Joe Rogan on Stand-ups

Joe Rogan is well-known for his objection to stand-ups. Presumably, he is a supporter of “real” fighting where there are no stand-ups, and sees it as the fighter’s job to stand up rather than getting stood up by the referee, thus being “saved” from a bad position. He remarked on the matter a little more than usual this past Saturday during the Camozzi/Santos fight.

I thought I would address some of his remarks:

In the second round, when Santos was in side control, Rogan said that once he’s got him in side control he’s got to do something about it, and that he can’t just hold the guy there. I wanted to ask him “why not?” He is winning the fight by “holding the guy there” so why does he “need” to do something? That’s exactly the problem, in my opinion, with the current situation: that you can just hold the guy there and still win the fight.

In the third round when Santos was holding down Camozzi and Camozzi looked at the referee, Rogan said there shouldn’t be stand-ups: when a guy holds you down, he is still beating you. Stand-ups are not realistic because there is no referee in a street fight, when your life depends on it, and so they shouldn’t be used in order to find out which marital art is the best.

First of all, there are no judges in a street fight either. No fighter in a street fight would just take the other guy down and hold him there, because there are no judges to decide who won the fight, and anyway neither fighter cares who “won” the street fight. They both just want to hurt each other – not “win”.

Second, there is no danger to your “life” anyway when a guy just takes you down and holds you, and the absence of a referee doesn’t change that fact.

Finally, this isn’t a street fight. This is a show, and the purpose of all of this is entertainment. If everybody would just hold their opponents down in every fight, nobody would watch their fights. Even if it is more realistic (which it isn’t, as I explained), and even if this proves that wrestling is the best martial art (which it doesn’t, since beating a guy in a real fight means hurting him too, not just holding him).

I don’t like stand-ups, either. I don’t like when anyone interferes with the fight. But the current situation is that the judging system promotes this style of fighting, so need to be stand-ups, or people will lose interest. Abolishing the stand-ups wouldn’t solve this problem – it will worsen it. The only solution is changing the judging system to one that significantly favors damage over control.