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There's nothing surprising about this. Freestyle is an international level sport while Folkstyle is a national level sport. The competitive pool in an international level sport is far deeper than the one in a national sport. Simply put, freestyle chads have to overcome far tougher competition if they want to compete at a high level compared to collegiate wrestlers and as everyone knows: iron sharpens iron.
Also, at this point even combat sambo - a sport that has a smaller talent pool than folkstyle, is proving to be more effective in MMA than folkstyle:
World Combat Sambo champion Khabib outwrestled D1 Gaethje
World Combat Sambo champion Islam outwrestled D1 Lentz
World Combat Sambo champion Amosov outwrestled D1 Ed Ruth and D1 Logan Storley.
World Combat Sambo champion Nemkov outwrestled D1 Phil Davis.
Even though folkstyle talent pool is bigger, combat sambo talent pool is outright better. Must be due to the fact that combat sambo practitioners have to compete against the best from all over the world, not just their own country.
Storley won that fight. Not outwrestled.
Khabib started in young age with freestyle and you can see a lot of Russian freestylers compete in UWW Pankration, UWW Grappling or other styles like this :
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sp...-ibragimov-man-beat-khabib-nurmagomedov-fight