Who says you have to be exciting to win?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"article":"This past weekend a number of us got together and watched UFC 322.\u00a0 The 2 title fights went the distance and by all normal measures were actually pretty boring fights and almost carbon copies of each other.\u00a0 Valentina Chevchenko and Islam Makhachev dominated their opponents by taking them to the ground and controlling top position.\u00a0 While there were not many serious submission attempts, their opponents had no answers to the dominat grappling they faced.\u00a0 The champions meted out conservative ground and pound and rarely relinquished position for dominant unamimous decisions.\r\n\r\nOnline 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.\u00a0 I've long been over that pointless line of reasoning.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In combat sports, you have a very small window in which to compete and make a living.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 While many fighters pride themselves on being exciting (and as a fan I'm thankful for that) that is not the goal.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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?\u00a0 THAT would have made things more exciting, for sure.\r\n\r\nIf you are a flashy person and like flashy moves and like to entertain, then go be that person when you compete!\u00a0 If you are conservative and prefer a more methodical and controlled pace, then go do that!\u00a0 It's rarely the person in the ring that criticizes how the winner wins.\u00a0 It's normally the arm chair quarterbacks that have never been in the ring that want to tell you how it should be done.\u00a0 I used to think that \"doing\" Jiu-Jitsu required me to be moving all the time.\u00a0 Movement = Progress, right?\u00a0 WRONG.\u00a0 Sometimes progress is NOT moving.\u00a0 Sometimes it's knowing that you are cooking your opponents energy or mentally draining them by simply preventing them from moving.\u00a0 One of my opponents last weekend lost to me for this exact reason.\u00a0 He had me pinned and was doing a great job of controlling the position.\u00a0 Then he moved and when I sensed the shift in pressure I made my escape, reversed the position and secured a submission.\u00a0 You saw the same thing in the Chevchenko fight on Saturday.\u00a0 Valentina was very controlled, moving very little, while Weili Zhang was bouncing all over the place.\r\n\r\nNo matter what you do in life, do it your way.\u00a0 Take advice from people that are better than you and incorporate their knowledge into what you do.\u00a0 Ignore the people that don't believe in you.\u00a0 I love this quote that is attributed to Morgan Freeman:\u00a0 \"Don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't go to for advice.\"\u00a0 It really puts in all in perspective, doesn't it?","featured_image":"","featured_image_id":"","featured_article":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-259","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n