Lay and pray will be solved when fighters become truly well rounded.

[Gamer2k4]

Well rounded fighters is what CAUSES what people are calling "lay and pray" these days. The wrestlers are good enough to get their opponents down, but the opponents are good enough defensively to keep the wrestler from getting a finish.

 

[AndersonSilva23]

Well rounded fighters is what CAUSES what people are calling "lay and pray" these days. The wrestlers are good enough to get their opponents down, but the opponents are good enough defensively to keep the wrestler from getting a finish.

Good point, vicious ground’n’pound isn’t as easy as it used to be in the Mark Coleman days.

 

[orca]

Did you forget the human blanket that was Jon Fitch?

I say let's do it Pride style. If a wrestler is truly dominant he can finish fights. If there's a sloppy takedown attempt then the wrestler gets punished with knees to the head on a sprawl

did you also forget pereira?
his fans claim he can punch any wrestlers in the face
thats his takedown defense

 

[sdpdude9]

Well rounded fighters is what CAUSES what people are calling "lay and pray" these days. The wrestlers are good enough to get their opponents down, but the opponents are good enough defensively to keep the wrestler from getting a finish.

And this is where I think there’s a lot of misplaced blame. Your average UFC level fighter generally has solid defensive grappling. They are able to stay safe and mostly stop any significant offense. They often do this by being pretty risk averse.

Not trying to submit off their back, not trying to sweep, sometimes not even trying to get up because all of those actions can put you in a worse spot. The fighter on top then struggles to find much success, because a purely defensive fighter leaves little openings. I think more blame needs to be put on the bottom fighter in these scenarios, they should be the one obligated to take the risk to get up.

 

[moosaev]

Wrestling quality will improve across the board in future generations, that's just a fact. The Caucas-style wrestling dominance won't pervade forever, it's just a trend on the way to the next thing.

The learning curve for wrestling is too steep. Guys like Merab and Umar started this shit when they were children. An american kid who just started getting into mma as an 18 yr old will never close the gap.

 

[Killer Kadoogan]

Volkanovski could deal with Islam's grappling in their first fight.. that fight was close. He ended the fight on top reigning down blows.

Who's to say that the fighters of the future won't be able to put up similar performances.

volk still lost the ground game completely, lost the fight, so that's not a great example.

on top of that, he has the money to fly in people to help him, specialists. theres maybe 2% of US MMA fighters than can do that.

make no sense.

 

[Trabaho]

So you think noone will ever be the better wrestler of two and dominate with takedowns ? IQ = 80

 

[Deleted member 110072]

The rules/judging in the US I feel have been a massive factor in how the sport has changed, its pretty much impossible to win from your back without a finish so almost nobody focuses on such fighting these days, all the focus is on trying to stand back up.

 

[Left Hook Lacy]

This. As the defender it is your job to get up.

That's just not true. Not as an absolute statement like that.

If the guy on top is working at least a little bit, yes, it's your job to get up. But if the guy on top is stalling, no, it's nobody's job to get up. Stalling should get punished. Then either stand them up or give the guy on bottom the round.
Granted, this is a rare example.

 

[HHJ]

That's just not true. Not as an absolute statement like that.

If the guy on top is working at least a little bit, yes, it's your job to get up. But if the guy on top is stalling, no, it's nobody's job to get up. Stalling should get punished. Then either stand them up or give the guy on bottom the round.
Granted, this is a rare example.

So if someone is holding you down, you just dont do anything, thats your advice?????!!

 

[Left Hook Lacy]

So if someone is holding you down, you just dont do anything, thats your advice?????!!

No!?

Obviously you try to get up. If this doesn't work because the guy on top is stalling, either you should win the round or the ref should stand you up.

If it doesn't work while the other guy is working, that means the other guy is just better and obviously wins the round.

If the guy on top is trying to work and you stall from the bottom, hoping the referee will stand you up, then the ref should never ever stand you up. Then it's your own fault and you should stay on your back, even if nothing happens for 5 minutes. Here's where many people would unfairly complain about the guy on top being boring while it's the guy on bottom who does the stalling.

Point being, it doesn't matter who's on top or bottom or wherever. It's about working and being active vs stalling.

 

[Mike]

It's the same discussion that's been ongoing for years.

Folks complain because they hate grappling and want to watch kickboxing brawls in cage with MMA gloves. ONE offers that and they don't watch. Glory tried expanding in American and they didn't watch.

Folks will complain about everything and when they get what they want, they don't watch, yet they continue to complain.

It's wild how people put brand loyalty above getting what they actually want. All sorts of orgs doing only standup combat but they continue to watch MMA even though they hate grappling.

I hate a boring fight but don't mind a grappling based fight going to decisions if the transitions are entertaining. We have lots of guys who hate.thoae too, they just only know the UFC brand name and won't try anything else no matter what.

 

[Myrddin Wild]

Honestly lay and pray hasn't been a massive talking point until Belal and Merab won, trends like these happen in ebbs and flows.. be patient

Winning rounds due to simply being on top is a bastardization of teh existing judging criteria.

After a TD you score ZERO until you either: advance position, strike, or put them in danger with a sub.

Merab was active enough that his top position legit wins him the round. Grasso got robbed of the first 2 rounds. Valentina gets credit for the TD only. Reading the judging criteria properly... we're now scoring a TD vs. 2 legitimate fight ending submission attempts.

The judging criteria is designed to favor anyone who puts the other in danger of being finished. Laying on top scores zero & more people... & judges... should recognize that.

The way the judging criteria reads is that the legit submission positions are scored stronger than the TD... so Grasso easily won teh first & second. It's a mute point since Valentina legit won the rest of the rounds... but its a slap in the face to modern judging (& the uneducated commentators) who all scored R1 & R2 for Valentino simply for being on top. That is a long outdated scoring method that is no longer valid. FFS it was 20fuckin17 when we writ out teh new criteria... how long does it take before people & judges actually read teh fookin thing?

/rant

 

[Myrddin Wild]

Some guys are just too good at wrestling and will be able to dominate most if not all the people he wrestles

The modern judging criteria was specifically designed so that a wrestler only scores for the TD until he does something else with it. He can score further by

1. advancing position
2. striking
3. threatening with a sub

Simply laying on top scores zero.

Grasso for example easily won teh first 2 rounds under the modern judging criteria. The changes made in 2017 were specifically targeting the idea that someone can just be on top & win. Somehow neither judges nor commentators seem to have understood that part of the very clearly written judging criteria.

 

[HHJ]

Somehow neither judges nor commentators seem to have understood that part of the very clearly written judging criteria.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

That's just not true. Not as an absolute statement like that.

If the guy on top is working at least a little bit, yes, it's your job to get up. But if the guy on top is stalling, no, it's nobody's job to get up. Stalling should get punished. Then either stand them up or give the guy on bottom the round.
Granted, this is a rare example.

No, that statement as a baseline is correct. You cannot rely on the ref to call stalling or intervene. You are in the position of disadvantage. You have to be the one to be pushing the pace to get back into the offensive side of the fight from the ground or otherwise. The expectation is never going to be on the person in a dominant position to provide openings for their opponent.

Stalling should be called more and intervention should occur in some cases. Both parties definitely need to work. However, it needs to be understood that if the person on top is actively working to maintain the pin and the person on bottom is making no effort to escape or attack (i.e. staying purely defensive or waiting out the round) then you can't punish the top player without actively rewarding someone's poor technique from bottom.

It's a complicated and annoying dilema

 

[mister piscadinha]

Looks too brutal,.and that's it. It's not about what MMA fans would accept it's about what people that hate MMA or who are looking for an easy target in our overly political climate can politicize.

Nerds playing dungeons and dragons in their basement and listening to heavy metal in the 80s is infinitely less dangerous than getting kneed in the head but they still wanted to put people in prison for both as recently as back then.

It's an overly conservative country and people tend to forget that because it's changing rapidly.

sure bud, in 2024 its the big bad conservatives trying to stamp out mma.. lol
lefty loons talking mma(the most right wing coded sport) is hilarious

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

Did you forget the human blanket that was Jon Fitch?

I say let's do it Pride style. If a wrestler is truly dominant he can finish fights. If there's a sloppy takedown attempt then the wrestler gets punished with knees to the head on a sprawl

Literally all that needs to happen to increase finishes by wrestlers and counter wrestlers is knees to the head of a grounded opponent.
Hell we might see a resurgence of people trying to take North South

 

[mister piscadinha]

Things do change, but the majority of MMA fighters will never ever be able to defend dagestani wrestling, if they aren't actually there, training, with the people doing it. AKA has lots of terrible wrestlers too.

there is no "dagestani wrestling"
like i said the other day, not every dagestani is a judo blackbelt who trains folkstyle in california
dagestani are mostly irrelevant outside of abdulmanaps clan

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

So this goof, that approves and runs a sport where they literally send concussed people back out to die, really said this. It's because he doesn't believe it one bit. Maybe it's to keep MMA in this subverted state? Who knows. Hoping he retires soon, or is retired.

To knee or not to knee? ABC, Colorado at odds over ONE Championship's ruleset being used in U.S.

To knee or not to knee? That is the question the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports and the Colorado Combative Sports Commission disagree on. The ABC is not pleased with the Global Rule Set being used for ONE Championship's first event in the U.S. –…

mmajunkie.usatoday.com

"The liability that the State of Colorado is incurring with this rule amendment is staggering."

Somebody applaud this guy for his boiler plate MBA and then flush it down the toilet, please

He knows the only chance boxing has is if there is a Merab as champion at every weight class. Started with WW, now BW. Rakic upsets Ankalaev and LNP's Poatan, Jailton LNPs Tom, Vettori makes a resurgence and LNPs DDP.
All according to plan...