Well, maybe.
As I see it, there are three categories of information here.
Firstly, at the lowest level, there are a set of values that underpin each competition. Take-downs and guard passes are good, getting your guard passed is bad, but not as bad as having your back taken and so on. Although these are often described as objective ethical values, on closer inspection, they can clearly be seen as subjective and although heuristically true to a point, far from objectively true. If you are absolutely brilliant at defending, escaping and then submitting from having your back taken, then having someone on your back is likely better than another, more highly valued position.
Consider the ancient notion, ubiquitous in most traditional wresting styles, that simply having a limb other than the feet on the ground equals defeat - most wrestling styles are throwing only - this is how Mongolian folk wrestling works, for example. The idea that once a hand or knee touches the ground, the fight is over, is not just an arbitrary rule in place for TV appeal or to speed up matches. It represents a value, an ethical proposition about how the world works; get knocked to one knee in combat - martial sport being the simulated version, and you're dead.
However, the par terre of Greco, Freestyle and mat work/refs position of American Folk styles, constituting a complex area of study on their own, prove that with greater flexibility in rules, one can get thrown and yet skillfully escape, reverse and win.
To take things a step further, BJJ proved that one can get thrown and even pinned - the loss/simulated death state assumption in all three major Western wrestling styles, and utilizing submissions, again win. Of course the rise of sophisticated foot-lock systems in high level grappling competition have proved that even the traditional BJJ ethic of guard passing as a fundamental necessity and the only real option available to a top player, is itself based more on moralizing and personal taste than anything inherent to the nature of human conflict.
As a competitor, you are under no obligation to find this unspoken set of values meaningful. You can do so if you want, but you’re not obligated to. It may be that you place very high value on escaping from back – so you can feasibly enter a competition, allow your back to be taken repeatedly, and if you are able to consistently escape, consider yourself the winner of that particular exchange. Why is that wrong, while taking someone’s back and holding on for the entire match isn’t? No reason.
Secondly, in the middle, sits the rule-set. Of the three information categories, this is the only one each competitor is obligated to follow. You must not strike your opponent, you can’t hide a knife in you rash-guard and suddenly shank the ref when he makes a call you don’t like; things like that. There are values here, but also a great deal of freedom. You can win by arm-bar, but you don’t have to. You could do a triangle instead, or take-down, pass and maintain positional control, or any one of a virtually infinite number of possible configurations. As long as you don’t break the rules, you’re good.
Finally, there are the rubrics; the specific points awarded for techniques and positions, penalties for infractions – though not the infraction itself. Based on the values but limited and shaped by the rule-set, these are also entirely subjective, and you are not obligated to believe in them either – they are similar in many ways to religious beliefs or superstitions. If you want to believe, by all means go ahead, but one could still participate in competition, as one could a religious service, finding deep meaning in the practice, yet not believe in the supernatural per say.
So, you could enter a competition with the primary intention of performing a specific technique - for the purposes of winning matches, a submission would be ideal, but if it’s a take-down or throw, a sweep or transitional movement, that’s fine to. Let’s say you enter a string of competitions, with the intention of performing a Kani-basami or scissor take-down. At each comp, in each match, you repeatedly attempt to perform the move, likely with greater levels of technical prowess each time. Although you may have begun the year with a piss-poor kani-basami, by the final match of the final competition, you are a kani-basami master. Let’s say that you also lost every match as defined by the rubrics. If you unquestionably bought into the notion that the values and rubrics each represent some objective truth you’re obligated to follow, then you did indeed lose.
However, if your intention really was to gain master of Kani-basami, and you did accomplish your goal, defining your own values and rubrics independent of any external system, no matter how objective and true it claims to be, you should feel free to consider yourself successful – most importantly, consider yourself free.