Can't fault the competitor, they are there to win. They will always pursue the strategy they believe they can win with.
The goal of EBI however, is to make sure there is no defensive/non-exciting strategy that can lead to winning. You've shown that's not the case with the current structure of EBI. But if it wasn't you, it would've been someone else. It's EBI's job to set the format, the competitor will always simply want to win.
Someone could even have gone further than denny's strategy and have played defensive in the finals as well. If you truly only care about winning, focusing your time on securing and maintaining the position would've been a better strategy than trying for a tap. Trying for the tap just risks losing the position. When Orchard decided to go for armbar start, he immediately tried to take it to his reverse spider web position. He lost the hold and by immediately going for the tap with that risky attempt, he probably lost those 17 seconds and the match.
So time to tweak the model? What can be changed to takeaway the defensive/non-exciting strategy?
Increased ref involvement with stall calls?
Money? Money might change it, but we won't know until we have it and it's kind of a chicken and the egg problem. You need the money to make it exciting and you need it to be exciting to get the money.
Keep fostering a community of fans that call for going for the submission, that reward those who do? If it's clear the community around EBI aren't going to enjoy you doing anything other than play aggressive, than hopefully that continues to have an affect on competitors decisions to play to the crowd and aim for submissions above strategy.
If it's clear playing defensive will have a bad backlash from the community, won't win any money for subs, and might lose you the match anyway for stall cals, then hopefully that's enough.
There's probably no easy answer or perfect solution, just gotta keep playing with it. It still seems to be better than most though. GEO secured taps in all four of his matches. Denny got submissions in 3/4 and I believe Nathan was 3/4 too? That's a lot of submissions for high level competitors, a better ratio than most/any current tournaments. And at worst, when faced with an opponent using a defensive strategy, at least we get an overtime format that forces action rather than one that forces the match to be called based off wrestling takedowns. So we're still doing well. Just might be able to do better too.
The goal of EBI however, is to make sure there is no defensive/non-exciting strategy that can lead to winning. You've shown that's not the case with the current structure of EBI. But if it wasn't you, it would've been someone else. It's EBI's job to set the format, the competitor will always simply want to win.
Someone could even have gone further than denny's strategy and have played defensive in the finals as well. If you truly only care about winning, focusing your time on securing and maintaining the position would've been a better strategy than trying for a tap. Trying for the tap just risks losing the position. When Orchard decided to go for armbar start, he immediately tried to take it to his reverse spider web position. He lost the hold and by immediately going for the tap with that risky attempt, he probably lost those 17 seconds and the match.
So time to tweak the model? What can be changed to takeaway the defensive/non-exciting strategy?
Increased ref involvement with stall calls?
Money? Money might change it, but we won't know until we have it and it's kind of a chicken and the egg problem. You need the money to make it exciting and you need it to be exciting to get the money.
Keep fostering a community of fans that call for going for the submission, that reward those who do? If it's clear the community around EBI aren't going to enjoy you doing anything other than play aggressive, than hopefully that continues to have an affect on competitors decisions to play to the crowd and aim for submissions above strategy.
If it's clear playing defensive will have a bad backlash from the community, won't win any money for subs, and might lose you the match anyway for stall cals, then hopefully that's enough.
There's probably no easy answer or perfect solution, just gotta keep playing with it. It still seems to be better than most though. GEO secured taps in all four of his matches. Denny got submissions in 3/4 and I believe Nathan was 3/4 too? That's a lot of submissions for high level competitors, a better ratio than most/any current tournaments. And at worst, when faced with an opponent using a defensive strategy, at least we get an overtime format that forces action rather than one that forces the match to be called based off wrestling takedowns. So we're still doing well. Just might be able to do better too.
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