It's been tried in all sorts of endeavors and eventually falls apart.
Back in the day, there was a motorcycle series "Formula USA", with rules essentially "must have 2 wheels, no alcohol", and it was all well and good with folks running their hand crafted, bored out Superbikes until Kenny Roberts showed up with a pair of factory Yamaha Moto GP 500cc two stroke machines (which is, essentially, "unobtainium"), and, in time, dominated the field. Things like that lead to rule changes in F-USA.
Also, consider the origin of modern MMA. The "Ultimate Fighter Championship", which was a "no rules" bout. Royce Gracie dominated those events early on.
I will never forget UFC 4. Dan Severn, a very powerful wrestler, was dominating his bouts (3 as I recall). His fights were over very quickly.
Meanwhile, Royce, who was a skilled grappler, while winning his bouts, they were taking quite a bit of time.
At the end, Royce had just finished his 3rd bout and then had to stand up to Severn, with very minimal rest. Combining Severn's fast bouts, with Royce long bouts gave Severn a lot of time to rest and recover between fights. Royce was obviously quite tired going in to the final round.
Severn dominated that fight, but it drew on...and on...and on. Over 15 minutes.
In the end, Gracie prevailed, upside down, pinned against the fence, with Severn bent over him. It was an extraordinary encounter.
But in the end, it led to rule changes. 15m fights don't really work with the broadcast schedule. Seeing two guys tangled in knots for 10m straight with minimal movement isn't very interesting to watch, either. And now we have modern MMA with combined striker and grappling skills.
Turns out competition is only fun when it's fair. While its technically interesting to see folks exploit the rules, and even dominate, it's more interesting when they have to work within them.
In the end, you (most folks, I know I do) want the man behind the wheel to be the deciding factor, not the machine beneath him.
Those moves were't illegal (except eye gouge I think) in the early days of UFC and I don't think they decided any fights.
Still, I agree with your point that UFC shows us the best mix of skills for that particular set of constraints, not necessarily for self defense in the outside world.
Also, in sports there is always the occasional surprise new technique that dominates for a while until others train to counter it. In the early days of MMA grappling alone could win, as long as you had a finishing move (which is why early on some of the huge greco roman wrestlers could dominate a match and still lose).
Meh, other rulesets like Pride, Strikeforce, Bellator let similar skillsets rise to the top as well - as do other similar full-contact low-rule MAs like combat sambo.
Yes, if you forbid chokes and joint manipulation, you get kickboxing or muaythai, but that is not the point of MMA which tries to get rid of arbitrary rules.
I'm glad I grew up in the age of Karate Kid movies, when having a black belt was enough to scare kids from beating me up in school. I remember how the first UFCs utterly demolished the movie-mythos of Kung fu/karate, as Royce Gracie and other grapplers made strikers look rather impotent. I kind of missed the early days of UFC, when things were much more no-holds-barred. There weren't rounds or time limits or weight classes (for the most part), which meant that Royce had to beat an opponent 80 pounds heavier for the championship (Dan Severin, but I swear I thought Gracie had to beat even heavier opponents [0]). The flip side was that watching 20 minutes of one guy sitting atop another was not very compelling, and probably unfeasible as pay per view TV.
It's a sport. So the rules are the rules. Bringing a set of brass knuckles to a boxing match is just taking advantage of better equipment, but of course the people running the sport of boxing can define what's allowed and what's not. It might be interesting to have an unlimited class, whatever that would mean for cycling, but the sport of pro cycling gets to define what a legal bike for pro racing is, end of argument.
I guess you could technically call MMA "no-holds-barred" since it allows grappling, but it still sets the rules at a certain threshold, and where you place that threshold will always determine the winning flavor of martial art. Gambler's point is that the MMA rules are set at a level heavily biased in favor of BJJ.
If eye-gouging, ear-biting, headbutts, groin-tearing, etc. were allowed, most of BJJ's techniques would be rendered moot, just like allowing grappling obsoletes most of boxing's techniques.
I don't view the unified MMA rules as demonstrative of a technique's effectiveness. The rules were crafted to preserve the longevity of fighter careers. These are trained fighters on an even playing field.
Pulling off eye gouging and throat strikes are low probability and expose a fighter. Bas Rutten has a bit on these techniques, their effectiveness, and how doing either leaves an opening.
Early proto-MMA events in the US & Brazil literally had no rules (Google 'vale tudo'), and included groin strikes & eye gouges (Google 'Keith Hackney Joe Son'). They were actually underground fighting events, some held in illegal clubs, warehouses, basements- and, they were won by BJJ & Muay Thai guys- the constituent martial arts that make up what we call MMA today. You can actually find Vale Tudo fights on Youtube to see for yourself! Early UFC events also literally had no rules as well- and they were won by, first BJJ and then wrestling. TMA guys didn't fare so well even in the complete absence of rules.
Police & military units the world over study MMA or the individual martial arts that make up MMA (BJJ, wrestling, boxing etc.)- not Kung Fu. Jocko Willink, a highly decorated 20 year Navy SEAL commander, is also a BJJ blackbelt and has specifically said that he used jiu-jitsu to subdue militants in close quarter combat, and that TMAs don't work. On the Joe Rogan podcast he talked about fighting other SEALs in the 90s who were into TMAs and beating them with jiu-jitsu..... Wouldn't an actual Navy SEAL with combat experience know more about what works in a 'real life situation'?
I don't understand how 'person to separate the two fighters' makes it less realistic- they're there to prevent someone who's been KOed from suffering any more unnecessary strikes
> broken eye sockets and arms aren't enough to call a fight
There's MMA, and then there's no-holds-barred (or vale tudo, literally "anything goes").
MMA in the western world today is an organized sport, with rules to protect the fighters, and has little to do with how the Gracies used to fight in Brazil. Yes, you can still find nhb events, and you can still find MMA events that are freakshows, but events like UFC, Cage Warriors, Bellator, etc. are very well organized, and fighter safety is important.
I think it's great that people are sparring between disciplines and integrating various styles--but at the same time, this system can only act on its inputs, which are MMA fighters. I do wonder whether the culture of MMA prevents some talented martial artists from participating. I'm somewhat inclined to consider MMA more of a sport than a martial art--but perhaps this is just tradition talking.
Rules must be such that enough people enjoy watching the fights, and enough people agree to fight. Presumably, few will agree to fight if nothing is off limits, and even if that is false, few will have the chance to gain the skills making the fights enjoyable before their eyes are gouged out.
(Personally, I'm not into this sort of entertainment to say the least, but that is beside the point...)
I find it amusing when pro-wrestling gets compared with MMA - or any other combat / fighting sport, for that matter. I appreciate both, but they're entirely different beasts and should be judged based on their own merits.
I by the way consider it no less funny when people pretend or assume MMA to be tantamount to - or at least a close approximation of - self-defence situations. MMA is still a sport with rules, which has very little in common with a non-consensual fight.
Watch the very first UFC tournaments...the ones where Royce Gracie won. You'll see something much different than what you see now. Modern UFC training is a blend of BJJ, Kickboxing, boxing, and other disciplines. Royce didn't use much of that, if any.
While not modern MMA the Gracie brothers were doing their vale tudo fights before Bruce Lee was born. Though obviously they were mostly using the techniques that today is called BJJ the fights themselves had almost no rules. This also meant no rounds or stand ups so if a BJJ fighter managed to pull a striker to ground the fights is effectively over.
Problem back then was information. Pre internet and stuff happening really far away from each other (Brazil and Hong Kong/USA).
UFC and the internet really helped to spread information on what actually works to a much wider audience (and from there to a group of practitioners) and thus sped up the development of the techniques a lot.
UFC also made it possible to make a living from actually fighting instead of teaching others which is/was the “traditional” way of making money from martial arts which allows the fighters to fully concentrate on their own skills.
There's a lot of vitriol between people who practice different styles, with a lot of guys from traditional styles (karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, etc.) claiming combat sports are worthless in a Real Fight (TM) because it's just competition. Completely inaccurate in my experience - people who compete in full-contact combat sports will almost always beat the people who don't, other things being equal. The techniques don't have to be lethal to completely destroy your opponent, and BJJ was made for choking people out or breaking their limbs so badly they literally cannot continue the fight. Not to mention there's a plethora of illegal techniques ranging from neck cranks to spinal locks, removed from competition because they're far too dangerous and can kill or paralyze you. The best tournament practitioners are a lot more likely to know these and be able to apply them than people who sit around theorizing about them.
But there's still a lot of big ego'd guys who can't fight and like to impress and intimidate people with statements like, "This technique is far too dangerous for me to actually demonstrate, but I could use it to destroy sport fighters any time I wanted! Don't make me hurt you to prove it." It's a lot of BS, and easier to perpetuate because grapplers can still beat you without hurting you that bad, whereas if you challenge a boxer and he caves your face in people don't get right up and say, "One more try, I can do better next time!"
One of my best MA memories was getting my ass kicked in 5 seconds by a guy half my size who was only using one arm because the other was broken in a recent grappling tournament. Don't fall into the "combat sports aren't real" mentality. BJJ, judo, and wrestling guys will mess you up if you're not trained in how to defend against them.
This is a constant point of contention. The workaround (at least in BJJ that I know of) generally is to have "open weight" fights in addition to weight-class restricted ones. Everyone's happy usually. Now if they have open sex fights then we can see the underfed ballerina vs. a sumo fighter!
It's not as common in MMA, I think. BJJ is often thought to favor the smaller, weaker player but with the less strict ruleset in MMA, open fights aren't as "fair", I think. Physics, basically. Skill level equal, a larger and more muscular and well-conditioned athlete will usually win.
An enjoyable exception to this is the classic BJJ vs. wrestling contest in the early UFCs between Royce Gracie, a 6'1" 180lb guy vs. a seeming bear of a man with proven wrestling skills in 6'2' 250lb Dan Severn. If you're not a fight geek (if you are, you surely already know about these 2) it may be kind of boring to watch and more interesting to read or watch a well-informed analysis with pictures and clips, sort of like a "Gracie Breakdown".
It's been tried in all sorts of endeavors and eventually falls apart.
Back in the day, there was a motorcycle series "Formula USA", with rules essentially "must have 2 wheels, no alcohol", and it was all well and good with folks running their hand crafted, bored out Superbikes until Kenny Roberts showed up with a pair of factory Yamaha Moto GP 500cc two stroke machines (which is, essentially, "unobtainium"), and, in time, dominated the field. Things like that lead to rule changes in F-USA.
Also, consider the origin of modern MMA. The "Ultimate Fighter Championship", which was a "no rules" bout. Royce Gracie dominated those events early on.
I will never forget UFC 4. Dan Severn, a very powerful wrestler, was dominating his bouts (3 as I recall). His fights were over very quickly.
Meanwhile, Royce, who was a skilled grappler, while winning his bouts, they were taking quite a bit of time.
At the end, Royce had just finished his 3rd bout and then had to stand up to Severn, with very minimal rest. Combining Severn's fast bouts, with Royce long bouts gave Severn a lot of time to rest and recover between fights. Royce was obviously quite tired going in to the final round.
Severn dominated that fight, but it drew on...and on...and on. Over 15 minutes.
In the end, Gracie prevailed, upside down, pinned against the fence, with Severn bent over him. It was an extraordinary encounter.
But in the end, it led to rule changes. 15m fights don't really work with the broadcast schedule. Seeing two guys tangled in knots for 10m straight with minimal movement isn't very interesting to watch, either. And now we have modern MMA with combined striker and grappling skills.
Turns out competition is only fun when it's fair. While its technically interesting to see folks exploit the rules, and even dominate, it's more interesting when they have to work within them.
In the end, you (most folks, I know I do) want the man behind the wheel to be the deciding factor, not the machine beneath him.
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