The first part is the stand up phase, in which both fighters will try to hit each other with punches and maybe a kick. This is very sloppy stand up to watch. I can’t put my nose on it at the moment as to what is different, but boxing matches and even K-1 RIG matches have better technique and are more entertaining. It's as if there are only two punches in MMA: A hard right, and a hard left. How many ways can you vary that?
Eventually one of the opponents will go for a take down. This is the second stage. The majority of takedowns chosen in MMA seem to be again of only two kinds: the single leg and the double leg. (Let's not pretend there are only two takedowns; watch some Judo to see how much fun this game can be.) Usually the takedown is a very clumsy affair: The two go down (just barely) and they struggle for a bit until they go into the third stage.
Now, on the ground is where most MMA fighting takes place. I don't think it's hard to argue that it's hard to see anything when fighters are here (especially in a live match). Almost always it is in the one familiar position of this: one person is on their back, the other is in their guard. The one on top attempts to pass the guard, and punches are thrown from top to bottom. After a while, in this position, the better MMA games will start people up at stage one again, and the pattern repeats (oh no not again!!).
Sometimes submissions occur in MMA events, but of those, there are very few variations as well. Grapplers practice more than just these 4 or 5 submissions, but those other submissions must require some special circumstance for you never see them.
And yes, there are variations to the steps one, two, three I say are oh so common, but they are mostly rare anomonies. Now I'm not saying that MMA is not a fun game to play, I just said it's one of the most boring things to watch. Games like kickboxing, boxing, judo, wrestling and jujitsu, now those can be fun to watch. The game called MMA is not. (You can tell yourself that maybe MMA is as close to real, no rules combat as you can get. Well maybe, but almost and is are very different things as far as fighting goes. Almost doesn't count. A MMA fight is not and will not look like a real fight.)
-apr/16/2004-
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