Team Velvet Fist Moves to Miami

When I heard that Team Velvet Fist was moving to Miami, I went down to their Santa Cruz gym. It was chaos, everyone go and fro, things disassembled and awaiting shipment, all very busy. Still, the fighters and staff were willing to speak to me. I asked about the move, why they’re doing it and what they expect to gain - or lose - from such a move. The response from the fighters was varied. First I spoke to Keema the Camel. She was, of course, calm:

It’s a big change, of course, but there’s much to be excited about. The presence of American Top Team is splendid, of course, because of the large number of high level Brazilian jiu jitsu black belts. It provides a unique opportunity to train with many of the best rollers in the world. Likewise, the wrestling culture of Florida is something I’m very much looking forward to. As a camel, of course, grappling is my primary focus, and this move provides many new and exciting training opportunities.

Sandy the Shark’s reply was ominous:

I have a lot of family offshore in the Miami area. They tell me the Cuban food is just excellent. I can’t wait to take a bite out of the area.

Bette the Bair had a different take on things, as is her idiom:

Do they have vodka in Miami? Is so, good. If not, bad, very bad. You know, when a polar bair such as myself gets too hot with no vodka, there is being killing spree. Da. Very violent. Very frequent. So, best to be having vodka.

When I was finally able to force Patty the Parrot away from her training, she said:

One place to train is much the same as any other. The MMA scene in Miami is rooted in complacency, so there is not much for me to learn there - nothing unorthodox, nothing that takes the art to the next level. Still, that very orthodoxy will allow me to hone my skills because they represent the ne plus ultra of how MMA has become fossilized. I will hone my techniques against these cookie cutter robot “fighters” and through that bring a devastating new style to the cage.

Then Patty returned to training, of course. Then I asked Edward the Efalunt what he thought:

I think this move is going to be great! I mean, wow, I mean, we’ll be right there next to Thiago Alves! How cool is that! The Muay Thai Wrecking Machine! Ohemgee, I am so totally stoked about this!

Then he did a little muay Thai dance and did a back flip. Petey the Edge was not so enthusiastic.

I think this is a terrible move. I mean, really? Gulf pelicans? I know what that’s trying to say, they’re trying to keep a California brown pelican down. But that is not going to happen. I am going to show those lily white Gulf pelicans what a real, hardcore pelican is like. This is insulting. But I will persevere and, of course, triumph.

Then he spread his wings to show where he’d recently gotten his new Brown Pride tattoo.

I do this to show my solidarity with my brown Californian brothers and sisters regardless of species. We are Californian, we are brown and we are here to stay!

Some people, of course, do not change. Demon the Ducky:

Do they bleed in Miami? They’re all the same to me. I will beat them bloody and then drink their blood. No offense, but I’m gonna murdalize every last motherfucking last one of them.

When I tried to ask Roxie the Rhino about the move, I got headbutted. Repeatedly. Here is the last, horrified picture taken by my cameraman before he was struck with Roxie’s trademark flying headbutt:



It was, sadly, the last picture he will ever take.

But the the brains of the operation is, without, Dao the Dragon. As the inventor of kung-fu and the chief trainer of Team Velvet Fist, his insights were most illuminating.

Life is a series of changes! We flow from one to the other. It is best not to be captured by the details! We were in Santa Cruz, we will be in Miami. There are no whys, only the natural rhythm of events.

Of course, I intend to take this opportunity to further my students’ oneness with the infinite. In particular, the fierce hurricanes that scour the area - caused by my tempestuous brothers and sisters - will be an allegory for their burgeoning abilities. To be as the wind and wave! What is softer than water, save air? And, yet, what can stand before them! Cities fall, coastlines reshaped, because of this air, this water. Magnificent! Through understanding the oneness with all things, my students will be able to harness that natural power, soft and yet fierce, born of the lightest things but able to wreck incalculable havoc.

Godzilla was more prosaic.

Well, it was mostly a money thing. Santa Cruz is nice, but really expensive. We looked around and Miami just made the most sense because of it’s access to a diverse array of trainers and we like to train outside a lot, and Miami has mild winters. So, to spare Santa Cruz being destroyed by me in a firestorm of nuclear annihilation, Dao suggested be blow out of there when our rents got jacked up.

Internet Arguments That Piss Me Off: Racism Edition

Confrontations with racists suck, especially when you kinna liked them. But that gives me a reason to bitch and moan about argument forms that annoy me: the racism edition.

1. "It's just a joke"

This is almost always the first lame, pathetic justification that racists use to disguise their awful habits and beliefs. It's okay to be a racist pig because it's supposed to be funny. The flaw in this "reasoning" is the idea that hate speak is incompatible with humor. Obviously, that's not true. It's really easy to make ugly, mean jokes and some of them are pretty funny. But humor is not worth racism plus racism isn't necessary for humor. If you think racist humor is funny, you're a racist. You might also be a comic, but you're definitely a racist.

2. "It's just the way I am/was raised"

Then you are, or were raised, a racist. What? Did you think racists just magically appeared? No. People are racists, actual human beings, and they're usually racist because they were raised that way; racism begets racism, this is a known thing. So, saying that's the way you are or the way you're raised is not a justification for racism, but an acknowledgement of you being a racist.

3. "I belong to persecuted group X therefore I could never be racist towards persecuted group Y"

This one falls apart on two levels. The first is that everyone is discriminated against by someone else, so pretty much anyone can make this claim . . . thus, when applied to racism (or any other kind of social hatred) it falls apart as being without descriptive value because it applies to everyone indiscriminately. It's basically saying that racism doesn't exist because, in the end, everyone is victimized by someone else, justifying racism. Circular reasoning is not high in meaning.

The second way it falls apart is because harm committed against a person does not justify them committing further harm. Just because Louis Farrakhan has really been legitimately persecuted on a bunch of different levels does not justify his anti-Semitism. Because you or your loved ones have been hurt doesn't give you a free pass to hurt other people. Two wrongs still do not make a right.

4. "I have an X friend"

Fortunately, I quit the conversation before the person got to this one. But we've all heard it. Because, y'know, you are on speaking terms with someone from a persecuted group, it's okay to say nasty things about that group. This one has been sufficiently debunked that I doubt I'll go anywhere describing it more.

So, anyway, if you find yourself falling into any of these patterns, you might want to hold up a second and give a thought or two. At least, y'know, if you want to keep talking to me, at any rate.

Profiles of Team Velvet Fist: Petey the Pelican

Favorite Fighters: Georges St-Pierre, Fedor Emelianenko, Randy Couture
Nickname: the Edge

Age: 5 years
Height: 13"
Weight: 11.9 oz/0.37 kg/0.053 stone
Reach: 21.5"
Styles: Greco-Roman wrestling, boxing, second degree black belt in Kyokushinkai karate
Fighting Out Of: Santa Cruz, California

Bio: The Santa Cruz native, born on a cliff near Natural Bridges State Park, Petey has long been interested in high level competition. With his long reach and the natural ferocity of a pelican killing machine, Petey dominated the NCAA Division I plushieweight Greco-Roman wrestling league, wrestling out of UCLA. He racked up an impressive four times All-American wrestler and his in his final year went 42-0.

But Petey says, "I don't think of myself as a wrestler, but as a mixed martial artist. I see the strengths of wrestling, of course, in controlling the action of the fight, but I know that in modern MMA you can't just do one thing well, you've got to do everything. And I've been doing Kyokushinkai for years so I've got a good basis for striking."

Petey has racked up an impressive series of wins, not only because of his completionist mindset, but also his clever tactical abilities.

Petey says, "I see it as a chess match. Most fighters are predictable. I know what they're going to do. I just need to figure out a way to counter that, to predict them to the second or third level. Then, victory inevitably follows."

What about his name, the Edge? "I'm edgy, that's just the way it is. I take everything to the edge! I think it's my vicious predatory nature, I like to go in for the kill, I live life in an extreme way, I don't back down, I don't give up or chicken out. It's just who I am."

Watching Petey fight is impressive. Not simply because he is skilled, but because of his remarkable composure and intelligence. The chess metaphor grows in believability watching him predict his opponent's tactics and having counters for every one. And yet, when the moment comes, Petey swoops in for the kill with the instinct of a natural born killer. Covered in the blood of his enemies, Petey is inevitable to reach the top of the fiercely competitive plushieweight division.

Georges St-Pierre vs. Nick Diaz -- FIGHT!

It seems increasingly likely that Georges St-Pierre is going to fight Nick Diaz, probably in Montreal, probably in December. While part of me would like GSP to go up to middleweight (not just for Anderson Silva, but because he needs new people to fight, generally), I like the idea of GSP-Diaz, too, because fuck Nick Diaz. He's a jerk. I generally root for Californians, and Diaz is Cali to the bone, but he's such a jerk I can't do that.

It is also looking like there's a grudge happening between GSP's gym, Tri-Star in Montreal, and the Cesar Gracie camp in Stockton, CA. In UFC 129, Tri-Star's Rory MacDonald defeated Cesar Gracie's Nate Diaz (younger brother to Nick). The same night, a mostly blind GSP defeated cheating bastard Jake Shields. (C'mon, Jake? Five eye pokes in one fight? You should be fuckin' fired. But, hey, I guess your buddy Chuck Liddell covered for you.) And it seems probable that GSP will be fighting Diaz, next. I guess the UFC has decided that Tri-Star needs to clear out Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

I don't think Nick has much of a chance. (Neither do the bookmakers. The odds are about 7 to 2 in GSP's favor, right now.) When Diaz fights guys with good takedowns, his high volume punching skills degrade because his footwork changes. He has to try to defend takedowns, so he can't put his feet in the right way to keep up his volume punching. Additionally, GSP is faster and has a longer reach, so Diaz's normal tactic of pitter-patting a fighter on the way in won't work with GSP. GSP also has great disengages -- it's like teleportation, a guy tries to punch him and he'll be across the ring, it's beautiful to watch and GSP is one of the most elusive fighters in MMA, right now. (I believe he is the most elusive fighter actually fighting, with the possible exception of Lyoto Machida.) GSP will snap out with that jab like an iron bar that destroyed Koscheck's face, or lunging overhand rights, to set up spinning body kicks while looking for the roundhouse kick to the head. If Diaz adjusts his footwork for a lot of punches and GSP doesn't want to engage and disengage (which he might, he has liked to defeat people where they're strong in the past), he'll just take Diaz down.

Indeed, there is probably no condition under which Diaz won't be taken down by GSP if GSP wants to take Diaz down. And there is no condition under which Diaz will be able to take GSP down. No one has been able to dominate GSP on the ground. Not Matt Hughes, not Josh Koscheck, not Jon Fitch. If GSP can dominate Hughes, Kos and Fitch on the ground, I don't think anyone doubts that Diaz will be easy. GSP hasn't been in any threat of submission for half a decade against better submission artists than Diaz.

GSP will also have a massive advantage in physical strength. He's probably the strongest welterweight in the world (with the possible exception of Thiago Alves). He's stronger than all middleweights with the exception, perhaps, of Yushin Okami and Chael Sonnen.

(In terms of endurance, they're probably equal. I gotta give Diaz's conditioning credit. If it goes to the later rounds, it will be as hard fought in the fifth as the first. Both men are machines.)

So, how can Diaz win? Diaz needs to work on engaging, he needs to press the fight, cut off GSP and land precision shots. He also can't let it go to the ground, he needs to work on his takedown defense.

Will it be enough? Probably not. GSP has really good evasions, he's got speed, strength and reach. GSP was equal to Thiago Alves on his feet when GSP had a pulled groin muscle. Still, that's probably Nick's best shot. He is a high skilled, well-rounded fighter and if he can keep it standing and cut off GSP, he has a chance.

For me, the good thing is . . . this will be the first fighter in a long time that won't be frightened of GSP. Diaz won't work on his footwork to cut off GSP. He'll press forward, basically offering his head to GSP, like he does to everyone else. And when GSP bangs him up, Diaz will keep offering it. I think that will make the fight exciting, rather than the line of timid fighters GSP has had to deal with since obliterating BJ Penn.

Rockin' the medical high

I don't believe in free will. Recently, this belief has been reinforced by my experiences with medicine. I'm gonna explain what I mean about that.

Some of my earliest memories were of incredibly fury and frustration. As a child of single digit years, I would literally be writhing on my bed in silent fury so intense it was a kind of agony. Other times, I felt a mind-numbing ennui that robbed me of all strength. I told no one of these feelings . . . except my mother, who helpfully told me to hide it. After all, said she, everyone feels angry and frustrated sometimes.

That's what I did. For years, decades. I assumed everyone else felt the same way I did. That they felt the same curious, intense and unspecified angers and frustration. That they felt the same crushing helplessness and hopelessness. I just assumed that they had more determination or willpower than I had.

It wasn't until I lived with Adrienne that I realized that, no, that wasn't normal. Not even a little bit. During this time, I was able to structure my life (or our lives) in such a way as to more or less remove all external sources of meaningful anxiety or frustration. By this time, I could give voice to the specific forms of the malady -- depression and anxiety. Still, despite a long standing belief that willpower is a sham primarily used to manipulate people, I was captured by the old belief that my problem was my will. If only I were stronger!

Several years ago, I started taking St. John's wort for depression. It worked pretty well, not completely, but it took the edge off. I noticed about this time, however, a worsening of my creativity and drive. Still, the respite from depression made SJW worth it. This January, I talked to my doctor about my depression and anxiety. She gave me citalopram which dismantled my depression in the middle of winter, where I have my darkest moods.

However, my creativity and my sense of language failed me. So I talked to a psychiatrist about that. My psychiatrist gave me Adderall.

Again, my life changed. I realized that the happiness I felt under St. John's wort and citalopram was merely the absence of depression. Which is an amazing feeling after being depressed my life long. I also realized that I was suffering a side effect common to both SJW and citalopram: emotional flattening. The absence of pain is not the presence of joy. Adderall, a combination of different flavors of medical speed, reintroduced (introduced?) me to that. Suddenly, women were prettier, music sounded sweeter and I was occasionally struck by the remarkable beauty that surrounds me here in Santa Cruz.*

Additionally, under citalopram, I was able to lose weight. Forty pounds since late January. This is unprecedented in my life. It appears that eating food was a kind of crude self-medication for depression -- fatty and sugary foods increase serotonin, which regulates mood. Adderall has the side-effect of making me not hungry, which is a different pathway . . .

Where is willpower through all of this? All I can find is a bunch of messed up neurochemistry. It just seems like, during my various development phases, or perhaps genetically, I got some damaged neurological pathways. My body doesn't regulate serotonin very well. My body has a damaged dopamine pathway. So taking one drug helps one, another drug helps the other. It gives me clarity of mind, calmness of spirit and . . . I can feel my command of language and creativity returning. I can focus.

At the same time, my problem with weight seems to be diminishing. I don't eat to feel better because I already feel better. And I'm just hungry less often. I have never had such a command over my diet! But I didn't "do" anything to get this command except take a couple of pills.

Wither will? I can't see it. I just see myself as a big ol' chemical reaction, doing things because the interplay of atoms and energy that I call "me" interacts with the environment in particular ways, determined by no one, going nowhere. My life has all metaphysical intentionality as ripples in a pond. What I feel to be intentionality is a chimera, a fantasy created by a heavily negentropic system that evolved in terrestial environment.**

Plus, as a nifty side-effect of all of this, I feel great. Even if I can't sleep as much or as well as I might want. It is a tiny, tiny price to pay!

* Medically, the current theory of what was going on in my brain runs like this: my depression was caused by too little serotonin. The citalopram increased the amount of serotonin in my body, removing the depression. However, I likely also have a short circuit in my dopamine pathways, which are important in the regulation of "rewards" for successfully completing tasks and even simple things like appreciation of beauty. The Adderall stimulates those pathways, making me happier, which allows me to focus better and take pleasure from the exercise of creativity.

** Which isn't as nihilistic as it sounds. Even if there is no spiritual component to human existence, no dualistic "mind", the existentialist truth still abides: we invest value into all components of our existence. How splendid! How . . . liberating! But, Chris, you might ask, how about me deciding if I want to get Cheetos or Doritos at 7-11? Clearly, you might say, I have some free will, if I can choose between those two tasty snacks? I believe that it is simply that we don't have the sense or intellectual ability to process all the factors going into our decisions. This creates a very powerful illusion of free will, but it is no more than the die not understanding the forces acting upon it as it is rolled. And, of course, we are going to react to that sensation, but insofar as no one, anywhere, can understand the factors acting upon us, ideas of will remain a useful fiction for purposes legal, moral and so forth and so on. But we shouldn't kid ourselves, I feel. We are controlled by forces we cannot understand, both internal and external. As we understand these internal and external forces, we will be able to act upon them -- we are acting upon them, which is basically the point of this entire post! My fallacy of free will was getting in the way of my mental health, and because lovely scientists were able to figure out some of the mechanisms of depression and reward, I am subsequently much healthier. And, of course, medical science isn't the only field interested in controlling you. There's always advertising . . .

Fedor Emelianeko's team goes off the deep end

Fedor Emelianenko was my first MMA crush. The goofy looking Russian seemed . . . well, unbeatable. He was also the first fighter I'd seen who didn't fight standing up and then fight on the ground -- every strike seemed to be a takedown attempt. It was beautiful to watch. But time marches on. The unbeatable Fedor has lost twice in a row, once to Fabricio Werdum and a few days ago to Antonio Silva. Both fighters are great fighters, it's not any sort of shame to lose to either one, but it's clear that the indestructible Fedor is gone. He's getting a bit long in the tooth for sports, his conditioning was never the best, and the sport has changed since his heyday.

When any athlete reaches this place, what most fans really want is for them to exit with grace. This is particularly true of contact sports, where continuing past your prime is a recipe for brain damage. And even if they continue in the sport, their fans want them to accept that they're no longer in their prime.

Often, this is not the case. In MMA, you have people like Frank Shamrock, an early legend of the sport, "the most dangerous man alive", who in their late forties insist on fighting. These fights are taking place in increasingly sketchy venues against opponents who verge on outright incompetent . . . and Frank can still barely eek by, his body a mass of bruised flesh, old scars and the natural enemy of everyone, everywhere: time. You can see the same sort of thing in the later career of Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson is a bitter case, not only because of his rape conviction, but how he allowed himself to become a sideshow attraction.

Fedor could continue to have a career in MMA, of course. He could teach. He has a lot of experience and skills that could be used to raise the next generation of Russian and Ukranian MMA fighters. For the opportunity to learn from the great Fedor Emelianenko, people would literally travel from the ends of the earth. It's a dignified, respectable career and a lot of the MMA guys from Fedor's time are transitioning very well to their new role as, primarily, trainers -- the Noguiera brothers being standout in this area. Alternately, since he was once the highest paid MMA professional in the world with a reputation for a humble existence, he could also do whatever he wants. Or return to firefighting . . .

Clearly, that's not what's happening if I'm writing this article like that. What's happening, instead, is Fedor's management is going crazy.

Fighters with crazy management teams is nothing new. Fighting sports are rife with criminal activity, if nothing else. I don't imagine this is less true in the kleptocracy of Russia as it is in countries that aren't basically run by the mob. But you rarely get this kind of crazy.

First, Fedor's management team said that the guy who beat him, Antonio Silva, couldn't POSSIBLY be twenty pounds heavier the day of the fight than he was thirty-six hours earlier at the weigh-in without the use of "chemicals". Which is just nonsense. In fighting sports that do their weigh-ins the day before the fight, it's normal for the fighters to dehydrate and starve themselves in order to cut weight. Then, in the thirty-six hours leading up to the fight, they rehydrate and have a couple of huge meals to put the weight back on. Twenty pounds is a lot of weight to cut, yeah, but Bigfoot Silva is a really big guy. Cutting from 285 to 265 is a reasonable cut. Cutting weight is normal for fighters in any professional fighting sport, and it is certainly something Russian fighters do.

Second, steroids don't work that way. You don't take steroids and instantly bulk up. This isn't a comic book. It takes weeks of effort, even with steroids, to gain appreciable weight. There are illegal diuretics that can help cutting weight, but Silva's cut, for a man his size, is simply reasonable. And it isn't like the state of California didn't test all the fighters after the fight -- due diligence will be observed.

More generally, this is something the Fedor camp has been fussing about for years. The idea that someone, somewhere, was taking steroids. They have been very critical of Alistair Overeem because they assert that no one could achieve his physique without the use of steroids. It is, indeed, a rare guy who can naturally get up to 260 pounds of lean muscle, which is what the Reem carries, but he's also legendary for his training discipline. He eats right, he works out all the time and if you look at his family it's clear the Overeems won the genetic lottery in a big way -- they're all big, strong guys. Plus, Overeem has never been caught taking steroids. Not in dozens and dozens of fights. But Fedor's camp has repeatedly insinuated that it's impossible for people to have the kind of physique that Overeem has without steroids.

When Fedor's camp has whined about steroids, it hasn't come off as some principled stand against performance enhancing drugs. It comes off like they're creating a justification as to why their guy might not win. Which is unfortunate.

(And, humorously, they asserted that Russian athletes don't take steroids. We call that "rewriting history". The Russians pioneered the use of steroids as performance enhancing drugs. Additionally, the steroids that most Americans take come from one of two places: Mexico and Russia. For a country where the athletes don't use steroids, it's incredibly easy to get Russian steroids.)

The second bit is even crazier. One of Fedor's coaches, Vladimir Voronov, said, okay, I'm just going to quote it:

"We believe that forbidden psychological technology was used… It seems to us that not everything was right, and that certain technologies were used. Not ones that could be seen by the naked eye but psychological technologies that worked on both fighters at a distance," he said to Russian website LifeSports.ru

"That is why during the fight Fedor was just not like himself. It seemed very strange behaviour from Fedor. He stepped into the ring and did everything exactly the opposite of what we practiced before the fight. We were all shocked! Fedor had never previously done such a thing.

"Now nearly a week passes, everything settles, and we understand why all this happened."

Voronov also observed with suspicion the fact that Fedor seemed to look "a little depressed" while Silva "literally glowed from the overflowing of his energy". Voronov suspects the use of a person or persons in the audience capable of "blocking energy" and "transferring energy from one person to another".

Uh, Silva's camp used superpowers to transfer some form of life energy away from Fedor?! Am I the only person who thinks this sounds like Scientology? Next he'll be rambling about body thetans!

It makes me sigh. Fedor was, at one time, the best fighter in the world. He had twenty-eight victories in a row, often against the finest competition in the world. He fought better than anyone. But if this keeps up, he'll be a parody of himself. Even if he decides to fight again, I hope he casts off this dead weight and finds himself new representation. The Minotauro Noguiera has offered Fedor a place in the Black House. Which is, in the first place, a measure of the incredible respect Minotauro has for Fedor -- some of Fedor's wins were at Minotauro's expense, after all -- but the Black House is one of the best training camps in the world, handling the likes of Anderson Silva and Junior dos Santos. And even if Fedor were not to fight out of the Black House he could teach free of the poisonous team he's got around him, now.

Pat Miletich on Strikeforce Challengers 13

I have decided that Strikeforce color commentator Pat Miletich stinks. For you non-mixed martial arts fans out there, Miletich is a former UFC champion and he has a martial arts school that's actually really good. My bone is not with his fighting or his teaching, but with his commentary in MMA events.

In particular, watching Strikeforce Challengers 13, several times he opined it was a bad idea for fighters with top control on the ground to attempt submissions because of the likelihood of losing top control. He suggested, apparently quite sincerely, that the best way to win is to grind out a victory using wrestling lay-and-pray techniques . . . which is a big "ugh" for me. Wrestling in MMA is probably the perfect defensive art. Good takedowns, takedown defense, reversals and escapes, it allows a fighter to decide if the fight is going to go to the ground and if it's going to stay there. Being able to control position is one of the keys to victory in MMA. I grasp that. Wrestling is, and should be, a part of MMA.

I also grasp that MMA needs scoring criteria and it is reasonable that one of those scoring criteria should be who "dominates" the fight. Often, particularly with defensive fighters, like wrestlers vs. Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters, nothing much will happen. Both wrestling and BJJ basically teach fighters how to stop the action from progressing. Given this reality, at least some fights are going to end with the fighters basically holding onto each other for fifteen minutes as two defensive grapplers refuse to do anything, waiting for the other fighter to make the move that will never come. No one is going to be really pleased with those kinds of fights, but they happen. So you're going to need to come up with a scoring mechanism and dominance is it . . . and as the rules currently stand, being on top is "domination". So when very little happens in a fight, the guy who stayed on top longest wins.

I think this is a problem in a couple of different ways. First, it's boring. MMA fights are entertainment. Boring fights should be avoided whenever possible. While it's true that every sport is going to have boring events now and then, it's wrong, I feel, to encourage athletes to be dull.

Second, it's bad self-defense. One of the reason MMA is so popular is the notion that these guys really are the best unarmed fighters in the world. That MMA fighters, with their skill at so many talents, are the guys you least want to meet in a dark alley at night. That MMA would work in a fight. Lay-and-pray tactics hurt that idea. In a real fight, finishing it quickly is of great importance. If you're engaged in violence in the real world, it's because something is tragically wrong (dismissing as irrelevant those situations where guys brawl for fun), because you're fighting for your life. Laying on the ground for five minutes trying to smother your opponent is a pretty stupid idea when at any moment some of his pals might come by and stomp your guts out. Sure, a cop might also come by and save your ass, but do you really want to take that chance? Also, in grappling where you're not doing very much, desperation starts to set in. If, while grappling, you keep moving, you radically reduce the odds of your opponent deciding to start the really dirty techniques that make ground fighting on the street so mind bogglingly dangerous. For the less bloody minded out there, I'm talking primarily about eye gouges, but also fish hooks, head butts, throat grabs and groin pulls. If you're moving from position to position, it's harder for a person to visualize and execute the brutal moves not to mention a submission, by defeating your opponent or going very substantially in that direction (sure, a person COULD fight with a broken arm, but most won't and even if they do, uh, they've got a broken arm) makes it impossible or almost impossible for them to pull anything off. So, in a self-defense situation, pretty much the last thing you want to do is lay on top of your opponent while they figure out how to gouge out your eyes or hope one of their friends comes along.

So, when a wrestler wins by top control, they're gaming the rules in such a way that breaks the idea that MMA is good for self-defense. This idea is pretty important for the popularity of MMA. The decline in interest in boxing in the US is attributable in large part for the lack of faith Americans have in the "utility" of boxing as a self-defense art. Vulnerable to kicks and grappling, boxing is seen as a kind of "partial art". MMA, I feel, better fits the ethos that combat sports should be self-defense oriented, that what happens in the ring or cage should be useful "on the street".

Gaming the rules to grind out a boring victory, then, is bad for MMA generally. (The way to fix the problem is to recognize, in grappling in MMA, position is neutral. While I can be occasionally frustrated at the defensiveness of BJJ fighters (when it slips into "doing nothing"), the truth is that they can win from the bottom. That they want to be on the bottom. Yes, the top position is good for ground-and-pound, but the bottom position is good for submissions. Indeed, there is hardly a single submission in MMA from heel hook to guillotine choke that isn't best finished with your back to the ground. It's sort of silly, I think, to say that the guy on top, in MMA, is somehow "winning". How can putting yourself in the position to be submitted be considered winning just because you might launch a couple of leverage-less punches? By recognizing that a top position is not inherently superior, you could get rid of most lay-and-pray fighting techniques. I think this would be for the best.)

Additionally, from an MMA-rules based point of view, saying that you shouldn't try for submissions because you'll lose top position isn't particularly good tactics. While some fighters ought to lay-and-pray, in order to win a fight, they should do that only if they don't have a good submissions game. Submissions end fights. Lay-and-pray grinding means giving your opponent additional opportunities for them to win the fight. Many a good wrestler has lost because, rather than submitting their opponent, they've tried to grind out a victory and found themselves in a triangle armbar. Yeah, they were really winning until they lost.

To top it all off, it's a disservice to pretty much the only reason color commentators in MMA shows exist - to give new fans an idea of what the hell is going on and to clarify complex action. When Miletich opines on what he thinks the fighters ought to do rather than describe what they are doing in the midst of a fight, he's not being real useful to anyone. At that point, he might as well shut the fuck up.

Which is the whole point of this: he should shut the fuck up. What he's advocating is bad for MMA. No one wants to see boring lay-and-pray grinding victories. What he's advocating isn't necessarily good advice -- a submission, ending a fight, means you win. Maybe that's worth giving up top control for a bit. And by trying to coach the fighters rather than commenting on the fight, in the sense of describing the action to make it more comprehensible to the audience who isn't right there at ringside with three monitors viewing the action from different angles with people pointing out where subtle action is going on, he's voiding the warranty for why he should be on the show at all. I like it when an MMA pro is right there to talk us through the action, and I don't mind if they have opinions -- my favorite in this regard is Bas Rutten from when he was doing commentary for Pride FC -- it's just that if they're criticizing the strategy of the fighters rather than explaining it, why do they exist at all?