An active top fighter, coupled with and active bottom fighter - SHOULD NOT be restarted.
A top fighter laying in an opponent's guard and not attempting to pass guard or advance position, or not attempting scoring strikes - is stalling. The top fighter should be issued a warning for stalling, and the fight could be restarted on the feet (neutral position) unless the bottom fighter prefers to remain in the bottom position. Subsequent warnings should result in point deductions for the duration of the bout.
A bottom fighter holding a full guard, but not attempting to apply submissions, sweep, escape or reverse position - is stalling. The bottom fighter should be issued a warning for stalling, and the fight should be restarted on the feet (neutral position). The top fighter is not given the option to remain locked in the opponent's guard. Subsequent warnings should result in point deductions for the duration of the bout.
As long as a top fighter continues to attempt to pass guard, land scoring blows and/or attack offensively a bout should remain in it's natural state. If the bottom fighter can prevent guard passes, or continually recovers defensive position(s) when guard is passed - that is a successful defensive technique and should be scored by the judges as such.
Judges should be taught the difference between fighting off a take down, and pulling guard. One means you lacked defensive skills. The other means you made a great defensive move.
When a fighter pull or jumps to guard, the top man did not dictate where the fight went, the guard hopper simply agreed with where the fight went.
I am the type of person that would like to see the purity of the fight maintained, even if it means losing a few fans, in this case that means keeping fights on the ground, even if they are slow and boring. Allow the referee to issue warnings and point deductions for stalling, top or bottom, instead of just standing up. In a 10 point must scoring scheme in a three round fight a single point deduction can cost you a win, and even mean a loss. I feel that the warnings will be far more effective in motivating fighters knowing that their entire fight can be changed because of their laziness.
This plan does walk a risky line though, although most of the major organizations have referees that are very knowledgeable of the ground game and stand up everyone has seen that certain referees are predisposed to certain ways of thinking and that influences their decision making. Thus if a Jiu jitsu guy fights a striker, and the referee heavily favors stand up the jiu jitsu practitioner has a greater likelihood of being burdened by the referees disposition. While that is obviously a serious point of criticism the other side of the coin (Allowing referees to make point deductions) some what takes away from the judge's ability to determine a winner. In the case of Cecil Peoples taking the scoring out of his hands is a good thing, especially for a ground guy, but may have negative consequences for different fighters.
Someone (not me) needs to devise a way to homogenize not only the rules but the way that organizations apply those rules. Furthermore, at some point MMA will reach a point where it can afford to upset some fans to maintain a certain amount of purity but until then it is going to have to dance along the delicate balance of pleasing the casual rednecks and pleasing the real students of the game.
They should work like this - You get stood up by making it to the end of the round. Can't get up, tough shit.
How about you warn the staller (you could even hold up a yellow card or something) and deduct some of his fight purse?
"If the wrestler is able to keep his opponent down, AND do more damage from that position, then he IS winning."
The problem is that without standups, why should he even bother doing damage? Throwing even weak strikes could get him caught in an armbar or triangle. Takedown, bury head and chest, wait until round ends, win decision -- virtually zero chance for the bottom guy to do anything offensive, and an absolutely horrendous match for the viewer.
Sure, the bottom guy can "wait for the top guy to get careless" a la Gracie strategy. But without standups, why would the top guy bother to do anything at all? What is his incentive to spend energy and risk being subbed or reversed when he can just lie there, literally motionless, and win the decision?
The goal should be to finish the fight, period. Unfortunately, beyond giving bonuses, there is not much more to do that would encourage that goal. The only thing might be to have any match that goes the distance be a draw or No Contest, but that is unworkable in practice -- a guy who was losing would just hold on and stall his ass off, or simply run away a la Kalib Starnes, to avoid the L.
Standups are a problematic solution, but they at least pressure the fighters to do something, either attempt to damage or attempt to submit, and increase the possibility of action on the feet.
krakkerz - How about you warn the staller (you could even hold up a yellow card or something) and deduct some of his fight purse?
that is included in my original post.
and i believe my solution elegantly handles the problems BJ > DORKUS brings up.