Competition format for WC

[Mephisto]

I see your point. I just think its watering down the art to deliberately limit the need for kicking and throwing defense. Those are part of "good" WC. Accounting for differing skill levels, if I can't use WC princples and tools to defend against a kicker or a judoka trying to set up a throw because WC in fact lacks those tools, then I took up the wrong art. If I have to work HARDER to defend certain things because WC doesn't focus on it as much, that I am ok with (if that distinction makes sense and might be what you were getting at to some degree).
Such open competition would be a real shot in the arm for some WC guys training though. I don't think watching WC against WC would be very exciting.

Well boxing against boxing and judo against judo seems to be entertaining enough. I think the only way a wc guy is gonna be able to overcome getting taken down is if he has superior mobility and striking to a grappler, not anti grappling which is pretty much just very basic grappling. It might work against an inferior or inexperienced grappler but at the competitive level it's almost certain that if a grappler wants to he can close distance as get the takedown, that's why we have yet to see a pure striker with little to no grappling succeed in recent MMA. Just the opposite would be true for a kicker, the wc guy would have to be able to stay inside kicking range or risk getting his legs demolished. Either way the wc guy training in a specific wc rule set will refine his approach. Wc is not equipped to handle experienced grapplers or kickers like we see in Muay thai, yet. You can speculate about in the street I'm not gonna go there, but in the ring wc is surely not able to stand alone. Sorry to rain on your parade, people thought the same about boxing prior to MMA, but they had to grow up and realize there art was not in fact perfect. Boxing is still a great art and still is popular, wc has the potential to be. But you can't obviously win in MMA with wc alone. Imo wc needs to develop its strengths and forget about its weaknesses, it's never gonna be able to stop a judoka or grappler alone, without a competitive culture of fighters WC guys are gonna have a hard time with kickboxers.

 

[PiedmontChun]

I think a ruleset that had very short time limits for being on the ground like Geezer previously mentioned would discourage using the takedown simply as a means to turn it into a ground fight, or prolonged grappling to achieve submission, like we see within the UFC (from my limited exposure to it). I'd like to see what happens in an environment where a WC practicioner would have to deal with someone trying to take advantage of a clinch or trying to shoot in, but a ruleset that did not artificially create incentive for people to do it.

 

[Xue Sheng]

@Xue Sheng - I'm not really familiar with what's happened in Taiji circles, I'm still pretty young in that art (5 years now i think?) What are you referring to in terms of push hands being made a competition. What's happened there that gives you a negative opinion?

First it is wrestling not push hands, they will also tell you push hands only move forward and backwards in a straight line when traditionally it move forward, backwards, to the right, left, circles and angles. Also it is not fighting it is a learning tool for learning how to apply Taiji for fighting.

 

[Blindside]

I think a ruleset that had very short time limits for being on the ground like Geezer previously mentioned would discourage using the takedown simply as a means to turn it into a ground fight, or prolonged grappling to achieve submission, like we see within the UFC (from my limited exposure to it). I'd like to see what happens in an environment where a WC practicioner would have to deal with someone trying to take advantage of a clinch or trying to shoot in, but a ruleset that did not artificially create incentive for people to do it.

What incentive is there for taking someone down if you don't want it to turn into a ground fight? Maybe you could fight on a fairly hard surface to incentive takedowns with big hard slams. Also fun to watch.

 

[PiedmontChun]

What incentive is there for taking someone down if you don't want it to turn into a ground fight? Maybe you could fight on a fairly hard surface to incentive takedowns with big hard slams. Also fun to watch.

Exactly. If a ruleset didnt favor getting someone into submission on the ground via drawn out ground fight, then fighters simply wouldn't go for the takedown as a primary offense. Time limits for being on the ground would accomplish that. Then the takedowns would still happen when striking fails, or as means of earning points, but not as the setup for a fight-ending submission. WC has a number of grabs, sweeps, etc to send someone to the ground without necessarily following them there.

 

[geezer]

What incentive is there for taking someone down if you don't want it to turn into a ground fight? Maybe you could fight on a fairly hard surface to incentive takedowns with big hard slams. Also fun to watch.

Yeah! Fun to watch, but also should be worth some points since it's very useful in actual fighting. Think, shuai chiao. You slam someone hard into the ground and that can end a fight. In this format, there's no reason to continue into a groundfight. That's what grappling competition is for.The five second follow up would give you time to drop a knee on them (gwai ma) and ad on a "finish" combo or follow them down and mount them, etc.

If you can execute a takedown or throw, and then establish control in the five-second follow-up you definitely deserve points. Sort of like a wrestler getting points for the takedown.

 

[Blindside]

The san shou ruleset is one of my favorites to watch, good standup fighting, fun throws. You'd have to play with the points a bit if you didn't want to favor the throws too much. And you'd have to add elbows back in to add some variety to that clinch game.

 

[drop bear]

What incentive is there for taking someone down if you don't want it to turn into a ground fight? Maybe you could fight on a fairly hard surface to incentive takedowns with big hard slams. Also fun to watch.

If you had a look at the cage Thai there are plenty of takedowns. It just shows the fighter is strong. And there are standing counts if you collapse a guy with a strike.

You could score punches on the deck. While doing limited ground time.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

What incentive is there for taking someone down if you don't want it to turn into a ground fight?

if you try to "smash the back of your opponent's head" on the hard ground and let the earth to do the punch for you. This is effective if you have one hand on your opponent's forehead while the other hand behind his neck.

 

[drop bear]

if you try to "smash the back of your opponent's head" on the hard ground and let the earth to do the punch for you. This is effective if you have one hand on your opponent's forehead while the other hand behind his neck.

In competition you may want to discourage spiking people.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

In competition you may want to discourage spiking people.

You can always pretend that you lose your balance.

 

[Jake104]

I just want to fight! I don't care what the rules are. I will scratch eye balls out if I have too! . Put me in coach! Luckily I'm not a felon or I'd fight in Felony fights

... I'm a thug, but only a misdemeanor jr. thug. So luckily for them they got off by a technicality!

 

[Jake104]

Hey guys,

I've been thinking a lot about how WC is going to survive into the future, and as we've often lamented on this forum, and others: there's no unified way of competing that demonstrates WC skill. Personally, I've tried Lei Tai/Sanda and while fun as hell, it didn't really demonstrate much of WC. Had far more overlap with Muay Thai than anything else.

After that went and tried Chi Sao competitions and found that to be an utter waste of money and time. Having my knuckles up in front of someone's undefended face and they tap me on the chest underneath the punch I'm not allowed to connect with and the hosting school wins again. Great representation of WC bullsh!t.

So what's a competition that allows us to build/show/compete with WC focused skill? Judo has Randori, MT has kickboxing matches, BJJ has grappling comps, even the Jian fencing guys have a workable format figured out - what do we got/why is it so hard?

What about this style of competition? The TWC guys do pretty well in these bouts?

 

[geezer]

What about this style of competition? The TWC guys do pretty well in these bouts?

Bor-ing. Just a cheesy, amaturish looking ring with flimsy straps instead of real ropes. Oh, sure, it'll do for sparring and friendly inter-school bouts but nothing like my really cool raised 6'x6' platform idea.


With comments like that, I almost get the impression that you are more concerned with substance than appearance!

 

[Jake104]

Bor-ing. Just a cheesy, amaturish looking ring with flimsy straps instead of real ropes. Oh, sure, it'll do for sparring and friendly inter-school bouts but nothing like my really cool raised 6'x6' platform idea.


With comments like that, I almost get the impression that you are more concerned with substance than appearance!

 

[Jake104]

I'm out of ideas? I wish I was a felon

 

[Jake104]

Yeah the whole MUSU thing is not organized very well. But the rules aren't that bad. I think 30 sec clinch or ground? Then it gets reset.

 

[Jake104]

With comments like that, I almost get the impression that you are more concerned with substance than appearance!

Depends on the substance? Beer and tequila? Then yes!

 

[Marnetmar]

Strange idea just popped into my head:

What if we pooled our money together and made plans somehow to make this kind of event (as Geezer described) a reality? Granted, it'd have to start on a small scale and would obviously run into bumps and holes as all of these kinds of things do at first, but I'd really like to see WC get some proper representation and I think we (the WC community) are the only ones who could really make it happen.

 

[Blindside]

You should start with in school or intraschool unpublicized bouts so that your fighters have a clue before you start doing something that takes a monetary investment.