Fighting Fridays – How to fix the lack of finishes in MMA

Lately, there have been many high-profile MMA matches that have been boring and haven't had any finality other than a nullification of offense by one allowing positional control and nothing more to dictate the winner of the fight (usually by a wrestler but not always). Recent examples of this include Josh Koscheck-Paul Daley, Gray Maynard-Kenny Florian, Frankie Edgar-BJ Penn, Gilbert Melendez-Shinya Aoki and the Nik Lentz-Andre Winner fight that may have cost the UFC thousands of pay per view buys (just as the sloppy but entertaining Leonard Garcia-Chan Sang Jung fight helped gain thousands of buys for the WEC pay per view). This is a look at how to make it better while.

3 things to do to help fix the problem

1. Finishing bonuses instead of win bonuses – The best way encourage finishes is to change the way it works. Jon Fitch makes lots of money by winning. He makes half that if he loses. What if it changed and instead he only makes his show money if he doesn't finish the fight. I think at that point he would make the attempt to finish instead of riding out decision after decision. To combat complaining, the usually discretionary locker room bonuses that many fighters receive should be reserved for those fighters who make every effort to finish but can't for some reason. Remember the St. Pierre-Fitch fight. Fitch was destroyed in that fight and St. Pierre threw the kitchen sink at him trying to finish and Fitch withstood it. It happens. At the same time, many of Fitch's wins over the past few years have been strike for a minute, get a take down, hold him down, rinse and repeat in each round, get a unanimous decision.
2. Change judging criteria or the judges – Each round should be judged by damage done. If the guy on the bottom does more damage, he should win the round, not the guy who took someone down and did nothing with it. The fact that Clay Guida actually won on one card in his fight against Diego Sanchez last year is a travesty. Also, pushing a guy against the cage and nullifying offense while doing no damage in a round (ala Randy Couture-Brandon Vera) should result in a 10-10 round, not a 10-9 round in favor of the staller.
3. Stand fighters up if they stall on the ground from top position – This should be self-explanatory. With the rules that are in place, there are rules against stalling. The most common place where this happens is on the ground. While this leaves the interpretation open to the referee, it is better than the ride out a decision mentality that seems to have infected top level MMA. Especially with the wrestlers at this point, there is a problem. They have trained so long in wrestling that they get into positions and just stall from top position knowing it will get them a win, just like in their amateur days. That needs to be stopped.

3 things not to do

1. Yellow cards – Many people lover the Pride Fighting Championships in Japan. One reason is that there was always action going on in the ring in part because of the yellow card system. Stall too long and get yellow carded resulting in a standup on when on the ground and a 10% purse reduction. This would not work under athletic commission rules though and there would be many issues along the way with the referee having too much power. The ability to stand fighters up is one thing, but being able to take their money too would be way too much more many fighters to handle.
2. Change the rules to give the ground fighters more tools – Many want 12-6 elbows to the head and some would also like to see headbutts brought back and while MMA is a violent sport, bringing these things back would be a step backwards while still trying to get MMA regulated in many areas. Also, MMA has, to this point, a very good safety record. There is no point in jeopardizing that for some more violence and allowing ground fighters to more easily finish fights while having the losers suffering greater head trauma as a result.
3. Get rid of number one contender matches – Yes, many of these matches have been boring mostly because they have been fought conservatively. Getting rid of them would be a mistake though. I believe putting fighters through them helps the quality of the more important championship matches by putting them through a pressure cooker of a fight before the title is on the line. Sometimes, for whatever reason, there is no need or ability to have a top contender match and that is fine, but getting rid of them, conservatively fought as they have been, would be a disservice.