A lot of really experienced BJJ guys bemoan the fact that BJJ sucks as a spectator sport. In recent years this has gotten worse due to some people devising very contrived strategies that work withing the rules (see 50/50, scissoring). Of course it works for winning a match, that's the whole reason they do it. But the effect is that higher level fights become less and less watchable. Wrestling and Judo are examples of other sports that have gone down this path, where Olympic level matches are often times unwatchable to anyone not a devotee of the sport. When your sports biggest stars are the least interesting to watch compete, you have a problem.

As far as which specific rules should be changed, I'm not really sure. There probably isn't an easy answer which is why I think some of the top guys in the sport need to get together and hash some stuff out. But, as always, there are a lot of hardliners who won't even hear of a significant rule change; as if what we are seeing now is some sort of holy sacrament that shouldn't be changed.

I should add that the specific strategy in the .gif above is hardly an epidemic, and is even pretty funny on it's own. So I'm not so much criticizing that specific performance, but rather the much larger issue that it is indicitive of.

He's not abusing any rule. He's just looks goofy.

Judo certainly has made huge changes to their ruleset to make things more interesting for spectators. Wrestling has as well at some levels too.

I'm of the opinion of "**** the spectators" Leave the sport alone.

The problem is, without spectators, there's no sport.

Actually, the only person breaking a rule in that gif is the guy standing up. You can see the ref waving at him to engage instead of backup. Pretty much the only "stalling" related rule in sport bjj is that you can't back out of the guard and stand back up.

The real root of the problem with bjj scoring is that the deck is stacked in favor of the bottom guy, which leads to a lot of people who are really good at sweeping from the bottom and not so good at many other aspects of the sport (takedowns, subs, guard passing). FWIW, I enjoy watching sport bjj as it is, but I can understand that it doesn't really draw in novice watchers.

I can totally respect that position. It's all of the people, a large number in my experience, that both want the rules left alone and are miffed that no one wants to watch the sport.

Anyone not surprised that Belfort is over a 2.5 to 1 fav vs Hendo?

Well TRT belfort has looked pretty incredible the last year or so while Hendo hasn't. On that same note though Hendo has been facing way tougher competition by a long shot so it's hard to accurately adjust for that.

Looks like he opened at about 2.1 to 1 fav, and the money has been coming in on him so the line adjusted.

But with vig, Hendo is only a +180 underdog. So don't like either bet really.

Belfort has been training this year with Pedro Diaz, former Cuban national team boxing coach. Diaz is Rigondeaux's coach (current bantamweight world champ). Belfort with legit boxing would be amaze balls.

Hendo is at the end of his career. Belfort is in the surge of the second stage of his career.

Pedro Diaz is awesome. Can only be good for Belfort.

You don't know what you're talking about. The vast majority of top level BJJ competitors will tell you they much prefer the top position to the bottom position in a tournament. Name one world class black belt competitor that prefers to play guard.

As for scoring, an advantage is much easier to get from top position. If the match is a toss-up the ref will usually give it to the guy on top. You can back out of a guard but you must re-engage. You can get called for stalling if you stay in guard but are not making any attempt to advance your position. You can get called for stalling if you are in side mount and not attempting to advance your position.

Whoa

Serious fat loss. Hopefully his brain didn't lose any of those fluids

I often wonder about the strength curves for these guys. Like how many of these men could get in there with Eric Cressey and do extremely advanced core bodyweight/stability/strength movements. Before you kneejerk assume they would mostly all beast them I'd recognize that many of such movements (V-sits, 1 arm pushup planks, dragon flags, pistols, various core isometrics) require years of tremendous improvement to reach pro gymnast level strength/stability even if they aren't necessarily skill specific.

I think a lot of mma guys would be wildly successful at these but fall very short of pro gymnast level even in terms of pure strength, while others would be embarassingly inadequate. I don't think this is a meaningless metric either. Plenty of advanced bodyweight and gymnast type movements are merely an advancement of the final progression of physical therapy type movements intended to develop stability and strength in functionally meaningful positions

Top black belts who prefer to play guard: Caio Terra, Rafa Mendes, Cobrina, Michael Langhi, Braulio Estima, Rodolfo Viera, Lovato Jr. Also, see every Paulo Miyao v Keenan Cornelius match.

Toss up going to the top guy was true 10 years ago, not so much now. It's easier to get an advantage from the bottom than the top now (with RDLR and Berimbolo). There may be rules on the books for stalling from the top and side mount, but I've never seen it called in a black belt match. Frankly, that's a good thing, there's enough controversy about Brazilian refs favoring Brazilians without more subjective calls.

Stim,

Wow. RIP Hulk Paul Harris.

i was extremely tired anyway (***** 0630 flights) but fell asleep during this. hilarious that german TV had this on a major network in prime time.

Paul Harris can still go hulk mode if he gets pissed

Yea Harold, you are 100% wrong as far as the bottom half of the weight classes, I would say 180+ lbs guys all want to be on top but even there a lot of guys want to be on the bottom playing open. Its completely ****ed how these guys compete now a days and **** the rules. Guys will instantly double guard pull and start spamming berimbolo crap. There are a lot of top level competitors (I am looking at you Miao brothers) who literally dont sit up to take a sweep UNLESS then are coming up to take the back, its that bad, they dont even know how to play top it seems. They changed the rule so if you pull guard while someone is touching your leg it counts as a take down, but in my last tournament the guy literally ran at me grabbed a sleeve and flopped so I couldn't get a takedown, they literally train for this.

To explain why he grabbed my sleeve, you technically cant just flop anymore, you have to have contact before pulling any type of guard. I was at a school in Vancouver months ago and they literally drilled guard pulling, and I dont mean jumped closed guard. I understand if you cant wrestle or cant get the guy down, pulling a solid closed guard, but we were ****ing training how to avoid losing 2 points while getting into our open guard unrealistic bull****.

CC - sounds like you need to work on your guard passing! I love it when my opponent pulls guard. Who wouldn't?

In case anyone forgot, it's Maia vs Shields tonight. I always forget about these midweek cards.

Some good fights on that card and pretty interesting main event.

I really don't want to watch Hamill fight again though. His coach resigned because he didn't want to be part of this trainwreck.

actually looking forward to this card , stun gun/ erick silva , maldonado , palhares on the card as well .

maia/shields could be interesting if it doesnt turn into a boxing match .

True! I actually always prefer top, but I want the damn 2 points I get for the takedown to haha.

deceptively fun card! i'm interested in just about every fight on the main card.

Wait what are people excited about Maia vs Shields, will it not be 15 minutes of one pressing the other against the cage?