11/17: WIN YOUR WAY
This past weekend a number of us got together and watched UFC 322. The 2 title fights went the distance and by all normal measures were actually pretty boring fights and almost carbon copies of each other. Valentina Chevchenko and Islam Makhachev dominated their opponents by taking them to the ground and controlling top position. While there were not many serious submission attempts, their opponents had no answers to the dominat grappling they faced. The champions meted out conservative ground and pound and rarely relinquished position for dominant unamimous decisions.
Online today I saw the normal posts of people whining about the fights being boring, and that somehow being boring made them less of a champion. I've long been over that pointless line of reasoning. The goal of any combat sport is to win, and I would also add, win with absorbing the least amount of physical damage that you can. In combat sports, you have a very small window in which to compete and make a living. You generally aren't experienced enough until your mid 20's, and by your mid 30's you've lost just enough in your step that you can't compete at the highest levels anymore. While many fighters pride themselves on being exciting (and as a fan I'm thankful for that) that is not the goal. The goal is to win, and if winning means that your grappling smothers your opponent and they have no answers, than that is what you do. Those that want to "blame" the winners for boring fights, how about blaming the losers for having no answers to the dominant grappling of the winners? THAT would have made things more exciting, for sure.
If you are a flashy person and like flashy moves and like to entertain, then go be that person when you compete! If you are conservative and prefer a more methodical and controlled pace, then go do that! It's rarely the person in the ring that criticizes how the winner wins. It's normally the arm chair quarterbacks that have never been in the ring that want to tell you how it should be done. I used to think that "doing" Jiu-Jitsu required me to be moving all the time. Movement = Progress, right? WRONG. Sometimes progress is NOT moving. Sometimes it's knowing that you are cooking your opponents energy or mentally draining them by simply preventing them from moving. One of my opponents last weekend lost to me for this exact reason. He had me pinned and was doing a great job of controlling the position. Then he moved and when I sensed the shift in pressure I made my escape, reversed the position and secured a submission. You saw the same thing in the Chevchenko fight on Saturday. Valentina was very controlled, moving very little, while Weili Zhang was bouncing all over the place.
No matter what you do in life, do it your way. Take advice from people that are better than you and incorporate their knowledge into what you do. Ignore the people that don't believe in you. I love this quote that is attributed to Morgan Freeman: "Don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't go to for advice." It really puts in all in perspective, doesn't it?
