Is the UFC more boring now that MMA has become Muay Thai /Boxing/Jiu Jitsu/Wrestling?

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chamcham

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These days MMA has evolved to the point where fighter belong to training camps that use a similar mix of BJJ, Muay Thai, Wrestling, and Boxing with most weaknesses accounted for.

Have UFC fights becomg less entertaining because everyone fights almost the same style now?
Is it more exciting to watch well-rounded fighters highly skilled in similar martial arts?
Or is it more entertaining to see fighters with a very strong style preference, but with bigger holes in their games?
 
There will always be mismatches when one fighter is a lifelong wrestling goes up against a lifelong striker even if they both have "5 years of MMA experience"
 
I personally love specialist fights, but its a natural progression... I think you will see more and more fighters looking to other styles to get an edge thats the next part of the sports growth IMO... Karate is underused and so is judo IMO both have a lot of effective techniques that fighters could be using more often, maybe a bit of TKD as well.
 
This is better mma than watching wrestlers hump for 15-25 minutes.
 
No man, the chaos of it all is what makes it so great to watch. Especially when you combine it with the fact these guys have better conditioning today than before.
 
Its kind of just adaptation to the Unified system. The 'game' now is fairly well defined and honed fighters to be very similar to each other.

For example, nobody 'fights from their back' anymore as its tacitly penalised by the criteria/scoring regardless of whether you are being succesful from your back or not. 5 minute rounds mean a few minutes of 'top control' likely wins the round. etc etc. Staying busy and landing strikes means many fighters are opting to 'land' more rather than 'damage' more. Having your back against the cage is seen as a negative so fighters try to force their opponent against the cage and dance around putting each other on the cage. Opting to stay conservative keeping position rather than attempting a finish (because effort to finish is not rewarded). Takedowns towards the end of a round, etc

Open up/balance the rules/scoring criteria/judging more and you'd probably get different sub-games and dynamics within the contest. Right now at the mediuim-high level, fights and fighters are very similar as there is now a well understood 'way' of winning according to these rules
 
Magnum1978 said:
Its kind of just adaptation to the Unified system. The 'game' now is fairly well defined and honed fighters to be very similar to each other.

For example, nobody 'fights fromt their back' anymore as its tacitly penalised by the criteria/scoring regardless of whether you are being succesful from your back or not. 5 minute rounds mean a few minutes of 'top control' likely wins the round. etc etc.

Open up the rules/scoring criteria/judging more and you'd probably get different sub-games and dynamics within the contest. Right now at the mediuim-high level, fights and fighters are very similar as there is now a well understood 'way' of winning according to these rules
Click to expand...

Great points. If I could change one thing about the way fights are currently judged, it would be to take guard as a neutral position. You get points for taking a guy down, but from there if you want to be considered winning, you have to use the position.
 
Personally I find the convergence of styles has removed some of the excitement. I agree that the more rules you have the more it dictates a similar recipe for success.
 
sure, everyone may train the same styles but it's the practical application and the game plan that sets the fighters apart.
 
The mixture of MT/BJJ that most mma schools have is creating fighters that are just alright at best at those two disciplines.There seems to be a consensus out there among new fans that think that this is the evolution of the sport, I personally would rather a specialist at one of the main styles than be mediocre at everything, look at Maia who is pretty much a specialist and how well he has done,sure he lost some fights but he's won more and even got a title shot just on his bjj skill.
 
chamcham said:
Is it more exciting to watch well-rounded fighters highly skilled in similar martial arts?
Or is it more entertaining to see fighters with a very strong style preference, but with bigger holes in their games?
Click to expand...
I don't understand your question.

Which of the following fighters fights remotely similarly:

Ben Askren
Demian Maia
Nick Diaz
Rousimar Palhares
Anthony Pettis
Rory Macdonald
Conor Mcgregor
Liam Mcgeary

More well rounded != less styles. There are more styles now than there ever have been.
 
EndlessCritic said:
I don't understand your question.

Which of the following fighters fights remotely similarly:

Ben Askren
Demian Maia
Nick Diaz
Rousimar Palhares
Anthony Pettis
Rory Macdonald
Conor Mcgregor
Liam Mcgeary

More well rounded != less styles. There are more styles now than there ever have been.
Click to expand...

Sister_girl,_that's_what's_up!.gif
 
vintagemmafan said:
The mixture of MT/BJJ that most mma schools have is creating fighters that are just alright at best at those two disciplines.There seems to be a consensus out there among new fans that think that this is the evolution of the sport, I personally would rather a specialist at one of the main styles than be mediocre at everything, look at Maia who is pretty much a specialist and how well he has done,sure he lost some fights but he's won more and even got a title shot just on his bjj skill.
Click to expand...

I suspect a big issue is that under UFC dominance the MMA talent pool is actually getting draw from a narrower area. You look at Maia for example and just how many really world class BJJ/ADCC fighters have we had switch to MMA in recent years? back in the 00's it was almost expected such a switch would happen.

The UFC might pay a lot at the top BUT I think its much less proactive I signing up fighters early and that hinders it when it comes to sports where guys can earn good money which is increasingly the case for BJJ, why take the risk of switching to MMA when it takes years?

US wrestlers becoming a bigger part of the talent pool is IMHO partly due to there being pretty much zero earnings potential for them in their own sport. The problem with US wrestlers though IMHO is that very few of them have backgrounds in any MA but wrestling pre MMA and when your having to learn other MA's in your 20's as your actually building your career and having to keep in fighting shape it means there simply isn't the time to learn indepth. Hence we get vastly simplified versions of things like MT and BJJ being taught and everyone looking the same.

Really the "UFC era" is a bit of a fraud IMHO as what we've seen over the past few years is actually a UFC monopoly but with a talent pool developed prior to that monopoly, its in the next few years as this talent pool drops off that I think the true UFC era is revealed and honestly I don't think it will be nearly as interesting.
 
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Uh... it also features Tae Kwan Do, Karate, Kickboxing, Judo, Sanda, Sambo, and probably abunch of other things I've forgotten being fairly successful at the high levels. It's far from boring.
 
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