Sadly it's true. So give me an eight cornered ring then.
Your sarcasm humors me. It's really the only argument I need. SAFETY. Since you're likely not a fighter on either an amateur or professional level, I wouldn't expect for you to understand.
And again, I ask, how many times was the ring responsible for injuring a fighter? I'm not talking about a sketchy low-level promotion using a boxing ring, I'm talking about a higher end promotion with a ring built for MMA (tighter ropes, more ropes closer together, possibly extra floor space outside the ropes like the Affliction ring, maybe a netting on the lowest rope like the old vale-tudo rings, etc.).
There are advantages to using a ring. It has a much more "civilized" reception amongst the general public (having long been used for boxing and kickboxing), for one, and for another, they have much MUCH better live visibility.
Hey, you can lose the best part of a cauliflower ear in those ropes.
I prefer a circular cage with a white flooring. looks more civilized than a grey floored caged octagon.
Besides possibly falling out the ring - how so? I think it will certainly stop the wall and stall that happens.
And again, I ask, how many times was the ring responsible for injuring a fighter? I'm not talking about a sketchy low-level promotion using a boxing ring, I'm talking about a higher end promotion with a ring built for MMA (tighter ropes, more ropes closer together, possibly extra floor space outside the ropes like the Affliction ring, maybe a netting on the lowest rope like the old vale-tudo rings, etc.).
There are advantages to using a ring. It has a much more "civilized" reception amongst the general public (having long been used for boxing and kickboxing), for one, and for another, they have much MUCH better live visibility.
The cage isn't perfect but fighting in a ring is absolutely terrible with resets, entanglements, and rope grabbing. I fought in a ring once where every time the fight went under the ropes they restarted the fight standing! Errrr.
If you don't want to be smothered on the wall then learn how to get the hell off of it. A more reasonable solution to stalling(on the wall, on the ground, and standing) would be yellow cards, although I personally don't want to see that either. Sometimes fights will be lackluster, thats just the nature of the sport.
Having all those guys around the ring yanking on the ropes and pushing the fighters back in annoys the shit out of me. Fights should be between the fighters and the only 3rd party interference should be for a referee stoppage.
If anything, I'd rather see the fence replaced with something that can't be grabbed. Grabbing the fence has become a prominent form of TDD now since the fighters know they'll get 5 or 6 warnings before losing a point.
I like how every time Dana says something someone on here reiterates it.
Shooto and DEEP sketchy? Sengouku, Affliction and Dream had people constantly falling threw the ropes. Just because they aren't getting injured doesn't mean it isn't ghetto as hell. Some fighters were even escaping bad positioning on purpose by throwing themselves out of the ring. And this was all with five rope rings. And lol at netting. Have you ever watched a fight with netting? It might be even more dangerous. Fighters would get completely tangled up in them making it harder to punch sometimes. Other times making it harder to defend. It was completely ridiculous. Nothing says civilized like fighters falling out of the fighting area or getting tangled up in fish netting.
Is it really any more "ghetto" than stalling against the cage where even the fighters look bored (I swear there were a few times I've seen the guy being pressed against the cage rolling their eyes)? Is it more "ghetto" than paying the money to go to a live event only for the view to be so shoddy due to the fencing and the heavily padded frame, you end up watching the TV feed on the big screens anyways?
No, Shooto and DEEP aren't sketchy, I'm talking about the one-and-done guys you see in middle-of-nowhere community centres and high-school gyms.
I guess I simply don't mind the resets anywhere near the amount that others do, as you seem to have noticed them more than I have. I don't really see what the problem with resets really is. It's not like they were something unique to ring-based MMA, every grappling sport deals with them and you don't see many people complaining about it then. Wrestling, BJJ, Judo and Sambo all deal with competitors going out of bounds and needing to be reset, yet you don't see people complaining about the type of environment they compete in, do you? You don't see the Olympics looking to adopt some type of wall to keep them in bounds, do you? Nope.
As far as the netting, maybe it's a bad idea, maybe it's just been implemented poorly (too much netting for the space and stretch of the rope, wrong material/weave, etc.).
Both the ring and the cage have their pros and cons, and everyone has their own priority of what is important.