Let’s face it… some MMA fights are boring, even if the fighters are top notch. Here are some reasons why fights get dull:
1. When both excellent ground fighters decide to fight standing up. Unless one fighter is well-rounded, this usually resolves to a point-style sucky stalemate, both throwing lame punches and lousy kicks. Safe to say, no one’s getting knocked out. Example: Penn vs. Sherk (UFC 84, First 2 rounds)
2. When an excellent wrestler takes down a striker, lays on top of him, controls the guy on the ground… and does nothing! Occasionally, the wrestler will throw pot shots and weak elbows, but it’s not even scratching the opponent. Wrestlers who can’t finish by submission or knockout have no business inside the cage.
3. When a fighter decides to run around the ring and be “elusive.” Example: Kalib Starnes (UFC 83).
4. When a jiu-jitsu fighter spends too much time on his back getting his face pounded by the person on top. The blood spurting out of your eyelid may be interesting for a while, but it gets boring fast.
What other reasons make a fight boring?
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Lyoto Machida is a boring fighter.
Ivan,
As mentioned in some of my earlier posts under the Machida/Ortiz post fight commentary, the number one cause for a boring fight, is a lack of action.
Lack of action -always- results in a bored crowd and a generally disliked fight.
That is a major difference between a fight like Lyto Machida gave us against Ortiz, and the performance ( or should I say non- ) of Kalib Starnes at UFC 83. While Kalib appeared to be looking for ways to avoid the fight, MAchida while patient and ellusive was looking for ways to end the fight, regaurdless of the fact that he was unable to do so.
Lack of action on the ground, or on their feet is immaterial, the moment fighters stop trying to improve their position, or stop attempting to look for ways to end a fight a crowd will grow restless. The longer that goes on, the more unhappy and dissatisfied people will be with a fight.
It matters LESS if strikers and wrestlers are profficient and technically skilled than if they are working to end the fight. This is why MMA has come to be dominated for so long by the ground and pound submission/knock out style. It is aggressive.
It isn’t neccesarily the most effective, but it has generally proven to be the most crowd pleasing fighting style.
Morgan, good point, lack of action definitely makes a fight boring. That reminds me of the last two fights of Andrei Arlovski, which were way boring. He was defensive all the time and he was too cautious to be on the offensive. After getting knocked out by Sylvia, Arlovski was too afraid for that to happen again.
Ivan, are you the moderator on this forum?
I noticed you’re the “author” on a large portion of the posts on this site?
Morgan, yes. Let me know if you want to be an admin and blog regularly.
I dont think the MT fight in Jamaica is going to be boring,
were dealing with the Champion of Champions !!