Seriously. It's infuriating watching people grapple up against the cage, even if it's effective, it's almost NEVER a finish. You watch it knowing that they aren't trying to win. It's essentially MMA point fighting. Really wish it was aren't huge ring, or like Joe Rogan says, a basketball court size cage. Watching Khabib fight makes me want to claw my face off. He's a brilliant fighter and tactician but it drives me mad watching him fight.
I get the basic criticism of disliking cage wrestling, but I don't get the critique of Khabib. He has a lot of finishes by submission's and TKO's in his record. I remember finding his fighting really dynamic, and different and fun to watch. Lots of carrying people a few steps or more before dumping them in dramatic fashion. Khabib (This is a link to his fight record.) I didn't see his last fight, but I read up on other forums. The consensus seemed to be that Khabib could have finished that fight at any time. He said later he didn't finish because he wanted to give people a longer fight to watch than his last fight. Everyone described that fight as really brutal. People watching were asking why his corner didn't throw in the towel, the fight was so brutal. I just looked up the score for that fight. Two unanimous 10-8 rounds and one judge calling all three rounds 10-8 rounds. How could that have been a point fighting wall and stall match?
I don't find cage wrestling any more or less interesting than any other display of positional dominance most of the time. As long as the fighters are striking and or battling for hooks I actually quite like it. Any position when used inactively gets dull though I guess and you certainly see that against the cage. The last Khabib fight was a flat out bullying. It was unbelievably one sided to the point if being awkward to watch at times but I don't think it was boring.
I like it, but then I enjoyed doing it when I trained so there's that. Sometimes it can be boring, but I've seen some shockingly boring striking matches too. It's not my favourite thing to watch ever, but if people are looking for turns and underhooks, if you know what you're looking at, it can be quite enjoyable to have mixed into the card. Plus end of the day, its a sport. I don't care about people trying to win decisions that much if that's your best shot at winning. As for Khabib, how anyone can find his fights boring I have no idea. Different strokes and all that, so fair enough if you don't, but for me he's probably my most exciting fighter to see at the moment. Damn aggressive grappling, bloody good at it, and he does it to try and hurt you. His GnP has some of the worst intentions I've seen in ground and pound in modern mma.
I appreciate that people want to be excited about the skills of their favourite fighters, but would it possible to moderate the Khabib hype-train short of believing statements that are flat nonsense such as "Obviously, I knew that UFC fans prefer decision victories to 3rd round finishes. That's why I deliberately let my opponent get back up and hit me a bunch of times by chasing him in a straight line while I did a cunning impression of gassing out".
Yep the first round was so one sided it wasn't fun to watch, but after that it evened out slightly and I don't think he chose to go the distance... As for cage work it's MMA's USP, other combat arts have stand up, take-down and submissions some even have ground and pound, but MMA is the only place you find cage work it's an artform all to itself. It can get boring but no more boring than lay and pray, or two fighters refusing to engage and that's why the ref has the power to separate fighters
KhabI believe isn't boring. That's more about the second part of "it find it frustrating as all hell" to watch someone gsteway pinned and unable to get back up. Just makes me uncomfortable, haha.
