If there were no submission holds, would MMA/UFC be better?

Question

I think it would be much more watchable, and be more brutal. I've never seen a real fight on the street where someone used a submission hold.

Answer 1

another question buy someone who don't know the sport. Just watch boxing then you wont see no awesome ground game there.

Answer 2

I love watching the ground game in MMA, but I also like watching World Combat League - the rules make for very entertaining and exciting stand-up fights.  

Also, police and bouncers use joint locks all the time, so they definitely have value in a real fight.

Answer 3

They already have that sport.  It's called kickboxing.

Answer 4

How many street fights have you watched in person.... not on youtube. People get choked out all the time, and it's normally by one of the friends jumping on the dudes back. want no subs? then watch that thing chuck norris is running. IFL i think its called.

Answer 5

Fight to the death, I say!

Answer 6

No way. Submission are great, the counters are even greater.

Answer 7

Most of the fun is to see the technique, positioning and strategy when grapling.  Submission holds are essential.  U want MMA without submissions....  u get something like kickboxing... not even close in appeal.   Real fights usually end up on the ground and chokes, arm twists etc are all part of it.  Now if you add headbutts to UFC that would be coser to street fighting, but there is no need to get these athletes injured and end careers in just a coupple of years.  UFC is a sport, you seem to want brutality, not skill and intelligence.  Go sign up for the marines and go fight in Afganistan!  once you see real blood come back and talk about brutality and you liking it.  Cheers

Answer 8

No if you took out tapping, the sport would be more brutal.  everytime you see a fighter tap, that means please stop and don't break or dislocate whatever limb it is that is being torqued.  Choking someone unconsious is a pretty solid way to win a fight.  MMA is a sport, not a self defense method, MMA teaches to attack not to defend, but it is a sport not a Martial Art in itself, although MMA is becoming a style.

Answer 9

First off it is not a street fight, it is Mixed Martial Arts, its a competition or a sport they are all trained to do these things. How many of these street fights have been with people that were trained in submissions?? How many wrestlers have you seen in a street fight? Everytime a wrestler uses what they are trained in, in a fight, the fight goes to the ground. where a guy that knows submissions would be able to defend against a wrestler..

I personally have been in several fights where I ended it with a choke, and once by breaking the guys arm from an armbar. I've taken Brazilian jujitsu for two years and it just comes in the heat of the moment, if you are trained in it.

Answer 10

If you don't want to watch submissions then go watch K-1, or better yet just watch toughman competitions.

You want brutal check out the armbar Frank Mir put on Tim Sylvia, or the Kimura that Sakuraba put on Renzo Gracie.  These were accidents certainly, but submissions are designed to break bones, dislocate joints or choke people unconcious.  Fighters don't tap because they're cowards, they tap because they got caught and it's not worth a career-ending injury.

If you really, really want brutality, go to Cambodia and visit the Killing Fields.  There's plenty of brutality there.

Answer 11

It would be far less complex and therefore, less exciting.  The great thing about mma is that it is a chess match and the ground game has a lot to do with that.  If you take that away, you are left with a low level kickboxing match.  Additionally, you have never seen it in the street because most people who fight on the street do not know what they are doing.  I have seen plenty of chokes applied in street fights, but not the complex submissions that you will see in an actual mma fight.  Submissions, to me, make for the most exciting action in a fight.  Watching good takedowns, defense, ground control, offense from the bottom, and great top position that leads to submissions are what make mma so complicated and amazing.