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It sucks because he finally got a good fight that would get him a top guy and he shit the bed. He would have done alright against Ige after the Zombie fight IMO.
I see that it came out he broke his hand straight away, but he was having success on the feet with the kicks. He should have actually set the rolls up instead of diving all over the place against a skilled grappler. He could have sat on the outside spamming kicks, forced his opponent to over commit to get some offence back and then dived into the legs.
That's my armchair quarterback opinion. I hope to see him back in there with an actual well rounded strategy. He won't win a title, but he could definitely have some success.
You make good points and after watching the fight again, Hall's strategy wasn't a total bust. He did connect with two back kicks before getting stuffed on the third, and in one of his early imanari roll attempts, he successfully latches onto his opponent's arm for a few seconds, threatening an omoplata and causing Topuria to frantically have to scramble away.
Armchair quarterbacking as you say but Hall's issue was being way too predictable. He literally attempted 15 consecutive imanari rolls before getting finished on the last one. Leading up to that, Topuria twice had Hall's back with underhook tightwaist control (as he did at the finish) but bailed on that to stand back up. Hall brought the finish on himself by spamming yet another spinning back kick, which Topuria anticipated and evaded, then committed to GnP from the same tightwaist back control to finish.
You could up the points for a takedown. That might make it more worthwhile for people. If you start the fight up 4 for landing a takedown and you get penalized for sitting to guard, it really makes that takedown worth it. Wrestlers would potentially dominate BJJ completely if that occurred though. Takedown, side control and ride for the victory.
IMO 4 points for TD would be excessive. That would only increase the urgency to pull guard. I think 2 points for TD with -1 penalty for pulling guard is the right risk/reward trade-off. It would encourage both guys to go for a TD (because they want 2 points) and if other guy takes you down, you're only down one more point than if you had pulled guard. So unless you're completely outmatched on the feet, that incremental point loss is still worth risking the chance to be up two.
I think they found the answer. The answer is MMA. There are missing pieces of BJJ that exist, just like in wrestling and Judo. The way to fix them requires doing other martial arts.
This is the truth, but the irony is that it's already come full circle. Starting in the 90's, TMA guys swallowed their pride and took up BJJ/MMA because it was shown to be more effective in a real fight. But back then, BJJ wasn't the guard pulling sport version that's popular today. Royce, Rickson, et al could win from guard but they rarely if ever pulled guard. They attempted TDs even against top wrestlers because top position is better in MMA with strikes in play.
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