I sort of figured that, but i am sure there are people who'd compete regardless, perhaps making a single fall the deciding factor would mitigate the break of action though, i am sure there would be some way to make the falls less of an issue though, perhaps not a sudden drop but a padded slope at an acute angle above some thick padding?
Hmm, i probably should have put a bit of research in as opposed to getting my ideas directly from a Van Damme film, would there be any way at all to make using a Lei Tai safer, or does it just require people willing to get mangled falling of it to work?
No, not safety. Just a format that has become accepted. The sumo vid I posted showed fighters falling off of a raised platform of sorts without any real problems. This art/sport has been about for a long time without too many horrendous injuries. People fall on top of each other in judo/sambo/wrestling etc and it's not that common that people get broken. LFD
In Sumo a ring out occurs well before you get to the edge, the dynamics of the competition mean uncontrolled falls from the edge are unlikely and competitors often actively stop their opponent from falling. In Judo/Sambo/Wrestling people aren't falling from height.
The sumo/ring stage is raised with an sloped/decline surrounding the stage. Not a lot of broken ankles. Funny lots of stuff gets banned in different sports for 'safety' reasons. Judo stopped leg locks etc but somehow sambo/bjj/catch seem to be able to carry these out without people breaking. They left leg locks in MMA and they don't make nearly the expected impact or cause a lot of injuries. Similarly with judo not allowing various types of throws and yet again these survive quite nicely in other arts. Expectations don't always match what people expect. Have you noticed a ton of broken ankles or serious injuries with the TCMA comps? One thing might be useful would be to only have a very slight drop (10cm?) and tons of padding to make sure that people who fall aren't really in a position to be injured. :' D LFD
Again, the dynamics are different. People falling off the edge onto a slope in a kickboxing format would lead to endless ankle inversions. In Sumo people typically jump over the slope to land on the ground or roll sideways down it, people typically don't step off the platform because usually the forward pressure has stopped because they've scored before the edge. No, because there's no slope True, but that's not what's being discussed.
Only because the rest of the time being tossed out is pretty much pointless. If you make it the decisive factor for a round then you will have a ton of shoving to try and win rounds intermingled with the aforementioned problem of both fighters exiting the ring. You would have to balance the advantage somehow. I think a possibly better and more interesting way to do this would be a mix of Rogan's idea and the Lei Tai. Have a larger cage with a smaller raised area inside and a slight slope to meet the two. It would change the dynamic of the cage, make evasion slightly more problematic, force awareness of terrain more, and give an advantage based on elevation which can be counterbalanced by skill but not give away an entire round. It might also stop people charging across the cage and giving people the chance to base off the cage as you'd be able to jam them into the slope of the raised dias
IIRC the ring is the rope in sumo, so they're not pushed directly off the platform, they're pushed out of the rope, which is close to the edge of the platform, I know its somewhat similar, but it does allow a 'slowing down' space.
of course if you just want a novelty obstacle course mixed with MMA - [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4xzs2besWk"]90kg team fighting with English subtitles! Welcome to Hip Show! Corrected version. - YouTube[/ame]
So, just watched some videos of international competitions and the Lei Tai are substantially lower than what you get here (which are typically boxing ring sort of height), so less unsafe. However then ruins it as a mass spectator event. The idea of ringouts as a definitive win works in theory, but in reality half the time both fighters go out.
I guess you'd need some rule about which fighter would be the loser in that case, either which fighter hit the mat first, or cause the other to leave the podium, depending on circumstances.
So if I'm in a triangle choke, I can escape AND win it by dumping the choker out of the ring and hope to keep my balance...a la Rampage Slam
Herein lies one of the reasons things get stuck in a certain format. Since there were hardly ever any times when people were thrown out of the ring when doing MMA in a boxing ring, why would it be needed when you used an octagonal ring instead? Safety? or for encouraging strategy? Thing was there have been lots of different 'rings' and platforms. Each has positives and negatives. The size and shape of the present one favours the grappler/clinch person who can work using the cage for an advantage. The super large cages that were about favoured a more mobile strikers game. The type of ring with ropes (or a stretchy barrier for an octagon type ring) would give different dynamics than the present rigid type form. One safer than the other? Not sure really. A bit of history. When the Gracies challenged Kimura to come and fight Helio they set things up to try and favour their version of a fight. The ring was very highly padded to protect Helio since Kimura was known to knock people out when he did some of his throws. The end result was instead of being knocked out by a throw first Helio was choked out and then had his elbow fractured. The way you set up the system determines which things will be used. I think that there should be some format that allows the use of throws safely. Maybe you don't score anything more than a few points for a throw. Maybe you don't give a person who falls off as well anything extra at all. BUT wow will this change the dynamics IF for a change there wasn't a cage for people to lay against. No more bracing yourself against the cage wall. I think we would see a whole different version of MMA than what happens at the moment. Maybe some other arts might look a bit more effective in a different environment. As to injuries. I asked about the injuries in the present Lei Tai comps as from what I had seen in the past they weren't that bad. Mentioned already that even with the sloped edge around the fighting ring before the wall drop off you don't see that many sumotori getting broken by falling down/off the side of the combat area. Just observations. LFD
The ropes do stop you being thrown out of the ring too BUT as anyone who's watched old school Japanese MMA knows people got tied up in them a lot.
Also the UFC cage is 10 metres across. Unless you fight in fields you're likely to come up against obstacles after 10-15 metres, so it's not really an unrealistic environment (and indeed I teach modified cage work in my self defence classes for just this reason). Did you watch Texeira Vs Saint Preux at the weekend? Teixeira picked up Saint Preux and threw him towards the middle of the cage 3 times. You'll see the same from Rousey or Nurmagomedov. On the whole you don't see more throws for the same reason you don't see more leglocks or spinning kicks. Most of the fighters just aren't that good at them. Also bear in mind that in elite level Judo most matches don't end in Ippon.
Doesn't seem to find the cage hinders his game [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jcdl7cPnWVQ"]Khabib Nurmagomedov HIGHLIGHTS HD 2015 - YouTube[/ame]
Ok, let's think this out. You mentioned that the pro's use a Lei Tai with less of a drop because it's safer then said it wouldn't be the same for the amateurs or it wouldn't work as well for the crowd to see things. Here you are showing a UFC cage. The one in the vid was quite big. The one's I have seen in different comps vary substantially to a little as maybe a third the size of the UFC cage. It's not whether the cage hampers things as much as opening up what is possible for ANY athlete who wants to compete. Yes there are walls but you could just as easily get jumped on a football pitch as in a corner shop so while a wall reflects one type of environment there are other possibilities that might be interesting/could be considered. Besides I just like the idea of people having to be more environmentally aware so they don't go toppling off in the midst of a match :' D LFD
I agree small cages are rubbish, just like small kickboxing rings (I remember fighting once and being afraid to do a roundhouse kick in case my foot snagged the rope).
