Throwback - Ferguson Vs Kevin Lee (GIFS)

[mkess101]

I saw him damn close to going to sleep, and if poirier was a better grappler he'd have used the choke to turn him onto his back and finish him

Guillotine was tight, Poirier was tired as hell too which partly could explain why he couldn't roll him over. He tried, just couldn't get it done.

 

[TapMachine]

I guess it starts getting into the nuance too of degrees of "advantageous" position. In MMA, on the mat, yes it's advantageous to have top position. But if the majority of the time that is in the opponent's full guard (yes Khabib tried passing and even did a couple times--but RDA regained guard almost immediately each time) with essentially no damage done, that's only a SLIGHTLY advantageous position. In fact there are many who believe full guard is really more a 50/50 position (like I said, I disagree as I do think it's a slight advantage for the person on top but only slight unless they are doing real damage or have serious sub threats going on).

Khabib didn't really land any "heavy blows" from top, I've watched it twice. He only landed 36 total sig strikes, 12 per round average. He threw a few hard elbows, I counted one that actually landed somewhat clean. There was really no damage done at all by either fighter.

As with anything, there's a level of subjectivity. Nobody would ever argue that Khabib didn't clearly win. In a fight with no damage done (like you said, the first definition of effective striking and grappling is damage) you have to move on to the lesser criteria and Khabib certainly did dominate THOSE aspects. So from that perspective I understand your point of view and why you think "dominate" is apt. To me, when you have to essentially move on from the first criteria because it doesn't even apply, it's hard to talk of "domination".

With Tony/RDA, I actually agree and don't think "domination" applies either, and that's even if we believe the judges were wrong and that Tony won round 3 (it's debatable, a close round, Tony landed more and some of the shots were hard, but RDA did land too). It was a clear win for Tony as well as he butchered RDA over the final 10 minutes. But yes, because RDA had his moments early I would not call that fight "domination" at all.

1. The bottom position in MMA is significantly worse and more dangerous than the bottom position in a grappling match due to striking. This is not an opinion, this is a very simple and inarguable fact based on elementary physics: the person on the bottom cannot put his bodyweight into his strikes and thus loses pretty much all of his power. Anything the person on the bottom can throw, the person on top can throw much harder. If the bottom position is considered inferior in pure grappling, then it's even more inferior in MMA. Any effective striking coming from the person on the bottom is achieved by overcoming the disadvantage via superrior skill, not because there is no disadvantage.

2. Khabib did not spend most of his time in RDA's full guard, he was either trying to take RDA's back or was in half-guard. In fact, moments when Khabib was in RDA's full guard were very rare and you will have trouble naming them.

3. Khabib landed at least 6 very powerful and clearly audible blows from top in the last two minutes of round 2 alone. That's infinitely more than the damage RDA delivered on the ground, as he delivered nothing.

4. It is irrelevant what "many believe", what matters is the ruleset and the rules clearly award control time to the fighter being in top position, which means that the top position is considered superior.

5. Damage is the main criterion according to which effective striking is scored, but effective grappling is not scored only or even mainly on damage. The rules clearly state that takedowns (those leading to established offense), achievement of advantageous positions, submission attempts and reversals are all important as well along with damage.

These are not my opinions, these are literally the rules and nowhere in the rules does it say that damage is the main criterion (or a criterion superior to others) according to which effective grappling is evaluated:
https://www.dca.ca.gov/csac/forms_pubs/publications/unified_rules_2017.pdf

6. There is also nothing subjective about Khabib dominating RDA. On the feet, both fighters were more or less evenly matched and barely landed anything. However, on the ground, Khabib was winning the grappling engagements from start to finish with the exception of RDA's guillotine attempt. That's it, that's ALL RDA managed to do on the ground throughout the entire fight. Since according to the ruleset grappling engagements can be won via multiple criteria with damage being only one of them, there is no question that Khabib dominated RDA. If you want to be anal about it, you can specify that Khabib dominated RDA solely on the ground, but that does not take away anything from his victory.

 

[TapMachine]

I saw him damn close to going to sleep, and if poirier was a better grappler he'd have used the choke to turn him onto his back and finish him

That's far from a given. If you actually rewatch the fight, you will notice that Khabib never allowed Poirier to escape from the bottom even while rolling over to the side. The moment Poirier tried to move to a better position, Khabib immediately got back on top of him. Khabib didn't just flop to his side allowing Poirier to change positions, he was in control.

 

[mkess101]

1. The bottom position in MMA is significantly worse and more dangerous than the bottom position in a grappling match due to striking. This is not an opinion, this is a very simple and inarguable fact based on elementary physics: the person on the bottom cannot put his bodyweight into his strikes and thus loses pretty much all of his power. Anything the person on the bottom can throw, the person on top can throw much harder. If the bottom position is considered inferior in pure grappling, then it's even more inferior in MMA. Any effective striking coming from the person on the bottom is achieved by overcoming the disadvantage via superrior skill, not because there is no disadvantage.

2. Khabib did not spend most of his time in RDA's full guard, he was either trying to take RDA's back or was in half-guard. In fact, moments when Khabib was in RDA's full guard were very rare and you will have trouble naming them.

3. Khabib landed at least 6 very powerful and clearly audible blows from top in the last two minutes of round 2 alone. That's infinitely more than the damage RDA delivered on the ground, as he delivered nothing.

4. It is irrelevant what "many believe", what matters is the ruleset and the rules clearly award control time to the fighter being in top position, which means that the top position is considered superior.

5. Damage is the main criterion according to which effective striking is scored, but effective grappling is not scored only or even mainly on damage. The rules clearly state that takedowns (those leading to established offense), achievement of advantageous positions, submission attempts and reversals are all important as well along with damage.

These are not my opinions, these are literally the rules and nowhere in the rules does it say that damage is the main criterion (or a criterion superior to others) according to which effective grappling is evaluated:
https://www.dca.ca.gov/csac/forms_pubs/publications/unified_rules_2017.pdf

6. There is also nothing subjective about Khabib dominating RDA. On the feet, both fighters were more or less evenly matched and barely landed anything. However, on the ground, Khabib was winning the grappling engagements from start to finish with the exception of RDA's guillotine attempt. That's it, that's ALL RDA managed to do on the ground throughout the entire fight. Since according to the ruleset grappling engagements can be won via multiple criteria with damage being only one of them, there is no question that Khabib dominated RDA. If you want to be anal about it, you can specify that Khabib dominated RDA solely on the ground, but that does not take away anything from his victory.

1. If it isn't capitalized on it's not that advantageous. A great fighter off his back may be more dangerous than the fighter on top in many situations. It's the end result of the positions that determine how much of an advantage it is. In this case, with no damage, I'd give it as an advantage to Khabib but not a significant one.

2. Yes, half guard was the majority of the fight, I agree. RDA utilizes the De La Jiva hook often off his back, he seems to prefer it over his career. And Khabib likes to be in his opponent's half guard. It was a position that both guys don't mind at all.

3. Nothing that I've seen showed any damaging strikes really being landed at all. We could argue all day about just HOW significant any of the 36 total sig strikes that Khabib landed were, but in the end RDA was never in trouble or visibly affected at all and the numbers are what they are.

4. The rules don't lay out any specifics as to a % that's awarded to having top position for any set period of time. It's subjective from the standpoint that while the rules give a general idea, they don't say "If fighter x has top control for more than 2:30 of a given round, that means x". There's a level of subjectivity to judging and there's no way to deny it. If there wasn't, we'd never see scores be all over the place like they are.

5. I agree, and it's why neither I nor anyone else would ever argue that the result of the fight is even remotely in dispute. Khabib clearly won, and nobody denies that. What we are talking about is how an individual person qualifies "domination" when it comes to an MMA fight. From a judging and scoring criteria, barring a finish, the only way "domination" is quantifiably shown is scoring rounds 10-8 or 10-7, etc. Since zero rounds were scored that way, claiming the rules or judges deemed that fight "domination" is simply not true.

6. Again, the word "domination" comes into play and is subjective. To you, positional control may equate to domination. And that's fine, I'm not arguing that you don't have a right to that belief. To me or someone else, to use the word "domination", a far higher level of damage, being close to a finish, etc. is required. This is undeniably subjective because as I stated, when it comes to criteria the only way for the judges to show they believe there was "domination" is to award the losing fighter less than 9 pts for a round, and they never did that in this fight (nor should they have).

 

[Hotora86]

12-6 elbows are legal from bottom.

It doesn't explicitly say that anywhere but I guess since the rule contains the word "downward" you could say that "upward" are legal.

The whole banning of those is absurd. Because of the broad definition of 12–6 elbows in the Unified Rules, referees often had differences in interpretation of what was classed as one. Herb Dean differed from McCarthy's definition and argued that elbow strikes parallel with the floor in side control (sometimes called 9–3 elbows) were classed as 12–6 elbows, as he considered 12–6 elbows as being based on where the fighter throwing them was positioned.

 

[mkess101]

It doesn't explicitly say that anywhere but I guess since the rule contains the word "downward" you could say that "upward" are legal.

The whole banning of those is absurd. Because of the broad definition of 12–6 elbows in the Unified Rules, referees often had differences in interpretation of what was classed as one. Herb Dean differed from McCarthy's definition and argued that elbow strikes parallel with the floor in side control (sometimes called 9–3 elbows) were classed as 12–6 elbows, as he considered 12–6 elbows as being based on where the fighter throwing them was positioned.

Yeah it's a rule where you even wonder how it can be enforced. What if a guy just slightly alters the angle? So it's just barely not straight up and down? And a ref is using his naked eye in real time trying to determine it?

Agree...dumb.