What happened to ground fighting? (Mixed martial arts)

The Game Room
1

The televised mixed martial arts fights I’ve seen for the past year or so feature less ground fighting than they used to. Why? Is this part of the natural evolution of the style, or has the process been helped along by rule tweaks or even match scheduling manipulation? I understand that ground fighting is considered less telegenic.

Bonus question: what’s a good source for martial art match reporting and strategy? I’m unimpressed by the on-air fight commentary.

2

its a problem ufc had in the beginning because ground fighting was boring

A lot of people thought ufc was fixed in the beginning when Royce Gracie won by submission for the first 10 or so due to his small size and all submission technique

Of course it didn’t help either when it was discovered the gracie famiy bank rolled ufc to spotlight their fighting style and dojo system …

3

I think it’s because ground offense is much harder than ground/take down defense. To put it in numbers, if someone has a ground defensive rating of 25 someone would need a rating of 90 to be able to submit them in a five minute round. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the point is valid. If you spend most of your training time working on striking and just enough on grappling to have decent defense you will beat the guy who spends most of his time on grappling.

4
  1. Rounds start standing up. This is a big advantage to striking.
  2. Defense on the ground is much easier than offense is. If you have any knowledge of grappling/submission it’s far easier to defend yourself.
  3. All fighters at that level are at least Brown/Black belts so unless you are some elite level grappler unless your opponent has already been rocked or gassed out they know the defense to most attacks.
    4.The gloves make a huge difference. Especially on Rear Naked Chokes.
    5.Most submissions involve the possibility of losing the dominate position which makes staying in a dominate position and raining down strikes a more appealing option to most fighters.
  4. To be fair before the first couple of UFC fights most American audiences and martial arts practitioners had no exposure to grappling thus they believed that striking (boxing, karate, kung-fu) was the be all end all of fighting so unless you saw the Gracie Challenge Matches you had no idea what a grappler could really do
5

As an add on if you are looking at the grappling side of fighting check out the Gracie Breakdowns they will explain alot of the endings to fights in depth as to the set ups and counters to submissions of UFC fights. For overall grappling information you can’t go wrong with any of Eddie Bravo and the EBI, Marcello Garcia is also a great place to see high level BJJ.

6

One big, big factor: the rulebook. In the old days, the man on top could ride his opponent for minutes at a stretch, no matter how ineffectual his offense was. Joe McCarthy could call for a standup if things remained at a standstill for too long, but he was very patient. (The final of UFC 6 is a good example.) Now, he needs to put points on the board right away and continually work toward a knockout or submission, or the ref stands them up. It’s like the par terre position in wrestling. Yeah, the man on the bottom THEORETICALLY is at a big disadvantage, but all he’s gotta do is ride it out for a little while, and it’s back to all square.

Combine that with hard time limits, and there just isn’t any opportunity for the brick-by-brick tapouts Royce Gracie was so famous for. When a fighter gets a successful submission, it’s because he’s fast, sharp, vicious, and not afraid to put his own neck on the line (often literally).