to have died with Khabib. They focus on control alone now.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

It's true, it's sad, and it needs to change.

 

[Cameron]

This is why I still think half guard is criminally underrated and isn't used near enough.

Agreed.

 

[HHJ]

Guys that are willing to lay on their back looking for subs/sweeps get it the worst.

Yep

 

[Cameron]

ok from guard I can see it. But we have all seen fighters even in mount position not even strike, just pushing controlling... From mount!

Again try and posture up and land strikes from mount while someone desperately tries to escape. It’s way harder than it seems. Half guard is the better spot. But people are good at escaping now. So it’s changing the meta.

Allow knees to downed opponents and that will change

 

[TriangleMonkey]

This is why I still think half guard is criminally underrated and isn't used near enough.

Agreed.

Randy Couture and the Team Quest guys would purposely give you 1/2 guard so that they can “pin” you down and hurt you/steal rounds

Islam used it too on Jack

This isn’t the Big Nog days

Works great in gi/nogi though!

 

[Skarsgard]

Randy Couture and the Team Quest guys would purposely give you 1/2 guard so that they can “pin” you down and hurt you/steal rounds

Islam used it too on Jack

This isn’t the Big Nog days

Works great in gi/nogi though!

Half guard from top. It's not great for submissions, but you can maintain dominant position while throwing heavier strikes than you can in other positions.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Half guard from top. It's not great for submissions, but you can maintain dominant position while throwing heavier strikes than you can in other positions.

Sorry, misunderstood what ya’ll were agreeing on

Top 1/2 is perfect for stopping the “stand-ups”

 

[DrawK]

The future is timing head kicks while people try and scramble up from guard. People gonna be faking attempts to pass and pin then just letting them up to land the big kick.

 

[theincognito]

We are definitely seeing less ground and pound.

It's a lot of immediately chasing (and never getting) submissions when top control is gained.

And submissions themselves are rare unless the opponent is hurt, which highlights the need for ground and pound.

Bryce is the absolute posterboy for this.

 

[Luckyme]

Going for GnP inherently forces some control to be given up which this creates escape opportunities for the fighter on the bottom. And modern MMA fighters are less wiling to play the BJJ bottom game.

 

[krelianx]

It's there, but fighters realize that trying to throw big punches that actually do damage is generally quite risky, so they prefer to throw light, smaller, faster punches that pile numbers, get them points, don't send them off balance, or expend energy. Above all, position retention and control are the priority.

 

[moosaev]

Fighters are getting much better at getting up today, so good grapplers today are actively working much harder to maintain top control, so it’s harder to commit to GNP. The older generation simply accepted bottom position because they were infected by the BJJ mindset. Today’s fighters have accepted that pure BJJ is trash for mma lol.