UFC 169 was branded “10-decision, record-breaking catastrophe”, and the usual slamming of boring fighters, safe game planning soon followed.
Every time too many fights on a card drag too long, reach a decision or overall feel like the fighters are not making enough of an effort to try and finish, accusations are directed at them for not having the required ‘killer instinct’, not caring enough about the fans, or just being too calculated and careful in their fighting style. This is especially true regarding high profile fights, like championship bouts and main events.
I think what I’m about to say is quite obvious and is really known to everybody, but somehow I just don’t hear it enough, so I feel the need to state it out clearly:
THIS IS NOT THE FIGHTERS’ FAULTS!
You can’t blame anyone who is playing any kind of game or competing in any kind of competition for trying their best to win, and to keep on winning. You can’t blame a basketball player for trying to score hoops, you can’t blame a football player for trying to score touchdowns, and you can’ t blame an MMA fighter for trying to win rounds, because this is the way to win fights.
Yes, there is another way. One can finish a fight, knock out or submit the opponent – but this is risky. Going for knock-outs and submissions leaves one open to get knocked-out or submitted themselves. Most people who go into MMA like fighting and so the natural thing for many of them is to try and get that decisive finish win; that’s why we still see many of them. But this doesn’t change the fact that this way of fighting is dangerous. Fighters can win by stoppage once or twice, and if they are really good five or six times in a row, but if they continue to fight in this hazardous manner they are likely to end up on the losing end sooner or later, and more often than not, by the very same method they use to win (Overeem’s last two losses come to mind).
On the other hand, taking your opponent down and holding them there for the duration of the fight, for example, or jabbing your way through the entire fight keeping yourself just out of range of your opponent, might be very difficult and require a high level of expertise, just as much, if not more than the expertise required for knock-outs and submissions. But if one possesses those kinds of skills and is able to take his opponent down and hold him there or pepper him with careful jabbing, he would be able to win the fight without putting himself at too much needless risk.
There is no question, then, which method is better for winning fights, as long one has the necessary skills. It’s useless and ridiculous to blame the fighters for trying to win fights by playing by the rules. Judging criteria is based, among other factors, on control and statistics. If a fighter takes his opponent down or controls him for a large enough portion of the round, he would win that round. If a fighter is able to hit his opponent a large enough number of times he would win that round. Even if the opponent sustained no damage due to that control or these shots, even if the controlling or jabbing fighter was not aggressive and didn’t even try to go for the finish, even if he made the fight so boring for the fans that nobody wants to see him fight ever again.
As long as judging criteria continue to award wins for fighters who fight safe and careful, fighters will continue to fight that way, no matter how much criticism is thrown their way. Fighting aggressive and exciting is fun, but nobody can keep it up for a long time without fail. That’s why more and more of the highest-ranked fighters, meaning those who lose the least, are becoming safe fighters. It’s not a matter of choice. It’s a matter of survival at the top. Those who choose to continue to be exciting lose at some point and get ranked lower, while those who fight safe continue to be awarded wins in spite of the unattractiveness of their style and their lack of finishes.
So as long as judges continue to base their scoring on this kind of criteria, fighters will continue to adhere to this style of fighting. Degrading and accusing them won’t change it. If there is real want for a change the only way to achieve it is changing the way fights are scored. As long as this doesn’t change we are bound to receive more of the same.