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Cage or ring?
By Zach Arnold | February 20, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Eric Fredericks at PNW MMA has brought up the issue about whether or not MMA promoters should be using a cage or a pro-wrestling ring. Read his argument here.
I’ve been anticipating (and dreading) the pro-cage argument for some time. Here is a link to an article I wrote on June 18, 2005 regarding the usage of a cage in MMA, and why pro-wrestling rings are the way to go.
Topics: All Topics, MMA, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Here’s the comment I left on the pnw site.
The cage is actually safer for fighters than the ring. If you question this have a look at ESPN Friday Night fights from this past week (Feb 17, 2006). One of the Heavyweights got butt blocked out of the ring and injured himself on the table. This same thing happened a few weeks ago in Hook ‘n SHoot I believe.
The cage does alter a fight by negating many jiu jitsu techniques if a fighter is pinned against it. But so does the ring in that fights constantly need to be reset when fighters get tied up in the ropes.
I’ve heard people say the cage looks too brutal before. That argument doesn’t seriously hold water. If the action of two fighters mauling each other, busting each other open and choking one another isn’t too brutal for you then them doing that in a cage won’t make a difference.
The reason the cage amplifies the brutality argument comes up pretty much because the random person on the street may associate the cage with a street brawl or even a Pro Wrestling-style cage match where they will ram the guy’s face into the cage or use it as a weapon in other ways. Of course, such a situation has happened before in the ring, when Jose Landi-Jons had his head smashed into the canvas by Daijiro Matsui, but the image of seeing a guy’s face smashed into the fighting area is inherently more easy to envision in the case of a cage than in the ring.