@hswrestler Here's some current examples. Lets keep in mind, amateur MMA in most places is restricted to 15/16+ and 18+ years of age even still in some palces, there's exceptions and places where things are more lax, also loopholes like "mixed rules bouts" or "juniors bouts" which still are often limited to 14+. Consider when I fought a decade ago, 18+ for amateur was the standard and my birthday was January, I took my first fight in February. Sanctioned or legitimate amateur shows used to be 18+ same as professional, it was tough to get guys cleared at a younger age Comparing MMA to Boxing is tough, wrestling and judo are so tough on the body and then adding kicks, knees and punches...I am skeptical we will ever see amateur MMA fighters with 300 bouts like boxers.
Lewis McGrillen-Evans made amateur debut at 16 and went 8-1 before going pro at 20, a quick search shows me he began training at 14 years old or younger.
Cezary Oleksiejczuk made amateur debut at 14 years old and went 24-7, he's now 11-2 professional. I have to imagine he was training before the age of 14 as well.
Muhammed Mokaev made his amateur debut at 15 years old and went 23-0, he's now 9-0-1 professional at 22 years old, we know he wrestled some in Dagestan and began wrestling actively at 13 in the UK once he and his father moved there.
Kyler Phillips began doing BJJ at 3 years old, by 12 he began competing in Pankration tournaments (similar to Sambo kind of), at 14 he won the Judo california state championship, at 15 he was a IBJJF Blue belt champion and he wrestled all 4 years through highschool making it to states in his division. He was in MMA gyms growing up and made his amateur debut at 18 after highschool and pro debut at 20.
Rei Tsuruya basically grew up in his fathers MMA gyms in Japan, he was wrestling at a national level in Japan through highschool making it to the cadet world championships and winning national titles in Greco Roman while also competing in amateur MMA, the earliest I can find is 15 years old but I know he had several amateur MMA bouts from interviews before turning pro at 18 years old.
Raul Rosas Jr grew up with a father who was a boxing coach so training in boxing wasn't foreign to him from adolescence, he began competing in both wrestling and pankration at at least Middleschool age 13 or younger and took his amateur MMA debut at 15 and was competing in grappling tournaments around this age as well.
Max Holloway Made his amateur MMA debut at 14 years old and his amateur kickboxing debut at 15 years old, going 6-1 in MMA and unknown in his amateur kickboxing bouts, Max going pro at 18 years old.
Arnold Allen made his amateur debut at 16 years old going 4-0 and 3-0 in kickboxing before going pro at 18. It's well documented that Allen found his way into an MMA gym at around 14 years old.
Lyoto Machida began training in Shotokan at age 3 and Sumo at age 8 where he competed for over a decade in both, he had trained Judo sometime after this and began training out of boxing and BJJ academies by 16 years old and at around 19 he went to live in Thailand to further train striking and then lived in Japan where he trained with MMA teams and catch wrestling before finally beginning his MMA career at 24 years old.
There's a fuck ton honestly, it's super common. 10-15 years ago it was more common guys 18-25 years old would pick up MMA and turn pro quickly, many with no real background to speak of but also...there were loads of guys like Lyoto back then too who were life long competitors and martial artists. It hasn't just become "more common" but in modern day MMA it's basically standard that if guys aren't crossing over from a different background like Bo, Fiziev, Beneil etc that they are starting their career/training in MMA specifically at 18 years or younger, ESPECIALLY at below 185lbs. Even cross over athletes, it's becoming more rare that guys like Alex Pereira, Cedric Doumbe, Jordan Oliver etc will cross over in their late 20s or older and see any kind of high level success too...Typically it's guys like Bo crossing over at 24, Izzy and Fiziev crossing over by 23 etc. MMA has a very deep talent pool these days and it's still growing which is forcing guys to start younger by nature. Even in places like the UK...Their best MMA wrestlers like Grundy and Pickett have opened their own gyms and UK gyms have begun recruiting Caucasians so that their guys will have strong wrestler/grapplers to work with. Shit's just evolving, there's more promotions, more money, more fame, more countries in the game. Most MMA fighters don't begin MMA at 20 anymore and it will never be like that again. Cross over world class combat athletes aren't "starting" either, it's not really comparable to boxing in that sense but guys like Vitali Klitschko and Mairis Briedis (who Stephen Thompson beat) crossed over as adults from kickboxing and became reigning champions....It does happen but MMA is so multifaceted it's just not a reasonable comparison.
