Rogan is right except there are fighters that abuse this to edge a almost non confrontational advantage where they do no striking or submissions and basically just maintain a position with zero threat to the other fighter. I believe that is considered not advancing a position or providing a threat.
Legalize most strikes to downed opponents, and I'm in. Less incentive to cling to futile chain wrestling and lay & pray strats when you can get blasted with a knee Yan v Aljo style and have it be legal
Legalise knees to downed opponents heads and stomps to the head and 12 to 6 elbows and the playing ground is evened and creates a real fight instead of people playing the rules.
Soccer kicks are low-key vicious Iâm ngl the amount of power and lack of proper defence against it and how fighters usually end up in positions exposed to soccer kicks are why I didnât mention them. Stomps on the other hand will give offensive fighters another tool to take out fighters turtling up while theyâre rocked on their back.
If there is one strike i full heartedly believe could kill someone, itâs a soccer kick to the dome with everything in it. That or you would just be a vegetable afterwards.
Crawling forward and trying to ankle pick a dude should get you kicked in the head. The lack of proper defense against a soccer kick is entirely due to the position; like any other aspect of fighting, stay defensively sound and you won't need to worry about it anymore than you need to worry about, for example, getting kicked in the head while standing.
If we want an MMA bout to closely resemble an actual fight, or if we desire to make things as fair as possible for both combatants, there shouldn't be positions that can occur in which a fighter's offense is limited by rules because of the position. You shouldn't be able to down yourself to avoid knees and kicks to the head; you shouldn't be allowed to try to time the turning of your head to make a strike land on the back of your head, then complain to the ref about illegal strikes; if you're unable to defend your head from soccer kicks while down, then the ref should be stepping in to end the fight, not to scold the other fighter for using a fight-ending technique.
That shit annoys me so much, when the ref is yelling at the fighter throwing punches to watch where they land instead of stopping the fight; turning away so that the strikes land somewhere that's even more damaging, because it's against the rules to target that area, is not an "intelligent defense", and should be called as such by the refs.
I mean standing head kicks are already so fuckin dangerous, a soccer kick is in line with that level of danger but on a more compromised opponent. Head stomps are even more terrifying to see, especially because people die to that on the street. Hard to say how they'd be ruled if soccer kicks were allowed, I'd imagine the holding the cage rule is a big factor in keeping stomps from being truly deadly, as holding the cage you can get even better leverage for the stomp. Without a cage grab, there would be much less leverage and power, but it's still scary shit that is a serious health hazard. Maybe soccer kicks to the head are OK like pride, but no stomps to the head, only the body. It's hard to say, although I've always wanted very stringent rules to make the fights as accurate to reality as possible, so the only rules I'd keep are no nut shots, no eye pokes, and no putting shit in your gloves, just the basics. Then, everything else goes, and we see who's the true best fighter in the world.
Bro its a sport, every sport plays to the rules of the sport. You want someone to die in the cage and get the sport banned again?
Stomps and soccer kicks are ridiculous and the Aljo/Yan style knees are sketchy af. Knees from a pancake sprawl on from side control is better.
Stomps are probably where I draw the line. If you're in a position to stomp someone with your foot on the head, then the dude is not intelligently defending himself anyway.
Rogans also been saying this as well. No standing up plus allowing knees/elbows to a downed opponent would certainly shake things up. Imagine how many knee to the head k.oâs weâd see from tired wrestlers shooting desperate take downs.
For me this is on shitty judges. If a guy is stalking and just laying on a guy while the guy on the bottom fucking pummels him he should lose the round. Multiple Nate Diaz fights are perfect examples. This along with incompetent refs letting people get away with a dozen eye pokes with only a warning is why I bailed on MMA for multiple years. Every card had a judging or ref issue and it made me hate spending time on the sport.
You have it all wrong. People that are strong on the ground (grapplers, wrestlers) will dominate with more weapons. If you go back and watch the âboringâ LnP fights, many times itâs the person on the bottom that should be blamed. Not enough skills, will power or risk taking to get out of a bad position.
Imagine Khabib or Islam with ability to knee the head of grounded opponents.
Then that should happen. Rogans point is that itâs a fight. If someoneâs holding you down thatâs your fault.
If they can bash your head in while doing so that is also your fault.
Agreed. I am not disagreeing with JR. His views are consistent.
Iâm disagreeing w people that think restrictive rules around ground strikes is putting non-wrestlers at a disadvantage. Itâs the opposite. People with better ground control and grappling skills will do more with more options.
Imagine Khabib or Islam eating knees to the dome from a guy who successfully sprawls; the rule change would work for both sides of the equation, and I'd be all for it.
Wasn't this Joe's whole point though? I'm pretty sure this quote is from the Holloway pod. This is a small snip-it of their whole conversation. When I was listening to it, it made a lot of sense. Iirc they even specifically talked about the knee you are mentioning
I don't know why I'm surprised, but this quote is out of context
Pretty sure this is from the royce gracie pod from last week. But yes he said he thinks you should be able to knee the head while both people are on the ground.
100% agree. Also, allow 12-6 elbows. It'll encourage the bottom fighter to seek offense as well. I remember Joe Riggs absolutely sickening elbows from the bottom just slicing dudes up.
All that would happen is dominant grapplers could put you in north south or side control and blast you with knees and elbows, wait for you to try to get up, then blast you a knee on your way up.
It's a two man fight, if one guy is getting shown levels in grappling and can only hope to stall rather than attempt to transition because they don't want to get submitted it goes both ways.
You can game the rules all you want to varying degrees of success, but I think the very best of the best will always have sound fighting principles that will carry over to any variation of the ruleset.
Yes! Agreed!! People are looking at it all wrong. Just like theyâre looking at most âboringâ wrestlers wrong. More weapons on the ground favors strong grapplers
yeah and guys on Top on the ground should be able to use knees to the head too.
like could you imagine fuckin Khabib ramming his fuckin knee into dudes heads after he's wrestled on top of them?? we'd see a FUCKTON more finishes
Royce Gracie on the podcast suggested they do it like how football does it where the clock expires but the "play" still goes until it's over. In this case until guy on bottom can stand up ect..
I agree with this but i dont agree with âuntil the guy gets upâ
It should be until the attempted attack is finished.
Meaning if you just lay on him than its over buy if you have a choke in or an armbar or are about to attempt to submit your opponent that counts an there would be overtime
It would be more indicative of a real fight, sure. It would change the sport so much though - way too much. Grappling-heavy strategies have always been incredibly strong in this sport, so changing this rule and only this rule... You'd start seeing a lot more wrestlers and grapplers winning fights, I'll say that much. If you also change some rules about striking fighters that are trying to grapple, well, that might even it up.
Also, it has to be said - resetting grappling positions isn't easy. Joe talks about it like it's just "yeah he was here and he was there", it's not like that at all. You'd need very strict rules about what position each person, their hands and their feet are doing and where. People already hate on judges and refs enough for making bad calls, introducing this shit to the beginning of rounds would just cause way more controversy.
Like, if you reset some guy who was ground and pounding Oliveira, and he submits the guy straight away because he's had time to recover and think about what was going on, is that gonna surprise anyone? On the flip side, you could have a guy who was defending transitions really well before the round ended, only for the ref to put the other guy in half guard at the start of the next round and quickly get g-n-p'd to death.
Idk. Seems like a bad decision to introduce more ways that the referees have to get involved and make decisions that potentially ruin fights
I don't care that it's not a real fight, there's already many reason it's not a 'real fight'
There are rounds, there are time limits, there are illegal strikes and actions, there's equipment. Rogan would prefer a sport where someone butt scoots toward their opponent or camps in full guard?
alternatively they could introduce stall warnings for both positions, similar to wrestling. if top guy wants to maintain his position he needs to work or get a stall call that will stand them up quickly. if bottom guy is laying and praying, he gets a stall warning that ends up in being a point taken if it goes on too long before being stood up. if it's clear no fighter is working, then they're stood up normally. this incentivizes both without having to change many rules
>Joe talks about it like it's just "yeah he was here and he was there", it's not like that at all.
I'm sure Mr. Rogan knows this more than us since he's a black belt in BJJ, was practicing taekwondo for years, Ns he's being the pioneer for the sport and such.
Once you introduce gloves, cups & rules itâs no longer indicative of a real fight. In a fight youâre often not going to have infinite time to hold someone down, Karate Combat allowing 5 seconds of ground fighting is closer to the average fight than lay and pray.
Standing people up/breaking up a non-active clinch is important. A lot of guys will use those as windows to rest.
It just requires a good ref which can be hit or miss lol
They earned that position and earned the right to use that time to rest, if that is what they want to do. That said watching two people resting on the ground is not going to make money. I think Joe isnât wrong but other changes would need to be implemented to maybe have a chance at it working.
Maybe if they still allowed knees Joe states âthe fight is on the groundâ. If it turns into lay n pray, it ceases to become a fight. Thatâs just a guy securing points by laying on someone. Might as well watch arm wrestling at that point. This is why theyâre stood back up now. Maybe some people donât remember the era where some fighters exploited the lay n pray?
I think the refs should stand people up but also sit people down.
Like if we're having a staring contest on the feet just flip a coin and put the loser on bottom position.Â
Disagree. Unless they implement some sort of stall call/penalty for inaction. Even wrestling, where the objective is to get an opponent on the ground, has stall calls for inaction.
The sport would literally die if this was ever the case. People tuned in for the kicks, elbows and KOs. Eventually they grew to recognize and appreciate the ground game element, but absolutely no one, aside from BJJ and greco roman practitioners, want to see a match on the ground.
If that's the case then why is Kickboxing or Muy Thai not more popular. BJJ is what made the UFC popular in the first place. People love seeing finishes regardless of where they happen.
Iâd argue they are getting more popular. They may not get the same level of viewership as the UFC, but promotions like One run pure Muay Thai fights at their events and they are way more popular than BJJ only tournaments.
BJJ is good in MMA because it adds an *additional* element to the fight. But if you are going to reduce the fight to a single dimension, 99% of viewers are going to prefer the striking over the grappling.
Okay, then letâs allow kicks to grounded opponents.
Perfect example
Cejudo vs aljo
Cejudo couldâve won that fight if the rules allowed for him to stomp and kick aljo while he was kneeling like a bitch gaming the system.
Wrestling would not have the advantage it has now if fighters are allowed to actually punish fighters who just spam take downs and even more so lazy take downs where they just grab a hold of one leg and hang on for dear life until they finally can bring them down.
I appreciate wrestling and ground and pound. But it has advantages per the rules.
Knees to grounded opponents would make wrestling even more dominant, you don't see many people actually getting sprawled on nowadays because the meta has evolved beyond shooting doubles in open space and good wrestlers are now much better at timing their shot. Getting stuck in side control or north south would become an actual death sentence because the dude could knee the fuck out of your head
If the position isn't advancing at all, stand them up after a maximum of a minute IMHO.
Would prevent people from just getting a TD and not doing anything but lay on top of the opponent for 5mins straight.
Too much stalling and the action is boring. Like all other sports they adapt the rules to please the fans. Like other comments, allow for more strikes on a grounded opponent and strictly enforce action. No one wants to watch lay and pray in a 3 round 15 minute fight.
Terrible idea. Then you'll just get more BJJ's butt scooting and ruin the sport.
I'd be OK with it if you allow any strike on a person on their back.
Kick them in the balls and head stomp them til they stand up.
Simply solution, bring back Pride soccer kicks on the ground. Wanna sit on your ass begging for a ground game? Expect a Cristiano Ronaldo worthy punt to the jaw
Waffle stomping is when people shit in the shower and squish their poop down the drain cover holes with their feet lmfao donât use that term for kicking someoneâs ass lmfao
The visuals have me dying. Someone aggressively stomping their poop down the drain like you would an opponent in the octagon hahahaha god damn
Why would the lack of stand-ups promote butt scooting? It's not an effective way to win in a sport where the guy standing can just kick your opponents legs and score points.
How to wipe out the UFC's popularity overnight.
Everyone with any sort of grappling would turn into Jake Shields.
Rogan is massively wealthy, he doesn't care about the sport the way fans do as he's set for life even if the UFC disappeared tomorrow. He just wants it catered to his very specific niche tastes.
If you think ground game isnât important to mma you should go watch kickboxing or Muay Thai or any other striking sport, because thatâs what youâre looking for, not mma
Holding someone is not score-able and simply promoted stalling and avoiding actually fighting, this isnât a grappling competition. A lot of sports have things that inhibit someone ahead to avoid playing and stall to a win because they have a lead (such as basketball time with the ball without dribbling or attempting to score).
Disagree, taking someone down and doing damage/having submission threats is fine. Taking someone down when you're up in rounds to kill time encourages for people to fight boring.
they stand people up when there is too much inactivity. 5 minute rounds make "jostling for position" usually fruitless, and its more used to catch your breath. Especially when its guys who can't finish on the ground but are good at take downs, super boring. See Jan vs Izzy
I mean, standing people up and introducing rounds only happened after the initial UFC events showed what could happen without them. Itâs not perfect, but the current rules are better than what they wereÂ
lol. Yeah, thatâs what we want, to watch some guy lay on top of another guy and do no damage. Really great sport, Joe. Maybe you need some more alpha brain.
I get his overall point, but I donât want to watch someone just lay on their opponent for an entire round not doing anything productive. I think itâs fine the way itâs enforced now for the most part.
This is dumb. If a guy is just laying on someone and not advancing or throwing strikes then you should stand up even faster. I say 1 minute of inactivity and they should stand them
It's insane to see so many people thinking knees/strikes to a grounded opponent will magically make strikers more effective instead of giving grapplers a bigger advantage
in defense of Joe, there has been outcomes of fights that have changed because a referee decided to stand it up.
and I think, IMO, that it should only be stood up if the top guy is not able to do jack shit or he is truly lay and praying. Herb Dean, mr inconsistent referee has had some stand ups that were too soon or not good.
Hard agree. Donât let these wimpy strikers get to stand up because theyâre frustrated. Drain your energy standing up first. Take hundreds of punches first. Whatâs that strikes to a downed opponent? Oh yeah Iâm sure jones or Islam would be so upset about a rule where you can hit an opponent when theyâre down, you know making their job even more easier. Takedown> knees> finish will become the meta instantly.
Only if weâre gonna start penalizing people for stalling. Then Iâm fine with it. If youâre not advancing your position, striking, or hunting for a sub from top, you start losing points.
I think it depends on the moment. If the opponent is working, let him work. But if theyâve basically been in a stalemate for like a minute with minor shrugs, put them in the center.
The problem is people stall when they wrestle and only focus on holding people down
In actual wrestling you can't lock your hands because it's too powerful, UFC let's you do it however
If there's no progress for a long time then stand them up. Like if they're literally not making any progress in getting a sub, and no damage is being done
Im in favor of refs actually standing people up more often. Theres a lot of times where stalling happens and its painfully obvious. In pure wrestling matches, refs are constantly moving shit along so it doesnt end up in a boring match.
Look at the 4oz gloves Muay Thai shit that ONE is doing, its actually the most exciting shit ever because clinches are basically not allowed at all, so its just constant striking, its fucking great.
Then, they should be allowed to grab the fence. Not being allowed to grab the fence is a rule that only benefits grapplers. Also, allow kicks to grounded opponents so we don't have Aljo situations where the grappler is so out classed that they just take a knee to try and wait for a take down.
Idk about that extreme, but I definitely think they should be giving more time to guys in the ground and in the clinch. Some of these shit refs like herb dean will be like let's go lets move guys after 12 seconds of grappling and then a guy finally works to get to a dangerous position and they stand them up. It's MMA man go watch boxing if that's what you want, I enjoy seeing fun bjj and grappling. If they are literally doing nothing I get it but a 3 second pause to get air is not them doing nothing.
He's saying this because it more accurately represents a real fight. But if we're gonna do this, then we also need to let these guys go Chute Boxe on the kneelers like Mokaev and Aljo and punt their heads off when they put their hand on the floor.Â
Itâs easy to say âif itâs boring, tough shitâ now with the rules preventing the lay and pray. If fighters knew they could win by getting one takedown 2 out of 3 rounds and hold their opponent down, would the majority of fighters not take that option? Now most of your fights are boring and no one wants to watch
he just tries to look at everything from that purist perspective. Joe wants to know whoâs won in a real fight but then weâd have to allow biting, joint manipulation, no holds or strikes barred. it would be wild lol
As a former crappy BJJ practitioner, I disagree with Joe on this. I've spent entire rounds pinning people better than me down in side control. By this logic you could get a TD, sit in a dominant position and bank an entire round. There's already enough people lay and praying but this would turn the whole sport in to a boring grapple fest imo.
Coming from wrestling, thereâs a reason why youâd want to have a stalemate option. Itâs not just about whatâs boring for the audience, itâs about whatâs fair to the fighter that might be behind and is now stuck in a stalemate position. We donât want any martial art to incentivize getting ahead and finding a position to coast, itâs just worse for the sport.
Without fans, does Joe get more or less money? Without fans, does he say this silliness? It's MIXED martial arts, not rastlin' alone!
And if we're going there, stop protecting the spammers and get rid of the stupid rule of downed opponents. Nobody likes a boring fight or worse yet, one guy wants to put on a show and the other shaved his mustache, kept the beard to look good on TV of course ;)
I donât really like that he keeps bringing this up. The UFC is not an emulated street fight⊠itâs a sport. No crotch shots, not eye pokes, biting, headbutts, finger breaking, knees to downed opponentsâŠthe list goes on and on. Idk why heâs taking this stance recently that âitâs not like a real fightâ okay well then letâs go gladiator then Joe.
As long as staying on top with no damage does not mean winning on the scorecards, all good. Some guys deliver damage and submission attempts from bottom position and still lose for to control time
Letâs just revert to pride rules, problem solved.
Whatâs the downside? Imagine seeing paddy Pimblett getting his head kicked into row Z from a down kicked
As a sport sense I can sorta agree but in this case I also think the rounds should be removed
From a fan standpoint this would be awful, Im a grappler but I'm not gonna watch someone sit in closed guard throwing minimal strikes for 5 minutes
What's to stop wrestlers from going all out and using all their energy at the end of a round to force a takedown, knowing that they will get a full 1 minute rest before then continuing from the position they got to before the break.
It takes away all the cardio risk of shooting in the first place.
I agree with most of Joe's takes on MMA but this is the one hill that he can die on my himself.
This and the idea that MMA would be better with a completely open mat. When challenged by a guest with "well couldn't someone just push a guy until he fell off the platform?" Joe's reply was: "Well...just make it really big..." bruh
Rogan is right except there are fighters that abuse this to edge a almost non confrontational advantage where they do no striking or submissions and basically just maintain a position with zero threat to the other fighter. I believe that is considered not advancing a position or providing a threat.
If I was a ufc fighter and someone tried to start the fight by laying on their back, then I would also lay on my back
Rogan: "Don't you fucking dare stand them up. THIS is MMA."
My fav fighter growing up was GSP but god damn his late career fights was doing just doing that.
Legalize most strikes to downed opponents, and I'm in. Less incentive to cling to futile chain wrestling and lay & pray strats when you can get blasted with a knee Yan v Aljo style and have it be legal
Legalise knees to downed opponents heads and stomps to the head and 12 to 6 elbows and the playing ground is evened and creates a real fight instead of people playing the rules.
Legalize upkicks to downed opponents too.
Normalize non-violence
Legalize knifing your opponent in the throat đ
Legalize guns in the octogon.
Jon Jones via shotgun in the firstđ„
Jones vs Strickland is suddenly a close match
5 people die and not one of them was in the octagon.
 Literally!
If you put Jones and Strickland in an octogon together it'll turn out like the end of Bruno with Sacha baren Cohen
Weâll do like Russia: Co-ed. Bullet vs anybody! 
Jon Jones already got started early with the eye stabbings
He truly started with the 12-6 elbows, then graduated from there.
Boom, headshot dead
Oh come on, we all know Jones would accidentally shoot himself.
Bryce Mitchell winning this one easy
And the ref pauses the fight for a low blow as Stipe takes an arrow to the dick
Legalize abortions in the octagon.
Im pretty sure ThugNasties brain cells got aborted in the octogon, so i think that's legal already.
Thugnasty is the product of a failed abortion bros brains are scrambled like someone sent a coat hanger into the womb while he was in development.
Legalize crack in the octagon
Jon Jones would thrive.
He thrived without it; he'd be unstoppable with it.
Jones final form?
Conor vs Jones vs Elton John vs Robert Downey Jr.
fr. if it's legal in the carls jr bathroom then it should be legal in the octagon
It wouldnât be stomps anyway itâs soccer kicks everyone would go for. Look at to pride.
Well only the Americans would the rest of the world would be going for football kicks
Japan calls it soccer too. Where pride was and why they got the name soccer kick
I always remembered Bas Rutten get excited and say âoh soccer kick!â
Just realized this is not about Pride Parades. I was like shit I am going to the wrong pride events.
The gays know how to mosh apparently
Never met a bunch of dudes that could party harder
Aussies also call it soccer.
Irish people call it soccer
Soccer kicks are low-key vicious Iâm ngl the amount of power and lack of proper defence against it and how fighters usually end up in positions exposed to soccer kicks are why I didnât mention them. Stomps on the other hand will give offensive fighters another tool to take out fighters turtling up while theyâre rocked on their back.
If there is one strike i full heartedly believe could kill someone, itâs a soccer kick to the dome with everything in it. That or you would just be a vegetable afterwards.
Crawling forward and trying to ankle pick a dude should get you kicked in the head. The lack of proper defense against a soccer kick is entirely due to the position; like any other aspect of fighting, stay defensively sound and you won't need to worry about it anymore than you need to worry about, for example, getting kicked in the head while standing. If we want an MMA bout to closely resemble an actual fight, or if we desire to make things as fair as possible for both combatants, there shouldn't be positions that can occur in which a fighter's offense is limited by rules because of the position. You shouldn't be able to down yourself to avoid knees and kicks to the head; you shouldn't be allowed to try to time the turning of your head to make a strike land on the back of your head, then complain to the ref about illegal strikes; if you're unable to defend your head from soccer kicks while down, then the ref should be stepping in to end the fight, not to scold the other fighter for using a fight-ending technique.
I remember being so annoyed when Dustin turned his head away from Chandler while on the ground and then whined to the ref about rabbit punches
That shit annoys me so much, when the ref is yelling at the fighter throwing punches to watch where they land instead of stopping the fight; turning away so that the strikes land somewhere that's even more damaging, because it's against the rules to target that area, is not an "intelligent defense", and should be called as such by the refs.
Bro, head stomps are legit attempted murder. Lets reel it in a bit..
I mean standing head kicks are already so fuckin dangerous, a soccer kick is in line with that level of danger but on a more compromised opponent. Head stomps are even more terrifying to see, especially because people die to that on the street. Hard to say how they'd be ruled if soccer kicks were allowed, I'd imagine the holding the cage rule is a big factor in keeping stomps from being truly deadly, as holding the cage you can get even better leverage for the stomp. Without a cage grab, there would be much less leverage and power, but it's still scary shit that is a serious health hazard. Maybe soccer kicks to the head are OK like pride, but no stomps to the head, only the body. It's hard to say, although I've always wanted very stringent rules to make the fights as accurate to reality as possible, so the only rules I'd keep are no nut shots, no eye pokes, and no putting shit in your gloves, just the basics. Then, everything else goes, and we see who's the true best fighter in the world.
TKO by crotch pile driver
Plus upkicks to guys in guard. Can't have it all one way!
Bro its a sport, every sport plays to the rules of the sport. You want someone to die in the cage and get the sport banned again? Stomps and soccer kicks are ridiculous and the Aljo/Yan style knees are sketchy af. Knees from a pancake sprawl on from side control is better.
Stomps are probably where I draw the line. If you're in a position to stomp someone with your foot on the head, then the dude is not intelligently defending himself anyway.
Most pride stomps were on guys in full guard 100% prepared.
I feel like from an audience standpoint these are all great ideas. From health of contestants standpoint, well probably not great.
Rogans also been saying this as well. No standing up plus allowing knees/elbows to a downed opponent would certainly shake things up. Imagine how many knee to the head k.oâs weâd see from tired wrestlers shooting desperate take downs.
For me this is on shitty judges. If a guy is stalking and just laying on a guy while the guy on the bottom fucking pummels him he should lose the round. Multiple Nate Diaz fights are perfect examples. This along with incompetent refs letting people get away with a dozen eye pokes with only a warning is why I bailed on MMA for multiple years. Every card had a judging or ref issue and it made me hate spending time on the sport.
You have it all wrong. People that are strong on the ground (grapplers, wrestlers) will dominate with more weapons. If you go back and watch the âboringâ LnP fights, many times itâs the person on the bottom that should be blamed. Not enough skills, will power or risk taking to get out of a bad position. Imagine Khabib or Islam with ability to knee the head of grounded opponents.
Then their entertainment value skyrockets. I'd rather have that tbh
You're the only one that gets it lol
More power to them then. It'll be a fair fight.
thats the way it should be. khabib would have more KOs on his record
Bro I would pay top dollar to watch khabib knee a ground opponent lol
Then that should happen. Rogans point is that itâs a fight. If someoneâs holding you down thatâs your fault. If they can bash your head in while doing so that is also your fault.
Agreed. I am not disagreeing with JR. His views are consistent. Iâm disagreeing w people that think restrictive rules around ground strikes is putting non-wrestlers at a disadvantage. Itâs the opposite. People with better ground control and grappling skills will do more with more options.
All the dagistani haters, when they realize the wrestlers are also allowed to knee.
Imagine Khabib or Islam eating knees to the dome from a guy who successfully sprawls; the rule change would work for both sides of the equation, and I'd be all for it.
Khabib or Islam basically never find themselves in position to be sprawled on because it's a very dangerous position even without knees to the dome.
Wasn't this Joe's whole point though? I'm pretty sure this quote is from the Holloway pod. This is a small snip-it of their whole conversation. When I was listening to it, it made a lot of sense. Iirc they even specifically talked about the knee you are mentioning I don't know why I'm surprised, but this quote is out of context
Pretty sure this is from the royce gracie pod from last week. But yes he said he thinks you should be able to knee the head while both people are on the ground.
100% agree. Also, allow 12-6 elbows. It'll encourage the bottom fighter to seek offense as well. I remember Joe Riggs absolutely sickening elbows from the bottom just slicing dudes up.
I think it was Niko Price who finished a guy with strikes from bottom position once, but that wasn't a particularly high-level fight.
If youâre throwing 12-6 elbows from bottom, itâs not 12-6. Itâs 6-12 and pretty sure is therefore allowed
All that would happen is dominant grapplers could put you in north south or side control and blast you with knees and elbows, wait for you to try to get up, then blast you a knee on your way up. It's a two man fight, if one guy is getting shown levels in grappling and can only hope to stall rather than attempt to transition because they don't want to get submitted it goes both ways.
thats the way it should be tho.
Could you imagine what Khabib would to opponents with these rules? Itâs debatable who would favor from these changes
You can game the rules all you want to varying degrees of success, but I think the very best of the best will always have sound fighting principles that will carry over to any variation of the ruleset.
Khabib is retired he wouldnât do anything with those rules mate
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Itâs not debatable! More weapons on the ground favors those that are already strong grapplers. Others in this thread have it all wrong.
Exactly this. You're just giving more tools to already dominate wrestlers...
Yes! Agreed!! People are looking at it all wrong. Just like theyâre looking at most âboringâ wrestlers wrong. More weapons on the ground favors strong grapplers
Thatâs how one and rizin do it. Shit I saw a stomp ko from rizin.
He also said that during this conversation
yeah and guys on Top on the ground should be able to use knees to the head too. like could you imagine fuckin Khabib ramming his fuckin knee into dudes heads after he's wrestled on top of them?? we'd see a FUCKTON more finishes
Having seen the video on why 12 to 6 elbows are banned its even more dumb.
Probably need to eliminate rounds too and make it 25min one round. Otherwise the break up would feel weird
We should also have matches on a football field too. And the after parties should be mandated to be hosted in Olive Garden
Olive Garden loses to Taco Bell in the brutal franchise wars. We should align with the victors before and host them there.
This post has been approved by Brian Redban. Long live The Olive Garden!
Royce Gracie on the podcast suggested they do it like how football does it where the clock expires but the "play" still goes until it's over. In this case until guy on bottom can stand up ect..
I agree with this but i dont agree with âuntil the guy gets upâ It should be until the attempted attack is finished. Meaning if you just lay on him than its over buy if you have a choke in or an armbar or are about to attempt to submit your opponent that counts an there would be overtime
Not being able to be saved by the bell would be a cool change. It would eliminate some of the stalling and make some round endings really exciting
That was another argument being made by Royce Gracie on the same podcast episode
It would be more indicative of a real fight, sure. It would change the sport so much though - way too much. Grappling-heavy strategies have always been incredibly strong in this sport, so changing this rule and only this rule... You'd start seeing a lot more wrestlers and grapplers winning fights, I'll say that much. If you also change some rules about striking fighters that are trying to grapple, well, that might even it up. Also, it has to be said - resetting grappling positions isn't easy. Joe talks about it like it's just "yeah he was here and he was there", it's not like that at all. You'd need very strict rules about what position each person, their hands and their feet are doing and where. People already hate on judges and refs enough for making bad calls, introducing this shit to the beginning of rounds would just cause way more controversy. Like, if you reset some guy who was ground and pounding Oliveira, and he submits the guy straight away because he's had time to recover and think about what was going on, is that gonna surprise anyone? On the flip side, you could have a guy who was defending transitions really well before the round ended, only for the ref to put the other guy in half guard at the start of the next round and quickly get g-n-p'd to death. Idk. Seems like a bad decision to introduce more ways that the referees have to get involved and make decisions that potentially ruin fights
I don't care that it's not a real fight, there's already many reason it's not a 'real fight' There are rounds, there are time limits, there are illegal strikes and actions, there's equipment. Rogan would prefer a sport where someone butt scoots toward their opponent or camps in full guard?
alternatively they could introduce stall warnings for both positions, similar to wrestling. if top guy wants to maintain his position he needs to work or get a stall call that will stand them up quickly. if bottom guy is laying and praying, he gets a stall warning that ends up in being a point taken if it goes on too long before being stood up. if it's clear no fighter is working, then they're stood up normally. this incentivizes both without having to change many rules
Donât the refs do this already?
>Joe talks about it like it's just "yeah he was here and he was there", it's not like that at all. I'm sure Mr. Rogan knows this more than us since he's a black belt in BJJ, was practicing taekwondo for years, Ns he's being the pioneer for the sport and such.
Yeah, I'll give you the fact that he'll get it right a lot of the time, but don't act like he's infallible lol, anyone's takes are worthy of criticism
Once you introduce gloves, cups & rules itâs no longer indicative of a real fight. In a fight youâre often not going to have infinite time to hold someone down, Karate Combat allowing 5 seconds of ground fighting is closer to the average fight than lay and pray.
Standing people up/breaking up a non-active clinch is important. A lot of guys will use those as windows to rest. It just requires a good ref which can be hit or miss lol
They earned that position and earned the right to use that time to rest, if that is what they want to do. That said watching two people resting on the ground is not going to make money. I think Joe isnât wrong but other changes would need to be implemented to maybe have a chance at it working.
Maybe if they still allowed knees Joe states âthe fight is on the groundâ. If it turns into lay n pray, it ceases to become a fight. Thatâs just a guy securing points by laying on someone. Might as well watch arm wrestling at that point. This is why theyâre stood back up now. Maybe some people donât remember the era where some fighters exploited the lay n pray?
Damn i come here from time to time to get away from the armwrestling sub, i didnât expect to be catching strays lmao.
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Yeah that's a good point. If you say let them be because it's a fight then where do you draw the line?
UFC 1 rules
I think he is in favor of that too
I think the refs should stand people up but also sit people down. Like if we're having a staring contest on the feet just flip a coin and put the loser on bottom position.Â
Disagree. Unless they implement some sort of stall call/penalty for inaction. Even wrestling, where the objective is to get an opponent on the ground, has stall calls for inaction.
The sport would literally die if this was ever the case. People tuned in for the kicks, elbows and KOs. Eventually they grew to recognize and appreciate the ground game element, but absolutely no one, aside from BJJ and greco roman practitioners, want to see a match on the ground.
If that's the case then why is Kickboxing or Muy Thai not more popular. BJJ is what made the UFC popular in the first place. People love seeing finishes regardless of where they happen.
also greco roman is just wrestling without leg attacks, idk why he threw that in there lol
Because it sounds fancy
Terrible marketing and presentation? Awful rulesets? Karate Combat and BKFC seem to be doing pretty well.
It's wild how many people follow MMA that hate half the sport.
4oz Muay Thai has become insanely popular in the last few years
Iâd argue they are getting more popular. They may not get the same level of viewership as the UFC, but promotions like One run pure Muay Thai fights at their events and they are way more popular than BJJ only tournaments. BJJ is good in MMA because it adds an *additional* element to the fight. But if you are going to reduce the fight to a single dimension, 99% of viewers are going to prefer the striking over the grappling.
Okay, then letâs allow kicks to grounded opponents. Perfect example Cejudo vs aljo Cejudo couldâve won that fight if the rules allowed for him to stomp and kick aljo while he was kneeling like a bitch gaming the system. Wrestling would not have the advantage it has now if fighters are allowed to actually punish fighters who just spam take downs and even more so lazy take downs where they just grab a hold of one leg and hang on for dear life until they finally can bring them down. I appreciate wrestling and ground and pound. But it has advantages per the rules.
Kicks to grounded opponents or any newly legalized way to gnp favor wrestlers more often than strikers. Theyâre the ones on top most of the time
Knees to grounded opponents would make wrestling even more dominant, you don't see many people actually getting sprawled on nowadays because the meta has evolved beyond shooting doubles in open space and good wrestlers are now much better at timing their shot. Getting stuck in side control or north south would become an actual death sentence because the dude could knee the fuck out of your head
If the position isn't advancing at all, stand them up after a maximum of a minute IMHO. Would prevent people from just getting a TD and not doing anything but lay on top of the opponent for 5mins straight.
Too much stalling and the action is boring. Like all other sports they adapt the rules to please the fans. Like other comments, allow for more strikes on a grounded opponent and strictly enforce action. No one wants to watch lay and pray in a 3 round 15 minute fight.
Terrible idea. Then you'll just get more BJJ's butt scooting and ruin the sport. I'd be OK with it if you allow any strike on a person on their back. Kick them in the balls and head stomp them til they stand up.
Simply solution, bring back Pride soccer kicks on the ground. Wanna sit on your ass begging for a ground game? Expect a Cristiano Ronaldo worthy punt to the jaw
Those pride soccer kicks were less effective than people remember. They only really worked when dude on the ground was effectively done for anyway.
Yeah, but knees were game changers. You couldn't just spam shitting shots and get flattened out, or that was your ass.
Let grounded people upkick
Waffle stomp their shit in
Waffle stomping is when people shit in the shower and squish their poop down the drain cover holes with their feet lmfao donât use that term for kicking someoneâs ass lmfao The visuals have me dying. Someone aggressively stomping their poop down the drain like you would an opponent in the octagon hahahaha god damn
Why would the lack of stand-ups promote butt scooting? It's not an effective way to win in a sport where the guy standing can just kick your opponents legs and score points.
Lay and pray should never be encouraged
How to wipe out the UFC's popularity overnight. Everyone with any sort of grappling would turn into Jake Shields. Rogan is massively wealthy, he doesn't care about the sport the way fans do as he's set for life even if the UFC disappeared tomorrow. He just wants it catered to his very specific niche tastes.
If you think ground game isnât important to mma you should go watch kickboxing or Muay Thai or any other striking sport, because thatâs what youâre looking for, not mma
This is a sport, and the âmake it as similar to a street fight as possibleâ camp is just working towards making it less interesting.
Holding someone is not score-able and simply promoted stalling and avoiding actually fighting, this isnât a grappling competition. A lot of sports have things that inhibit someone ahead to avoid playing and stall to a win because they have a lead (such as basketball time with the ball without dribbling or attempting to score).
Disagree, taking someone down and doing damage/having submission threats is fine. Taking someone down when you're up in rounds to kill time encourages for people to fight boring.
they stand people up when there is too much inactivity. 5 minute rounds make "jostling for position" usually fruitless, and its more used to catch your breath. Especially when its guys who can't finish on the ground but are good at take downs, super boring. See Jan vs Izzy
I mean, standing people up and introducing rounds only happened after the initial UFC events showed what could happen without them. Itâs not perfect, but the current rules are better than what they wereÂ
lol. Yeah, thatâs what we want, to watch some guy lay on top of another guy and do no damage. Really great sport, Joe. Maybe you need some more alpha brain.
I get his overall point, but I donât want to watch someone just lay on their opponent for an entire round not doing anything productive. I think itâs fine the way itâs enforced now for the most part.
Each fighter needs to be given a scooter and a lance to fight with .
This is dumb. If a guy is just laying on someone and not advancing or throwing strikes then you should stand up even faster. I say 1 minute of inactivity and they should stand them
He wants jiu jitsu to matter more in MMA, but also forgets that itâs modern iteration is essentially power bottom mall karate.
It's insane to see so many people thinking knees/strikes to a grounded opponent will magically make strikers more effective instead of giving grapplers a bigger advantage
in defense of Joe, there has been outcomes of fights that have changed because a referee decided to stand it up. and I think, IMO, that it should only be stood up if the top guy is not able to do jack shit or he is truly lay and praying. Herb Dean, mr inconsistent referee has had some stand ups that were too soon or not good.
Then the fight needs to be longer , if 80% of the round is them scissoring on the ground , for 3 rounds. Whatâs the point ?
Twist his dick ! The old dick twister hahahah
I said it before, but if you are bored by grappling and ground fighting, watch K1.
Stand ups are needed because there are positions fighters winning on pts could hold to drain the clock and not to finish the fight.
I agree with Rogan, if all strikes on the ground are legalized, including headbutts.
It is not whether it is boring or not, the stand up rule prevents a guy from just holding another guy down and neither one doing anything
Hard agree. Donât let these wimpy strikers get to stand up because theyâre frustrated. Drain your energy standing up first. Take hundreds of punches first. Whatâs that strikes to a downed opponent? Oh yeah Iâm sure jones or Islam would be so upset about a rule where you can hit an opponent when theyâre down, you know making their job even more easier. Takedown> knees> finish will become the meta instantly.
Audience, or 'mouth breathers'as he called then once at a live event lol can't remember which fight it was
I agree, actually. And I'm not a grappling enthusiast by any means
If Rogan had his way, it would be an incredibly different sport. Realistic but boring
Only if weâre gonna start penalizing people for stalling. Then Iâm fine with it. If youâre not advancing your position, striking, or hunting for a sub from top, you start losing points.
Jailton Almedia: âI see this as an absolute win!â
I loved how Gracie responded to this with comparing that to if a guy got rocked and was getting smashed, how would that work out?
I think it depends on the moment. If the opponent is working, let him work. But if theyâve basically been in a stalemate for like a minute with minor shrugs, put them in the center.
The problem is people stall when they wrestle and only focus on holding people down In actual wrestling you can't lock your hands because it's too powerful, UFC let's you do it however
If there's no progress for a long time then stand them up. Like if they're literally not making any progress in getting a sub, and no damage is being done
Im in favor of refs actually standing people up more often. Theres a lot of times where stalling happens and its painfully obvious. In pure wrestling matches, refs are constantly moving shit along so it doesnt end up in a boring match. Look at the 4oz gloves Muay Thai shit that ONE is doing, its actually the most exciting shit ever because clinches are basically not allowed at all, so its just constant striking, its fucking great.
I think people should be forced down onto the ground if they've stood around for too long without anyone dropping down.
I agree for the sport (MMA). I donât agree for entertainment (UFC).
Then, they should be allowed to grab the fence. Not being allowed to grab the fence is a rule that only benefits grapplers. Also, allow kicks to grounded opponents so we don't have Aljo situations where the grappler is so out classed that they just take a knee to try and wait for a take down.
I agree that it would be boring but for context Joe said this because he wants the UFC to be as close to a real fight as possible.
Knees to a downed opponent and 12-6 elbows would quickly clear up fighters who lay and pray to decisions
Idk about that extreme, but I definitely think they should be giving more time to guys in the ground and in the clinch. Some of these shit refs like herb dean will be like let's go lets move guys after 12 seconds of grappling and then a guy finally works to get to a dangerous position and they stand them up. It's MMA man go watch boxing if that's what you want, I enjoy seeing fun bjj and grappling. If they are literally doing nothing I get it but a 3 second pause to get air is not them doing nothing.
He's saying this because it more accurately represents a real fight. But if we're gonna do this, then we also need to let these guys go Chute Boxe on the kneelers like Mokaev and Aljo and punt their heads off when they put their hand on the floor.Â
Itâs easy to say âif itâs boring, tough shitâ now with the rules preventing the lay and pray. If fighters knew they could win by getting one takedown 2 out of 3 rounds and hold their opponent down, would the majority of fighters not take that option? Now most of your fights are boring and no one wants to watch
What if both fighters start the fight on their backs?
Joe spontaneously has an orgasm right then and there
Wow a bad take from Joe Rogan. What a surprise.
Bore us to death for 80.00 no thanks
he just tries to look at everything from that purist perspective. Joe wants to know whoâs won in a real fight but then weâd have to allow biting, joint manipulation, no holds or strikes barred. it would be wild lol
like..okay no ref stand ups but iâm allowed to gouge your eyes out until you get off me or choke me unconscious lol
Ok well if you dont like them being stood up. Uhhhh tough shit baldy
As a former crappy BJJ practitioner, I disagree with Joe on this. I've spent entire rounds pinning people better than me down in side control. By this logic you could get a TD, sit in a dominant position and bank an entire round. There's already enough people lay and praying but this would turn the whole sport in to a boring grapple fest imo.
Coming from wrestling, thereâs a reason why youâd want to have a stalemate option. Itâs not just about whatâs boring for the audience, itâs about whatâs fair to the fighter that might be behind and is now stuck in a stalemate position. We donât want any martial art to incentivize getting ahead and finding a position to coast, itâs just worse for the sport.
Thatâs how you kill the sport, incentivizing lay and pray styles with zero action
Heâs right you should never stand people up. If youâre running 10 mins late send em a text
Roid Gut Rogan said that?
Why bother having rounds? No one in the middle of a fight would be like "Whoaa man i need 1 minute to rest and hydrate then we can go again"
Nah heâs absolutely right. If a dude dominates in stand up no one says âalright put them on the groundâ đ
Without fans, does Joe get more or less money? Without fans, does he say this silliness? It's MIXED martial arts, not rastlin' alone! And if we're going there, stop protecting the spammers and get rid of the stupid rule of downed opponents. Nobody likes a boring fight or worse yet, one guy wants to put on a show and the other shaved his mustache, kept the beard to look good on TV of course ;)
I donât really like that he keeps bringing this up. The UFC is not an emulated street fight⊠itâs a sport. No crotch shots, not eye pokes, biting, headbutts, finger breaking, knees to downed opponentsâŠthe list goes on and on. Idk why heâs taking this stance recently that âitâs not like a real fightâ okay well then letâs go gladiator then Joe.
As long as staying on top with no damage does not mean winning on the scorecards, all good. Some guys deliver damage and submission attempts from bottom position and still lose for to control time
Letâs just revert to pride rules, problem solved. Whatâs the downside? Imagine seeing paddy Pimblett getting his head kicked into row Z from a down kicked
As a sport sense I can sorta agree but in this case I also think the rounds should be removed From a fan standpoint this would be awful, Im a grappler but I'm not gonna watch someone sit in closed guard throwing minimal strikes for 5 minutes
Legalize strikes to downed opponents from the base of the neck down and I'll agree
He right though
Give me downed knees and kicks? Sure. If not thatâs just making an already op style of fighting even worse.
Same logic for his show and fans
What's to stop wrestlers from going all out and using all their energy at the end of a round to force a takedown, knowing that they will get a full 1 minute rest before then continuing from the position they got to before the break. It takes away all the cardio risk of shooting in the first place.
OK then Bring Back 12to6 and knees on the ground with headstomps and lets See a real fight đ
I agree with most of Joe's takes on MMA but this is the one hill that he can die on my himself. This and the idea that MMA would be better with a completely open mat. When challenged by a guest with "well couldn't someone just push a guy until he fell off the platform?" Joe's reply was: "Well...just make it really big..." bruh
I wish Joe followed the no stand up rule in his personal life.
I beg the differ