"95% of all fights end up on the ground" - is a statistic that I have heard repeated for the last ten years. I am interested in finding out whether there is any basis in fact for the statistic.
Does anyone have any factual basis for the statistic?????
It just irritates me to hear a statistic repeated as if it is true, without knowing the basis for the "factoid."
(Similar to the notion that 50% of all marriages end in divorce - the truth of the matter is that a small percentage of people get married and divorce multiple times, while a greater than 50% of marriages do not end in divorce - but the there is an statistical upward bias created by a small majority that makes it possible to make that statement about marriages . . . and the statement is truthful but misleading)
(P.S. I train in BJJ and will continue to train in BJJ because I enjoy it . . . ;)
Street fighting is like a box of chokolades. You never know if you're going to end up on the ground or standing. Therefore I like to practise both BJJ and boxing. BJJ is something I like more and am better at, but in most self defence scenarios I'd prefer to end it with a punch to the head and I don't think I'd take the fight to the ground unless I had a good reason to, f.ex. if I know I'm not outnumbered, I don't want to hurt the guy too much, etc.
i think a far more accurate axiom would be that 95% of all real fights end up in the CLINCH rather than the ground.
in NYC i don't often see too many street-fights but those altercations i do witness most often end up in the clinch (bad wrestling or hockey fighting) and don't go to the ground simply because there isn't enough space or time to allow most of that to happen. the bouncers usually break it up or the particapants themselves disengage. also, i've seen altercations on the street between parked cars, and in a crowded bar/club where, again is no real room to go to the ground.
I saw a fight break out last week (in the movie theater, no less). Each of the 5 people involved grabbed another person by the t-shirt and started windmilling with the other hand.
Numerous punches exchanged, nobody was dropped (even the girl who started it). And it didn't go to the ground, but in their defense, they were halfway up the stadium seating in the center of the theater (and in the middle of a seated crowd).
iirc the number was derived from LAPD (or some national PD study) involving active officers who got involved in a grappling situation where the officer had to struggle to control the suspect (or something like that) which often ended up on the ground for the cop to cuff the suspect. That study resulted in that number (something like 80% or 90%) was taken out by the Gracies as part of their marketing machine to highlight that a street fight could lead to it ending up on the ground but it was mostly a police study that did not involve civilians vs. civilians.
I disagree, one-punch knockouts are extremely rare in street fights. Wild, drunken hay-makers rarely land squarely enough to knock someone out. I agree with the hockey-style grabbing of clothes and then just swinging away and then other person clinching up. I think if I were to get in a fight I would want to go for a knee first and then, regardless of whether it landed squarely, go for a guillotine. Grappling on the feet.
I can't remember where, but I read a study a couple years ago that dealt with this topic.
IIRC, in fights that did NOT involve law enforcement, less than 30% of fights went to the ground. Of the fights that DID involve law enforcement, the number was something like 80%, but that was because lying prone on the ground is a common position from which to handcuff suspects.
I've personally been involved in quite a few altercations, and witnessed many more. I'd estimate less than 10% went to the ground. About the same number as the fights where someone used a weapon or where there were multiple opponents vs. one person.
90% of all fights START standing up. Even if it DOES go to the ground, unless you have a trained grappler (wrestling is the most common) then both fighters nearly always try to stand back up, also.
Only people who are trained to fight on the ground WANT to fight on the ground, imo.
I also heard that the number is NOT 90%, somewhere closer to 60% as per the LAPD (again, using PD protocol, I imagine that number is high because apprehending a perp requires taking them to the ground).
Regardless of this stat, I believe it's important to train for standup, ground, weapons, and multiple opponents scenario.
Funny if you watch a bunch of the fight vids on you tube and other places you will see a shit load of the fights end up on the ground. Or at the least with someone throwing the other person on the ground the problem is that it seems that most of the bystanders will break up the fight if one guy gets the other down and starts to pound him
Tap0outartist nailed it: since most brawlers want to stand and exchange punches, BJJ doctrine says to force them to the ground and then dominate from a positional standpoint and finish via submission or strikes. Of course some drunk doesn't want to grapple me - he wants to knock me out. Since I don't even want to risk that, I will initiate the take down if there's room and he doesn't have a bunch of allies, and fight my fight, not his.
No you dorks they break it up so they can start standing again.
what you see and hear is "get off him get up off the ground and fight"
Fuck that if I am kicking your ass why do I have to let you back up only to start again after all if I am staying active on the ground there should be no mandatory stand up.
Well, one thing I have noticed being an aficionado of street fights captured by video cams and posted on teh net is that they seem to all go down like UFC 1: whoever knows more on the ground wins.
Greg Thompson's new book (h2h combat) has a quote from matt larsen (founder of army combatives school) saying that post-fight interviews from afghanistan showed hundreds of hand-to-hand fights, all of which involved grappling. None had only strikes. I assume he used "grappling" to mean standing (clinch) as well as groundwork. He also said that 30% ended with a firearm being used.
So while the LAPD data may be invented or lost to time, it's probably safe to say that a lot of fights either go to the ground or involve skills one gets from grappling.
It's also safe to say that the army data involved serious conflict. A lot of fights I've seen that stay standing up and involve strikes-only aren't very serious, and both parties walk away from them. If you are interested in the stat for true self-defense situations (and not just a couple of weak-ass drunks swinging a few times), I'd trust the army data.