A few other thoughts: whenever a grappler in better position appears to not be doing anything on the ground, they may still be accomplishing something. For one, if a guy is in better position and controlling the other fighter on the ground, he’s winning points with the judges; maybe not enough to win a round alone, but if the rest of the round is pretty close, enough to tip the scales. Second, he’s conserving energy, and the other guy has expend energy to work to improve his position. If he can’t improve his position he’s wasting energy. Finally, any time a fighter tries to improve his position he runs the risk of making himself vulnerable to a submission, and the guy in better position sometimes will wait for the opportunity to present itself. Some of the time when Pulver appeared inactive I think he was probably looking for a submission.
Pulver Pulver Pulver. I wanted him to kick in Faber’s arrogant “I’ve always been the man. I was never even pushed around in grade school” face. But Jens isn’t the man to do it. BJ Penn might be. But Pulver? No.
Jumping back to the CBS EliteXC thing again, this Yahoo sports article summed it up perfectly: