Gary Shaw went on to say at the press conference, "We want electrifying fighters... we don’t want two guys to lay on the ground and... the fans turn on Showtime and they see two guys laying there. We want to give them action, and I believe that's been the success of the sport."
They've got to be kidding themselves!
I will not watch or order this PPV if they put this rule into play. I watch the UFC and Pride because of the ground game as well as the standup. I'm sorry but it seems that they're just setting themselves up for failure with this kind of thinking.
Im going to give this new company a chance like I do all other upstart MMA promotions, but how many shows do you guys see this company running if Gary Shaw keeps making statements like this. Personally I'd love to see XC succeed but I think it may only last a few shows.
I understand not wanting boring fights. But actually placing a time limit on ground fighting is just plain dumb.
Educating the refs at what inactivety actually is and when stand ups are neccesary is the smarter route to take this.
The IFL said they were going to have a lot of stand ups for action and what not, and they have been great at letting fighters actually work on the ground and a lot of the stand ups have been completly justified. But placing a pre-emptive time limit is going to have refs counting in their heads the whole fucking time just waiting to get to that 15 second mark for stand ups, just isn't the best thing for MMA.
Doubtful. Gary Shaw has been a successful boxing promoter for years and has a great working relationship with Showtime. I believe he already has a long-term deal in place with Showtime to air EliteXC cards through 2009.
No shit, but a lot of elements of promoting them are the same. Personally, I'm really hoping EliteXC is a success. The fact that Shaw is open to co-promotion and sharing fighters would be a huge boon to the sport if EliteXC got big.
people people people...lets not act like it dont happen in UFC. check out belfort fightin lidell. they were standin, throwin a knee or two, then stall out less than 15 sec and the ref broke em up to start over. its like the only reason its a big deal is cuz elitexc mentioned it. when ufc does it it jus happpens and that makes it ok?
Gary Shaw was on Sherdog's radio show the other day and he went into more detail about the 15 second rule. He mentioned that they aren't sure if they're doing it and that they're still researching it. He said that they may end being a 30 second rule.
He also talked about how it would be applied. He basically said that it wouldn't be that different from the UFC. What would happen is that if there was no activity on the ground the referee would announce to the fighters that they were on the clock. They would then have 15 (or 30) seconds to be more active. If they were still inactive then they would be stood up. He did specifically say that it isn't 15 seconds once guys hit the floor.
If they wanted to do something like this they could have the referee give some sort of signal (say touching his left wrist with his right fingers) and another person (Action Counter) outside the ring/cage could start a stopwatch. If the stopwatch reaches 15/30 secconds the guy working it could signal to the referee (say with a whistle). The referee would then stand the fighters up. If the fighters give enough action the referee could simply wave with one hand and the "Action Counter" could stop the watch.
Now I don't really like this whole idea. But if someone wants to do it I think this would be about the best way.