Grappling matches are "fights"?

I do agree with this, especially in the modern era. High level grappling gets close to being a fight, especially if Wagner is involved lol.

Ironically though most high level guys aren’t the ones calling them fights. In fact I can’t think of s single guy going to ADCC who does.

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I say yes.

I think the addition of knocking the opponent out by a strike as a legal means of wvictory makes it ok to call a fight.

Definitions vary though, interested to see what others think

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There are some high level grapplers that use bad Jiu Jitsu also. Shitty takedowns, loose guards, butt scooting. Stuff that might get you killed in a fight but is effective in sports Jiu Jitsu.

Royce may not have been the best sports Jiu Jitsu competitor but he kept guys tight and avoided getting punched.

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Most ‘high level’ grapplers couldn’t take down a decent High School wrestler to ever have to worry about submitting them. Yes they would trounce an untrained person, so would a decent boxer, wrestler or any other type of martial artist. Gordon Ryan for example, who is considered the best no gi guy around, with his butt scooting would get his head stomped in by a good street fighter if he tried that same nonsence in a real fight. He would also get upper cutted to death with his leaning in clinch against a fairly decent boxer. He is the best, yet he has very little take down ability, just like most BJJers that never wrestled.

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In bjj you can break a bone, tear a ligament, put someone to sleep.

I could get behind bjj being a fight. To me it’s just as much of a fight as boxing. Different side of the same coin

Something like wrestling isn’t a fight imo

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Can say the opposite about those examples though

A wrestler gets choked out once on the ground

A boxer gets their arm broken

Their all incomplete. Maybe MMA is the only true fight and everything else is just a sport

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I genuinely can’t believe anyone is arguing for a grappling match being a fight. I started letting my son do grappling matches when he was 6 years old. Do you guys think you fight for an hour or two after every bjj class? lol this is hilarious.

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Tell me you don’t know anything about fighting without telling me you don’t know anything about fighting…

The only thing gayer than BJJ guys calling matches is fights is delusional wrestlers who think the stand up from free or folkstyle wrestling without strikes somehow makes them more like fighters than other grapplers. Greco is much closer because the rules force a posture more like a real fight.

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I guess I could understand that logic. To me it’s specifically the legality of using concussive blows to the head as a means of attaining victory.

But honestly I don’t know if I agree with my own definition, because I don’t know if Olympic tkd matches are “fights”. KOs are uncommon there, though

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Kids box at 6 too

I would say boxing is as much as a fight as bjj. And maybe neither is a fight

Neither is a fight, they are both sports where someone will step in and save you if you can’t save yourself.

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Hmm maybe

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Then we agree completely

I’m just in the camp that either both are or aren’t. I think the more rules/restrictions there are the further away from a fight it is.

In a fight you can punch, kick, take someone down, choke someone, etc

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More importantly you can bite, eye gouge, twist nuts, hit them with a rock that’s laying around etc.

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Plus, the ole dick twist!

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To be clear I’ve done or had all of those done to me. I’ve had mma matches, boxed, wrestled, and bjj matches. Fights are different because there is the possibility of death, even if it’s small, it’s real.

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Was never worried before a joo jitsu match, but the butterflies were very real before a fight. If there’s no hitting its not a fight imo.

Forrest Gump GIF by GrayDuckDent

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I think Eskimo might be converting me to not calling boxing or MMA competitions fights.

Although my reason to keep MMA as a fight is:

For the most part, if everything short of weapons being legal is a fight, I think that if two people prepare for a fight with legal eye gouging and biting, it doesn’t actually change the outcome of high level MMA fights that much. Like if you legalize those things, I don’t think we have a different set of UFC champions.

Headbutts are game changers though. Those might be important enough to consider calling anything without legal headbutts not a fight, I don’t know.

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I was always the opposite. More nervous before big grappling matches than fights.

Don’t know why. Something about representing the team felt different. Felt like if you lose a fight everybody understands, shit happens. But losing a grappling match felt like I was letting my coaches and the whole gym down.

I’ve head butted a few people in my life and every time it ends the fight. I do wear an 8 in a hat size so there is that lol

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