Maneuver vs. attrition and martial arts

Having been doing a fair amount of Boxe Francaise over the past half a year, I got around to thinking about the nature of competitive martial arts across the maneuver vs. attrition warfare dimension. Assaut sparring, which is fairly commonplace in BF, emphasizes light contact and proper technique. This combined with the inhibition from using e.g. knees and shins in kicks and elbows in close combat translates to a situation where artificial barriers force the savateurs to emphasize correct distance control and speed over parking in front of each other and throwing everything they've got at each other. For me as a practitioner this also translates into a nice physical exercise thanks to the emphasis on movement.

Given this situation, it should be fairly easy to see why BF could be classified as closer to the maneuver warfare end rather than attrition warfare. This said, of course maneuver warfare also is linked to the concept of attrition; continuous movement leads easily to situations where stamina of the cardio type may make or break matches. Similar thinking can be relatively easily applied to other martial arts as well. One aspect which may be a driver for this is that in martial arts competitors are often grouped by weight, which often is a good proxy via which significant mismatches in power are avoided. But would competition across weight classes change the point of the sports on the maneuver-attrition dimension?

If weight disparities correlate fairly positively with power disparities between competitors, then it stands to reason that in a competition where rules didn't exist the more powerful competitor could just punch the other guy out. The counterargument would then be that this asymmetry would give a fairly big incentive for the less powerful competitor to increase their technique and focus on avoiding going head-on and instead try to focus on weaker points. Maneuver warfare again.

If rules are implemented and e.g. knock-outs are forbidden and excessive force is banned, as is the situation in assaut (combat and pre-combat don't contain these limitations), this effectively eliminates the risk of being punched out of the competition. This should then translate into lower barriers for competitors to engage in what would otherwise be riskier moves as the potential downside has been capped and the upside is larger (e.g. obtain four points by executing a kick to the head, which otherwise would be risky as it would expose you a fair bit to the opponent). But again the attrition bit seems to be mitigated to the background.

However, if you happen to be the underdog in respect to technique, then an attrition strategy might be the way to go, assuming that you can get the other guy to gas out. This would significantly reduce their capabilities to wage credible warfare against you while relatively speaking your capability has significantly improved. This might be one case where attrition could be a very relevant approach.

Ultimately, however, I don't know whether there is any greater value in applying this approach to martial arts. The objectives of competitors are fairly homogenous, as are often the tools at their disposal and the ability to use them, so in this respect the results might again be fairly boring. I will have to google around a bit, though, as I'm sure that there must be a fair bit of thinking done by others on this subject.