Restart Standing - Why?

[John Bennett]

I hear a lot of people complain about many of the top MMA events restart the fighters to standing after a certain amount of time on the ground.

I don't follow the sport closely but this seems very stupid and unnecessary.

If a guy prefers to fight standing, why doesn't he just stand the hell up?!

If a guy prefers to fight on the ground shouldn't he be able to keep his opponent there?

[Mr. Miyagi]

That was the original UFC rule but in the sport that has developed, I would never want to see the old rules again. NTL fights could go on forever, guys with poor conditioning can use the guard or sit in the guard to stall, and it can get very boring. This rule avoids fights like Royce-Ken II.

[Ravenman]

What would be cool is if two fighters aren't doing anything on the feet, they get restarted on the ground.

[Mr. Miyagi]

Yeah, but they didn't originally start on the ground so technically, that's not a "restart".

[Americana]

The stand up rule is a good attempt to keep the fights exciting for a main stream audience. Breaking the fights into rounds is desinged to accomplish the same thing.

I think the ground 'n pound stratagy was the number one reason for instituting the stand up rule. G 'n P has produced some incredibly boring stalemates. Shamrock v. Royce II was an incredible bore-fest. Bustemonte v. Erickson also stands out. Also once the G 'n P attacker gets tired, they tend to hide out in the guard and rest. This is horrible for the fans. There might be a few purists who enjoy this, but overall it could kill the sport.

I recently rewatched Tito v. Frank Shamrock. Frank was doing everything he could to make the fight exciting. Then Tito would get a takedown: put weight on balls of feet, keep arms tucked, throw ineffective short punches to ribs. Now repeat until everyone is aspleep.