[Supreme_Bananas]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dave_S

Getting good is not an appropriate solution to bad game mechanics.

Quote: Originally Posted by PapaLemur

Clinch spamming is like cultural appropriation, it doesn't exist. Half of the positions in the clinch are mirrored, meaning: you can do the exact same things to them as they can to you. It's not magic and it's not particularly overpowered. In the Thai clinch you can actually see where they are blocking if you're dominant and you can see where they are going to attack and block before you get hit if you're submissive. They made the denial window so large for direct entries into the Thai and double unders you can deny when rocked and have no stamina and you can easily deny neutral positions if you know they're looking for the clinch. Those easy transitions into takedowns you mentioned are a feature. It's called momentum advantage. Yes, if I transition into the single collar from Thai I have a ridiculous speed advantage for the leg grab takedown. Luckily, it only puts you in guard and if you know they are going to use that momentum advantage you can preemptively block it. If they don't do it immediately they get no speed advantage. As with most things in life, the defense to clinch "spamming" is to git gud.

Clinch spamming most definitely exists when one guy is Khabib and the other is Barboza, and Khabib is able to almost completely avoid the striking because he can throw out hundreds of clinch attempts with little to no risk