Just read this in ultimate grappling mag and thought this would get people talking. "Randy Couture believes that the submission game will vanish from MMA in the near future. Fighters are getting too good at defending submissions, he says. Plus, it takes years to develop the submission prowess of someone like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. "Those days are gone" says Couture "You're just not going to catch guys from static positions. Guys are getting too good at countering."
I say people need to up their game and get better at performing submissions. I dont want to see submissions dissapear, they are probably one of the most entertaining fight enders.
its good that the MMA scene is evolving, like everything in the sports world, things happen in phases and will soon come up with something new
I haven't read the article... but if I'd heard it from someone on the street I'd say it was a load of rubbish. But given that it's Couture that said it... hmmm... interesting - Couture certainly knows his stuff. He's how old now? And he's been at the submission game for how long? Longer than many people here on MAP have been alive. I don't think though that sub's will dissappear. Why? Becuase there is always new blood coming into the game. Granted in the early phases of MMA you had lost of people with little to no submissions background - primarily stand up strikers - and many of them got their asses handed to them once they got taken down. So things have moved on from there... I mean for Christ's sake you had Ramon Dekkers rather gamely jump into a guard position when he was taken down by Genki Sudo - and he was stand up striker extraordinaire. So if Dekkers is down to get down then you can only imagine that their will be new blood in the game for a long time to come. That being said - there are always going to be those with less talent and vision when it comes to grappling. There will always be those that know the basics and figure they'll be able to get by on that... and then they'll come up against someone who has some real talent. Anyone can learn the counters and the submissions... but it does take real talent to employ them effectively. So I don't think submissions are going anywhere anytime soon.
"Randy Couture believes that the submission game will vanish from MMA in the near future. Fighters are getting too good at defending submissions, --- If the submission game vanishes then people won't see such a strong need to train submission defence. As submission defences get worse over the years and maybe decades, then surely someone would eventually come along and "reintroduce the lost art of submissions" and become highly successful with it. And then it starts over. Stuff like this always happens in sport, and it tends to go in cycles.
I just pray MMA doesnt turn into a bunch of wrestling matches. I hate watching a guy laying on his opponent for 3 straight rounds and getting a victory for being on top. At least they have clean brakes or I would go insane. MMA is all about the KO or the submission. If you lose submissions, it would get extremly boring.
But surlely if fighters are getting better at defending against submission's, which I have noticed as well, they will also get more fluid at executing transitions that trap? Yes?
Hate to say it about the God that is Randy Couture, but if that quote is true then it's coming from someone who attempted the same submission on Mike Van Arsdale no less than 4 times and relied on his power and his opponent tiring to finally sink it. Of course submissions are easy to defend if that's how you rely on them. That's why submission guys train transitions and set ups!! Taff has a good point, and I can't see it happening anyway. Looking at the last 2 UFCs & the last 2 Pride events (cos I couldn't be arsed to look at anymore, and ignoring fights that went the distance), 11 fights were stopped by Submission or Technical Submission, 14 fights ended by KO or TKO. Hardly proves Randy's point now does it!?
I think we will see submissions evolve away from positional theory. submitting someone while they are in motion is easier than working for a submission from a known position. We have already seen this advancement work when Matt Hughes reversed George St. Pierre's side wrist lock (kimura) into an armbar. I think that once fighters start moving away from holding positions and start moving more aggressively toward wrestling (i.e. mainly transitions) that submissions will take dominance again because a guy off balance and in motion can't strike effectively. I think the future will look like the Diego Sanchez vs. Nick Diaz fight or the Matt Hughes vs. GSP... I think MMA is evolving and will repeat on cycles of striking being dominant, then wrestling oriented grappling, then positional grappling, then striking... and so on and so on... I think over time the spiral will get smaller and smaller until a universal style emerges... take care, steve
Sure, guys are a whole lot better at countering, but that will just result in guys being better at countering counters...or... whatnot. In any case, the sport as we know it is still very much in its infancy, so it's hard to say what fighting will look like in 100 years, but, in my humble opinion, submissions in one form or another are too natural and effective to ever truly disapear from MMA altogether.
You can also look at it from the other angle... peoples striking in the 1st MMA matches was poor, I mean as a karate guy I was cringing when I watched the karate guys get owned. They threw single strikes, no combinations, with no intent. Do any striking arts really teach only to throw one technique at a time? Most people I know at least jab, right cross if they're doing continuous sparring. So then to counter the floor game, everyone trained in submissions, and once everyone caught onto that, striking became high on the agenda again. circles within circles
have to be honest i agree with most of the above posts. If we were having this discussion 10 years ago we could easily have been talking about the death of the striking arts! the game will continue to evolve and i for one am thankful.
I was going to say something like this What's happening these days is that people who are excellent strikers have developed the ability to defend against grapplers and pound on them.
To a point I agree it seems most people are just blending the 2 better - thats my take so its harder to pidgen hole people into a grappler or a strider just smaller and smaller marjins of both.
Submissions won't leave the game, and I believe they'll get stronger. There's going to be a shift in training submission wrestling away from BJJ, Sambo, and Judo and toward no-gi all the time, like Eddie Bravo's training, and it will spawn a batch of submissions specialists less accustomed, and therefore unconsciously dependent, to the gi. The gi has a place in learning the submission game, it helps raise defensive awareness, but using the gi a majority of the time reduces your ability to adapt to no-gi. Just as no-gi a majority of the time translates not well to gi.
Yep with you on that - I for one prefer non Gi stuff as people can fight a very good defensive game with a Gi - pesky BJJ people!
I disagree, I think a new wave of grappling phenoms will come around and the higher skilled grapplers will over come the strikers, then there will be a new wave of strikers, then grapplers, and so on and so forth, until MMA combat is at it's top peak.
I think the evelotion will be much slower in both camps now as it seems most of the frauds have been exposed and a lot of the good people do what each other do. So it will be a very slow evoloution before anything shocking comes about that is reliable and practical.
if submissions become dinosaurs then dinosaurs are submissions; then dinos are no longer exticnt...maybe.
The other thing is that people make mistakes, which may mean they get subbed. I'm pretty sure that every mma fighter knows how to theoretically defend punches, but ko's still happen.
