Ben Fowlkes;

04/20/2007
By Ben Fowlkes

Mixed martial arts fans are a strange bunch. I've been one of them long enough to know, and maybe that's why it doesn't bother me to admit this: most of us are nerds when it comes to our sport.

We love dissecting fights and predicting outcomes. We love arguing about hypothetical situations that will never come to pass. We love praising our own knowledge and appreciation of the sport while at the same time complaining about how ignorant other MMA fans are.

At times it seems we love all this bickering about the sport more than we love watching it, but that's not all bad. It does, occasionally, give us an interesting topic to fuel our arguments.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when one of the more popular such arguments revolved around which were superior, grapplers or strikers? Thanks to the evolution of the competitors, that argument is now mostly irrelevant, but a new one may be emerging in its wake.

Last week, I watched from ringside as Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion Fabio Leopoldo took on the Portland Wolfpack's Gerald Harris in what turned out to be a thrilling three-round war. Harris displayed some amazing wrestling skill, scooping Leopoldo up and slamming him to the mat several times. For his part, Leopoldo was constantly looking for submissions, and he seemed close to finishing the fight more than once.

But when the fight ended and Leopoldo got the narrow decision victory, that's when the argument really began. Fans more familiar with wrestling were incredulous.

"How did (Harris) not win that fight?" one USA Wrestling official asked.

Those who leaned more towards jiu-jitsu as their grappling method of choice saw the decision as close, but justified.

"I thought there should have been a fourth round," said Renzo Gracie. "But it was definitely the fight of the night. I can't say I'm not happy with the decision."

It seems the new argument is not whether it is better to stand and fight or fight on the ground. Fighters realize the necessity of both. Now it's just a question of how to fight once they're on the mat - and how to win a decision there if it goes to the judges.

Wrestlers and jiu-jitsu fighters certainly bring different strengths into a fight. A few years ago, conventional wisdom said that wrestling was ineffective for mixed martial arts, and that the lack of submission holds or other finishing moves had doomed it. Somewhere around this point the term "lay-and-pray" was probably first coined.

Now, more than ever, we see fighters from wrestling backgrounds enjoying great success in MMA. And yet, a decision loss for a wrestler who appeared mostly dominant against a submissions specialist raises interesting questions. Is it enough just to attempt submissions? Should it be enough to keep securing takedowns?

For an answer, I turned to one of the participants in last Friday's affair, Gerald Harris.

Harris knows a thing or two about wrestling. He broke more records than he cares to talk about at his alma mater of Cleveland State University, and in the process beat some of the nation's top-ranked athletes. For anyone who saw that fight with Leopoldo, there's no question that Harris is a competent fighter.

But the look of utter shock on his face when he heard the decision led me to expect someone a little more bitter about Friday's outcome. I was wrong.

"Hey, putting people in submission holds is hard," Harris said. "And I got put in a bunch of them. Submissions are a lot harder than throwing a punch. Anybody can throw a punch. You have to know what you're doing before you go wrapping your legs around somebody's head."

Like many wrestlers, Harris was drawn to MMA by the money. In amateur wrestling, as he said, there's "only one road". For those who don't achieve Olympic glory, there's no payday at the end of the rainbow.

"It's hard to keep dedicating yourself to something that isn't paying," Harris admitted. "But (wrestling) is a great sport, and I love it."

While Harris won't come right out and say he feels he won the fight, he would admit that he was hoping for a fourth round, as were the fans. The contrast of styles between wrestlers and jiu-jitsu fighters, he said, makes for an interesting and exciting match. The problem is, there's just no telling how the judges will see it.

"Wrestling guys probably think I won and jiu-jitsu guys probably think he won," Harris said. "But I really respect the jiu-jitsu game. I respect the Gracies and I study the Gracies. I've still got a lot to learn, though."

Perhaps it's all just a part of the ebb and flow of the sport. There was a time when jiu-jitsu fighters seemed to be regular victims of bad decisions. Judges who saw them on their backs for a good portion of the fight assumed they must be losing.

It could be that now judges see a submission attempt and assume the man attempting it must be winning, whether the attempt is valid or not.

Regardless of how the sport and its judging are changing, the athletes themselves are still moving forward, forcing one another to evolve. The latest influx of wrestlers, according to Harris, is just one more such trend.

"This sport is really popular right now," he said. "So you see a lot of people trying it. But that doesn't mean it will always be like that."

Whatever the ultimate result, if wrestlers like Harris can put on a show like the one we saw on Friday, let's hope they don't stop crossing over to MMA. And while we may never agree on how the bouts should be scored, at least it gives us something new to argue about.

Ben is the Editorial Manager for the International Fight League