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

[Killer Kadoogan]

There are plenty of other good wrestling countries in eastern Europe and around the world that knowledge can be drawn from.

Nothing in mma has remained static there is always an evolution / an answer.

well yea, of course knowledge is everywhere. but the fighters in boca raton aren't going to be flying over for wrestling training.

the majority will never possess the skill to hang with the elite. 100%. levels. insane levels.

 

[Left Hook Lacy]

You can only master so many things. It’s hard to compete with guys who have been training high level wrestling since birth and still be able to do other things too.

Wrestling is the most effective martial art. In order to defend against an elite wrestler, you basically need to be one yourself.

Or just be the better submission grappler. The problem is often the wrestlers are more athletic, learn better striking and can just beat the grappler up on the feet.
I miss the days when guys like Pettis or Cerrone beat wrestlers up on the feet, got taken down and then just submitted them on the ground. That was exciting to watch. Striking and BJJ.

Diego Lopes going for it both on the feet and on the ground against Ortega last weekend was also crazy exciting to watch.

 

[pankrat]

Is this 2008?

 

[Goatenstein]

The sports' rules are pure as it is, we don't want to mess with them to favour striking it will dilute the quality of the sport / art of mma. We want to see a fair playing field between strikers and grapplers.

In the future, all fighters will need to have quality defensive and offensive wrestling to counter act Caucas-style wrestling if they want to be elite competitors. So the sport will evolve so that fighters are able to counter act lay n pray / conservative wrestling approaches, until then we just have to be patient.

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.

Lol been hearing this for over two decades now.

 

[Mike]

So it did happen. And speaking up about it at least helps more than doing nothing and accepting it. What will really do it is just more boring fights, sadly

I read a bit further into it. There's opposition from some clown that runs the American Boxing Committee or whatever, because he wants to see studies that show "knees to the head of a grounded opponent is safer." That's a direct quote. Think about that for a second. Why isn't he asking for studies that show MMA without punches to the head is safer? Or studies that show MMA without submissions is safer?

"In fact, if the executive director in Colorado has any medical documentation or studies that show ‘knees to the head of a grounded opponent is safer,’ he should share the information with the ABC."

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.

ABC president Mike Mazzulli is none too pleased with Colorado’s commission deviating from the unified rules to appease ONE Championship.

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

So how many times did they fight under this knees allowed ruleset I genuinely want to know? One is much lower profile than the UFC and perhaps easier to sanction something like this, but it's a start.

 

[Mike]

Or just be the better submission grappler. The problem is often the wrestlers are more athletic, learn better striking and can just beat the grappler up on the feet.
I miss the days when guys like Pettis or Cerrone beat wrestlers up on the feet, got taken down and then just submitted them on the ground. That was exciting to watch. Striking and BJJ.

Diego Lopes going for it both on the feet and on the ground against Ortega last weekend was also crazy exciting to watch.

Man those were exciting times. One thing I've noticed a lot of analysts say in different ways, is defense is basically easier to learn than elite offense so unless there's a large skill gap it gets harder and harder to submit versus just smothering someone in modern MMA.

Even if you have significantly better bjj that may not be enough to beat minor to moderately better wrestling and top control.

 

[DoubleTrouble]

The sports' rules are pure as it is, we don't want to mess with them to favour striking it will dilute the quality of the sport / art of mma. We want to see a fair playing field between strikers and grapplers.

In the future, all fighters will need to have quality defensive and offensive wrestling to counter act Caucas-style wrestling if they want to be elite competitors. So the sport will evolve so that fighters are able to counter act lay n pray / conservative wrestling approaches, until then we just have to be patient.

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.

Yeah....wrestling only appeared in MMA in the 2020's....

 

[NoStoneUnturned]

I don't think it will because so many American and Russian kids grow up 100% committed to wrestling. Those who don't will never have the same MMA grappling ability.

The current crop of High School American wrestlers is insanely good. Jax Forrest, Marcus Blaze, Bo Bassett, Luke Lilledahl, PJ Duke, Ladarion Lockett, Angelo Ferrari, Levi Haines (now at PSU), etc., etc. They are beating senior level guys who have been on world teams regularly, former NCAA champs, etc. Our RTCs in wrestling are steadily improving to boot.

Its honestly crazy how good they are. If even a handful one day wind up in MMA its going to be nuts. Doesn't mean they will be great MMA fighters but their grappling will be very difficult for a "well rounded" fighter to deal with.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

I thought LNP was already solved and people were moaning about UFC being a kickboxing org?

 

[wildchild88]

well yea, of course knowledge is everywhere. but the fighters in boca raton aren't going to be flying over for wrestling training.

the majority will never possess the skill to hang with the elite. 100%. levels. insane levels.

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.

 

[wildchild88]

I thought LNP was already solved and people were moaning about UFC being a kickboxing org?

Exactly, everyone was whining saying the ufc is just a bad kickboxing org.

 

[Human Bass]

Allow upkicks all the time, make the guard truly effective.

 

[RonDante]

Merab would have won the fight even if they completely ignored all takedowns and only looked at the strikes landed

If you want to discourage lay and pray (which wasn’t what merab was doing) then you need to stop talking about “control time” which isn’t in the rules even though everyone thinks it is, and start counting actual dominant positions, not sitting in full guard while someone punches you in the side of the head

 

[HHJ]

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.

So what bro

That's one fight.

Theres always going to be a wrestler that's better than everyone else, and if he wants to LNP that is tough shit for you. Islam is still the champion and if he wanted to lay on everyone else to win, he probably could.

These things wil never change.

 

[Krimzon]

there's a million things the commissions/ufc could do that could yield more entertaining fights:

-knees to head on failed wrestling shots
-legalize fence grab
-upkicks to head of fighter on top
-legalize holding glove cuffs (more submissions, especially from bottom guard)

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

sometimes you're just fucking stuck. and that's an indication of lack of ground skills, some sort of weakness.

lay and pray > wall and stall

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

 

[AndersonSilva23]

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

Was beautiful when GSP stuffed his attempts and kept it standing, fish out of water lol. Most strikers need better defensive wrestling and take down defence, their fault if they get put on their back easily.

 

[STAY GOLD]

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.

 

[sdpdude9]

-Takedowns mean nothing
-Control means nothing
-Passing means nothing
-Dominant positions mean nothing
-Not good enough sub attempts mean nothing
-Not good enough ground and pound means nothing

I mean basically what I’m seeing is people think grappling shouldn’t be scored at all. Only if you add striking or get a submission. You can win a fight pure striking but not pure grappling. If we take the inverse it would be striking means nothing unless you get a KO or get a takedown in. See how stupid that is?

People just can’t grasp you cannot score grappling the same way, it’s a totally different element than striking. Strikers already have so many advantages. Every round starts on the feet, they get a free get up at the end of every round. They can actually just hold guard and get it stood up. You can play pure defensive grappling and basically have it called a stalemate, not the same in striking.

 

[AndersonSilva23]

In an actual fight, the person on the bottom would do whatever is humanly possible to get out from under by any means necessary from eye gouging to biting lol but the UFC does’t even allow the the person scrambling to momentarily grab the fence, they should allow the scrambler a 2 second fence grab and allow up kicks at anytime.