I agree. The question is which is worse for someone trying to promote and sell their event?

At the end of the day, especially for events like EBI, it is about trying to get views and interest and close outs or fake matches, especially in the finals are terrible.

In terms of competitive fairness, I fully agree with you. In an ideal world, everyone would be like the Ruotolo brothers and just grapple it out (I once met up with my brother in a bracket and we went at it - I think close outs in grappling is silly, it isn't a fight - just grapple) as this would just solve everything.

But when there are stakes (like money) on the line, I could see why a coach would want to strategize to give their athlete/team the best opportunity to win, especially within the ability of the rules. This only is relevant in non-finals matches though and I don't get why any finals matches are close outs.

The issue is that the people paying are the reason why the event can happen in the first place. Even the IBJJF wants to get eyes on the sport and they decided to make the trade off because close outs hurt their bottom line.

For 2022 they decided that if you close out in finals, you don't get points and at events with money on the line, you don't get the money.

There is nothing more anti climatic than watching a whole bracket play out only for the finals match to not happen.

As an aside, the most laughable thing is seeing a close out and then both athletes swapping positions and taking pictures with the gold medal like they both won it.