Is it better to fight with your hands down in MMA?

"Is it better to fight with your hands down in MMA?"

Generally not. When your hands are down, it's harder to cover or parry against incoming strikes, most of which will be aimed at the head.

Cruz has his hands lower (I'd say more "out" than "down", really) in large part to facilitate his movement. Think of a tightrope walker who uses a pole for balance; Cruz's arms are used like that pole. The thing is, without his exceptional movement and positioning, we'd never have heard of him, because that particular on-guard position would leave him open to a knockout if he stood in front of his opponent.

A hands down/out position does have some uses. As you noted, it makes punches come from unusual angles; the Diaz brothers in particular exemplify this. It can also be used to bait the opponent into throwing something you can counter; think Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin. I've also seen it used to defend takedowns- one fighter I saw used a shoulder-roll position, with his lead hand near his belly button, to get an underhook every time his opponent shot in.

But it's very style-dependent. If you're trying to close the distance (think Randy Couture or Wanderlei Silva) then you need to have a high, tight guard to defend against incoming strikes, because your strategy requires you to position yourself almost right in front of your opponent. Since most guys don't have exceptional movement or exceptional counter-striking, it would make more sense for most of them to have a higher on-guard position.

Fighting with your hands down helps with balance and movement.

in mma it is better to have hands somewhere between completely down and completely up. unlike kickboxing, boxing, or tkd's gay @$$ point sparring, mma has to worry about takedowns, clinch and an assortment of other things, so keeping them up all the time is kind of innefficient.

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Forget about energy spent. What he's doing is drawing in the attack, opening up their guard, as it were, making himself look defenseless so they try an attack and leave themselves open. He plays the bait and fade game.

Answer: in a street fight I would say yes if your reaction time is fast enough. In a boxing match I would say no.

My opinions:
guard down's better. Pros: save energy, Cons: less attacker
guard up's pros: more attack per round Cons: consume more energy

The fighters remain neutral, so they don't use it much.