"Effective" Aggression in Jackson v. Machida and MMA

After UFC 123, there was some controversy over the outcome of the Jackson v. Machida fight -- it was a difficult split decision. Oh, sure, the fight was close enough that no one was going to be happy about it no matter who won, something I blame mostly on Machida's style. He stays way on the outside and waits for the other guy to make a mistake that he can capitalize on. Which is a very legitimate and intelligent fighting style, and if you're looking for real self-defense it's about as good as you can get, but boring in the cage. Regardless of my feelings on Machida's style's legitimacy in MMA, when Machida is in a close fight there's going to be a lot of controversy because he spends most of the fight avoiding the other guy in the cage . . . which means judges are left scrambling for the lesser used criteria for judging fights.

One of them is effective aggression. What does that mean? Uh . . . well, I wish I could give a simple answer to that question.

Effective aggression and cage control are the two "lesser" criteria for scoring fights. The biggest two are effective striking -- which is easy to define, being clean, powerful blows that hurt the target -- and effective takedowns and grappling, which are also reasonably easy to score (though weighing the two against each other is also a source of constant MMA controversy).

Cage control is also pretty easy to see. Mainly, if one fight occupies the center of the cage, the "key", he is thought to have ring control because that fighter doesn't have their back to the cage, so they can't get cut off and put up against the cage. Jackson had ring control for the first two rounds, that's plain to see.

However, the effective aggression thing is harder to get a handle on. Aggression is easy to see. Who's going forward. Who's pressing the action of the fight. But sometimes, going forward is a pretty terrible idea, especially against defensive fighters. This is where Machida's style bolloxes the works. Machida is probably the most defensive successful MMA fighter in the history of the sport. Even the worst Brazilian jiu jitsu fighters will at least want to make contact with their opponent, even to the point of leaping onto them. Even compared to other defensive fighters, like Anderson Silva, Machida is avoidant. However, Machida is really good at take advantage of a fighter when that fighter tries to press the action.

To me, this is a species of rules lawyering on Machida's point. He knows that most MMA fighters are aggressive. The promotions and fans like aggressive fighters, as a rule. You look at the fight night bonuses that are given -- best fight, best submission, best knockout. All of them favor aggressive fighters, encourage fights to be aggressive. We do want to see blood. So he knows he can basically sit back and let his opponents come to him and whiz around the ring until they make a mistake and he can clobber them. But if Machida fought someone with his exact same style, it's hard to imagine there being any contact. Both guys would only throw blows from the outside and skitter away when the other person attacked.

If Jackson hadn't gone forward, there would not have been a fight, even though he got clobbered pretty hard because of it. So, a lot of people are asking themselves, "Did Jackson use effective aggression?"

I think in a perfect world, the answer would be, "No, he did not." Walking into a guy's punches and kicks is hard to define as "effective". But, on the other hand, there is a rule about timidity. Timidity is a foul. In a perfect world, I think Machida would have lost two points for timidity -- however, in the hundreds of UFC fights I've watched, no fighter has ever been fouled for timidity. (On the same card, I think Macquiel Falcao should have also been fouled for timidity in the third round. Knowing he'd won the first two rounds, he just danced around and refused to engage his opponent. The crowd was booing him. Was he fouled for timidity? No.) This is something they did in Pride FC all the time. If the fighters weren't aggressive enough, the ref could yellow card them . . . which took away 10% of their purse. They could keep doing this. Pride fighters fought.

In a perfect world, this is how things would have went down:

* Round one: 10 Machida, 9 Jackson, Machida fouled for timidity -- 9 Machida, 9 Jackson.
* Round two: 10 Jackson, 9 Machida, Machida fouled for timidity -- 10 Jackson, 8 Machida.
* Round three: 10 Machida, 9 Jackson.

In round 2, I might have fouled Machida multiple times for timidity, but just the one foul in two rounds is illustrative of my point. At the end, Jackson would have 28 points and Machida 27.

But the referees in the UFC never foul for timidity. No matter how much a guy dances around the ring, avoiding his opponent, even if it means there is almost no contact, I've never seen a UFC judge foul for timidity . . . despite it being in the rules and despite other promotions using the technique successfully.

So, what I think happened on the judges scorecards is an attempt to do what they can to balance out the fight within the construct of the rules. I think that they knew that if Jackson hadn't gone forward, there just would not have been a fight, even though he ate it several times because he went forward. Jackson's aggression turned it into a watchable, if not deeply exciting, fight.

So, in the context of the rules . . . I think that "effective aggression" can only be cleanly scored if the referees enforce timidity rules. I think the lack of enforcement of timidity justifies judges sorta playing around with the concept of aggression and cage control (which are related -- Jackson definitely controlled the cage because of his aggression, which is usually the case) in order to penalize fighters for the fouls that refs aren't giving them.

Never Surrender is a very bad movie

We just watched a movie called Never Surrender. Here's the cover:



I know most of the people who read my journal -- or, more precisely, look at the titles of my journal articles, hehe -- don't follow MMA. But it is normal for the jackets of movies to actually show the people actually starring in the movie. And there's a lot of MMA talent on this cover, let me tell you, ranging from the pretty good with Heath Herring (far left in back), to the really good with BJ Penn (back center) and Quinton Jackson (front left) to the best in the world with Georges St-Pierre (front right) and Anderson Silva (back right).

Now, all of them are in the movie. Heath Herring has the most screen time and actually qualifies as a "in" the movie, but the rest? Rampage Jackson is in the movie for about two minutes, GSP and BJ Penn are in slightly more, perhaps five minutes total for each of them and Anderson Silva is in for about two minutes with no dialog . . . which isn't too strange since he doesn't speak English, I suppose.

The movie actually stars this guy:



Hector Echavarria is his name. Who is he? I have no fucking idea. His Wikipedia page claims he's won a lot of competitions, such as the "World Vale-Tudo Kickboxing Champion of the World". None of his various world championships are sourced. Uh-huh. And I've never heard of such a thing as "World Vale-Tudo Kickboxing Champion of the World" and, perhaps more relevantly, Google has never heard of such a thing. It doesn't even make any goddamn sense! Vale tudo is basically Brazilian for "mixed martial arts" (though a little crazier). Vale tudo and kickboxing would be like saying the World Boxing Judo Champion of the World. Ugh. I mean, seriously? World Vale Tudo Kickboxing Champion of the World? Isn't that a bad Monty Python joke?

Other things Google has never heard of? World Kung Fu Championship. While there is no National World Tae Kwon Do Federation champion (c'mon, dood, is it national or world!) there is a WTF, which means World Tae Kwon Do Federation. I couldn't find Hector on the WTF webpage or any reference that seemed legitimate when googling them together.

There was a United States Karate Association up until 1999. From the 70s to 1989, however, it was functionally replaced by the Professional Karate Association and became the organization of Shuri-ryu karate (which was the style of the founder of the ISKA). From 1989 to 1999, the leadership of the organization was disputed after the founder of the ISKA died and in 1999 it was dissolved entirely. Uh-huh. I could probably get away saying I was an ISKA world champion, too, on account that the organization no longer exists.

I understand that martial arts isn't frequently very online. And his credentials are good enough so that Black Belt magazine recognizes him training Quinton Jackson and Chieck Kongo. His Wikipedia page also says he's working with BJ Penn . . . which is plausible since he got Penn in his silly little movie. But you compare Echavarria's Wikipedia page with, say, Penn's Wikipedia page -- and Penn's career is sourced out the wazoo. It says who Penn trained with and gives sources. So when Wikipedia says BJ Penn beat Brazilian jiu jitsu world champions, there's a sourced link to NBCSports.com. And, of course, it's superficially easy to find sources that acknowledge BJ Penn fought in the UFC and has held the lightweight and welterweight belts. And, interestingly enough, on Penn's Wikipedia page it makes no mention, at all, of Hector Echavarria training him. Neither does Rampage Jackson's page mention Echavarria as a trainer. Argh. This Echavarria is a tool.

This is just too good. I've got to quote: "Born in Corrientes, Argentina on December 6, 1969. Asthma troubled Echavarria as a young child, and his parents had to take turns rocking him at night just so he could breathe. His father sought help for his son with acupuncture treatments, and thereby came to know the first Shaolin monk to flee China, Grand Master Tung Kou Tsao. Although Hector was only four years old, Kou Tsao recommended that Hector learn Tai Chi Chuan because it would help alleviate his asthma by strengthening his breathing. For that reason, Hector started taking lessons in Tai Chi Chuan and Chinese Boxing with Kou Tsao. By the age of six, he was training in Judo and Jiu Jitsu under Grand Master Mayamoto of Kodokan." Holy shit, this guy's a fucking liar! Trained by Shaolin monks? Really? Grand masters of Kodokan started personally training him when he was six? Uh, yeah, right.

In addition to being a liar, he's also a lousy director and actor. I mean, I know that's what this article was supposed to be about but I was totally derailed by what a giant liar this guy is! Oh, excuse me, I'm sure that the article has no connection at all to Echavarria . . . *rolls eyes so far back I can see my brain*

But it's a lousy movie. Instead of being about all those MMA guys I like so well, it's about Hector and his MMA fanfic. Because that's what the movie is, MMA fanfic and he's the Mary Stu. Totally no kidding. So, he's the bestest MMA fighter ever and he hangs out all the time with a bunch of MMA guys, no, really! And they all just love him and think he's so cool and tough!

But MMA isn't badass enough for Hector, nope! He gets brought into an illegal tournament where he doesn't have to fight by any pansy rules! And for getting into the league, he gets to have sex with a hot girl! And when he wins, he gets to have sex with the other guy's hot girl and his own hot girl is totally okay with that! And he gets paid so much better than MMA fighters, who are always there for him and . . . he can beat up Anderson Silva! That's how tough he is!

It's totally fan fiction that somehow got filmed. The fights aren't particularly good -- so it's also a waste of talent, too.

Oh, god, the whole movie is like that. And it's awful. And I got suckered by the stupid fucking cover with guys I like on it. And there's a sex montage about every fifteen minutes. I think there are four of them in the movie. It's like, "Another fifteen minutes -- so here's some titties!" It's like a fourteen year old boy's power fantasy.

Anyway, the article rambled because I found saw Echavarria's lies about himself. The movie sucks. It's cover is a lie. A piece of my soul died today.

Rampage Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida UFC 123 Recap -- and I know how to beat Machida's style

Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen the fight and want to, skip this post.

I'm not particularly thrilled at the way Machida fights. It's way too defensive for my tastes. I like a good, canny defensive fighter, such as Anderson Silva or Mirko Cro Cop in his PRIDE FC days, but Machida is a level of defensive beyond even Anderson Silva. For the first two rounds of the fight, all he did was dodge Jackson's blows. Jackson clearly wanted to mix it up, but Machida was having none of it. It's his style. He zips around the the other fighters, waiting for them to throw the punch or kick that allows him to launch a decisive counterattack. This is opposed to someone like Cro Cop or Anderson Silva (when he's not goldbricking, such as happened with the Demian Maia fight), who will stalk the other fighter across the ring, pressing them, putting themselves in a position to be attacked so they can do the devastating counter. Machida is content to more or less run around the ring, forcing his opponent to do all the work, to both press the fight and launch the attack so Machida can counter.

No one can say that Machida can't make it work. He's 16-2. Almost all of the time, it wins him fights. However, now that he's at the highest level of competition, I am less certain it's even a winning strategy because he lost the fight with Quinton Jackson. The first two rounds, Machida avoided almost everything Jackson threw at him. Oh, a few blows landed, and some of them -- including an uppercut in the second -- could have been fight stoppers. But since none of them were fight stoppers, the fight continued on with Jackson winning the first two rounds on points. And not even very many points at that. Machida was able to frustrate most of Jackson's attacks.

In the third round, Machida was able to stun Rampage. He followed it up with a takedown that lead to a full mount. Instead of going for the ground and pound, Machida spun to an armbar attempt . . . which was a mistake. Jackson is way too strong and nearly Rampage slammed Machida, who at least had the brains to stand up out of it. Machida won the third with a lot of contact and action. He punched Jackson down and dominated him on the ground.

If I was to judge the fight holistically, I would have given the fight to Machida (with some trepidation). But the UFC has rules and part of those rules are judging on the 10-point must system. At the end of a round, the judges decide which fighter won that round and, not going into the details of the 10-point must system, the basic fact is Jackson won two round and Machida won one round. So, with some trepidation, Jackson won the fight because two of the three judges agreed that Jackson won two rounds (and, honestly, I don't know which fight the third judge was watching). By those rules, Machida's fighting style will become, I think, less tenable when he's fighting very skillful opponents. Well, he's now at the point in his career where he's going to be fighting the best guys and the light heavyweight division has a lot of great guys.

Worse for Machida, his system can be gamed. What Machida's fighting style entirely relies upon is the other fighter's innate desire to go forward. If Machida fought his mirror image nothing would happen. (In some ways, this mirrors the situation in the early 00s with Brazilian jiu jitsu. In the second Shamrock vs. Gracie fight, Gracie was unable to do anything because he kept Shamrock in the closed guard, and Shamrock refused to do anything because he didn't want to play Gracie's game.) To win against Machida, all it requires is some initial aggression in the beginning of a given round and then, well, mockery. This can be combined with before fight interviews to sway the judges. It is against the UFC rules not to fight. It's technically called "timidity" which does include avoiding contact with the opponent. You don't point out that Machida is being defensive, you point out his style is inherently timid. Just like being on your back with your legs open hoping someone leaps into the closed guard so you can submit them with a triangle armbar.

I don't say this with particular hostility towards Machida or, really, his style. As a self-defense style, it's great. On the street, the "winner" is the survivor and an art that teaches a person how to avoid damage is a splendid idea. But UFC fighting isn't self-defense fighting, it's a sport fight, and that requires contact. I think a fighter that presses Machida in the beginning of the round and then fights like Machida at the end of the round would hammer the point home. Machida's style would become a massive liability, because of it's inherent timidity.