Does strategy make for boring fights?

Does strategy make for boring fights?
BY MATTHEW KAPLOWITZ

Let’s just be blunt about it. Shogun should be the UFC Light Heavyweight champion. The CSAC disagrees with us since leg kicks are worthless according to them, despite being a proven method to end fights. Despite all of that, the bigger picture is that the fans were robbed of seeing what we expected to be an explosive match-up between two distinctive striking styles. Instead, we got 30 minutes of standing that, according to fightmetric.com, tallied up to a grand sum of 265 standing strikes, 124 of those landed. That averages to 53 strikes thrown each round between the two of them. If you were a judge in that fight, how do you even begin to score that?

Let’s throw numbers out of the equation, since I am The Fight Nerd and not The Mathemagician. As much as we enjoy the occasional sloppy school yard brawl from our cage fights, we also enjoy watching the living chess match that is MMA unfold with technique and grace. The dilemma is sometimes a tactical match can be as fun as watching grass grow. This is where Machida VS Rua comes in the debate.

One could argue that their recent match at UFC 104 was as dull as watching paint dry, while others will retort that it was great because it was pure strategy and that we do not appreciate their abilities. So does that mean that any fight that involves tactics and strategy is going to be automatically boring? For that matter, does strategy make for boring fights or is it just the fighters who make the fight hard to watch?

GSP is one fighter who some people, myself included, think is the pound for pound best MMA fighter out there right now. Others will argue he is boring and lays and prays (James Rowe, my friend, I am looking at you). GSP is the perfect mix of strategy and excitement, you need to look no further than his rematch with Matt Serra. As opposed to the feinting tactics of Machida and Rua, GSP instead took an aggressive strategy of constantly mixing up his attack pattern, going from wrestling to grappling to striking in one seamless combo. Some of GSP’s less exciting fights include his UFC 94 beatdown of BJ Penn and his recent outing against Thiago Alves, where he spent much of the fight taking his opponents down and pounding them out. Nonetheless, there was a game plan and that was engagement and domination, not allowing his opponents to use their strengths and capitalizing on their weaknesses, mentally breaking them down while doing it physically. Clearly, GSP is employing some smart moves in his fight plan and sticking to them and is the antithesis of boring.

Many old school fighters were strategists too, that is what made them a threat as opposed to others who just came out of the gate and simply wanted to fight. Guys like Ken Shamrock, Bas Rutten, Jeremy Horn, and Randy Couture to name a few. I would say the father of a more tactical strategy in MMA would be Pat Miletich. By the time he made his way in to the UFC, he had a record of 17-1. His fights were often criticized for being boring in the early days of UFC, especially since he was keen on counter striking and clinch work. But when given an opponent who pushed him like Carlos Newton, Shonie Carter, or Kiyoshi Tamura, Miletich worked and showed the fans he had the ability to change and adapt to a fighters style, which does not always work in ones favor but shows willingness to adapt an aggressive stance every now and then to goad his opponent into doing something. It is a common thing for a fighter to have general ideas and expectations and work with those, but those are only based on past performances, and once that opponent does something different, you are left with your fundamentals to fall back on.

Let’s take a look at a boxer for a moment, so stay with me here, I am going somewhere with this! Muhammed Ali was known for more than his charismatic personality, he had the in-ring skills to say whatever he wanted! A lot of fans remember him for his classic “rope-a-dope” strategy, where he essentially put himself in a bad position on the scorecards that eventually added up to a victory. Ali would let opponents wail on him and simply lay against the ropes, blocking the blows as the other fighter would inevitably allow himself to become fatigued and frustrated. This opened up an opportunity for Ali to capitalize and score a knockout blow to the tired fighter. Let’s take a look at rounds 6-8 of Ali VS Foreman to see the rope a dope in action:

Now imagine watching the first 5 rounds before that and tell me you could handle that in one sitting? Ali was employing a counter-striking strategy that meant for quite some time, Ali just sat back on the ropes and did nothing. He knew Foreman would be pushing the pace and trained to absorb the blows while picking an occasional shot and then unload everything towards the end of the fight. Any joe schmoe off the street can tell you about the rope-a-dope strategy, but try having them actually watch the fight start to finish. Good luck!

The reason I present to you this boxing match is to show another example of a strategy of attrition rather than aggression. It is a matter of mental survival as much as it is physical in this fight and Ali had the sharper mind and body by round 8. I would say that Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira could be the Muhammed Ali of MMA, and these days you could argue Kazushi Sakuraba is that man. Do we call these fighters boring? With MMA involving more techniques beyond punching, rope-a-dope can be employed to allow a submission fighter to catch an opening and attack a limb, but the down side is they must absorb some brutal punishment before securing that bodypart. This fight tactic can be boring but on the positive side, the plan allows their opponent to do a lot of the work and still engage the fight and keep the audience happy (even if it is at their expense and unintentional).

So with that said, it is clear to me that strategy does not necessarily equate to a boring fight. However, when a fighter is using the strategy of attrition over aggression, it can begin to turn sour. If both fighters have this same game plan in mind, it’s time to take that trip to the bathroom and go out and get some more beers from the bodega after.

I want to end this with a quote from Dan Severn, who said this on my podcast in regards to his UFC 9 match with Ken Shamrock, which most consider one of the most boring matches in MMA. I told him I thought it was boring and his response was: “If you look at alot of Ken’s matches prior to that, he is more of a counter attacker and I said if I do the same thing and no one engages each other, it would be a boring match, crowd is not going to like this… Garbage was thrown into the ring itself. Big John McCarthy stopped the match and gave us a verbal chewing out… and I said, ‘John, take your shirt off and we’ll make this into a triangular death match.’ I wasn’t about to change my strategy for the crowd or anybody else. I have a gameplan and I will stick to my gameplan.” What does this quote mean? You decide but for me, it means a win is a win no matter how you get it, fans be damned.

Strategy does not make for boring fights, inactivity and attrition do. If you have a loosely structured gameplan based on a few aspects of tape-watching, I would hope there is a level of adaptability beyond that. I am not a pro fighter, simply a critic, and I do not know what it is like to have that adrenaline rush when the cage door closes, but I can say at some point, if your strategy is not working, it is time for a change. A win is a win, but a dull win is not the same as an exciting win, and the fans and sponsors know the difference.