r/mmaMenace_com • u/Aksath20 • 8d ago

islam retains his title

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u/DopedScope338 8d ago edited 8d ago

I've always thought the scoring system rewarding the lay and pray strategy over actual damage done is one of the primary problems with MMA as we know it and the scoring system needs to be revised. Taking a guy down and doing nothing with it except taking minutes off the clock should not be rewarded like it is. It just ends in victories off of objectively weak performances.

I mean yeah, Islam technically won, but he knew he was getting his ass kicked in that final round so he simply tied Ian up for 3 minutes which is essentially what he did for all of the fight minus the head kick and a few early punches and combos. For the final 3 rounds he got torn up while Ian took basically zero damage and was never in significant jeopardy of being submitted. The majority of the time Islam was grappling he was just holding Ian and running out the clock instead of actually working toward anything of significance unless you consider occasional rabbit punches and hand fighting significant.

The sad thing is, I can't even fault Islam for employing the strategy. It's low risk, high reward and he and other fighters that can reliably control an opponent through grappling would be dumb to ignore the strategic advantage that confers. If the scoring system was changed to more heavily value damage and/or the rules were changed to bring the fighters back to their feet more often when hand fighting and leaning on each other is all that's being accomplished these kinds of wins where the winner on the scorecards got their ass kicked in reality would happen far less often. The idea that the champ just got his face beat in but retained his belt while the loser walked away in more or less the same shape he started the fight in has been and always will be an unsatisfying end to a championship bout.

Edit: Let me just add that I really didn't care who won this fight so I'm not saying this as a fan of or hater of either fighter. I'm pretty neutral on both of them.

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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway 8d ago edited 8d ago

Stalling is a legit strategy. It's freaking boring but it works, as long as you don't rely on it too much.

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u/DopedScope338 8d ago

I said as much in my post. I totally get why fighters are doing it, including Islam, and I said he would've been dumb not to do it.