How important is wrestling ability in No-Gi competition?

I've won dozens of matches with basically only wrestling. Its extremely important in no gi.

No, it is extremely important for your game. Many others have won "dozens of matches" with basically only BJJ and no wrestling.

If someone is going to enter, say, Grapplers Quest, and they have the option of doing 3 years of wrestling or 3 years of BJJ, I'm going to tell them to do 3 years of BJJ.
 
At heavyweight, pulling guard is instant loss

Tell that to Buchecha. Watch his matches and count how many times he's pulled guard as his first move, rather than execute a takedown. Fairly often. It's not an instant loss.
 
People need to know bjj just isn't "pull guard and win"

Submission Grappling is all about establishing your dominance. Whether that be in guard or top control is up to you.
 
I have very limited wrestling and two golds and a bronze to show for it at no gi pans. My goal is obviously to get the takedown first, but to build a strong sweeping game as plan b.
 
I would echo the sentiments of someone earlier in the thread who pointed out that many people are talking about one or the other of two different things called "no-gi".

1) There is "no-gi jiu-jitsu" which is largely run by the IBJJF. They have created a rule set which basically neuters the takedown game and has made sitting down in front of your opponent a part of a combat sport.

2) There is also a spectrum of different things that aren't necessarily "no-gi jiu-jitsu" but do fall under the broader category of "no-gi grappling". Some of the rulesets falling within this spectrum reflect an idea that sitting down in front of your opponent should not be a part of a combat sport. These rulesets penalize pulling guard in one way or another.

Takedowns are, by design, less important if you want to compete in "no-gi jiu-jitsu".

But, the pinnacle of "no-gi grappling" is ADCC. In ADCC, they have this rule:

"When a fighter voluntarily jumps in the guard or goes from standing position to a non-standing position by any means and remains down for 3 seconds or more, he will be punished by a minus point."
(http://www.adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations)
 
Buchecha is a special case

Not everybody entering at white belt is buchecha
 
Tell that to Buchecha. Watch his matches and count how many times he's pulled guard as his first move, rather than execute a takedown. Fairly often. It's not an instant loss.

Or Cyborg, or Bernardo Faria, or Cavaca, or Werdum ...
 
Buchecha is a special case

Not everybody entering at white belt is buchecha

Most white belts have pretty terrible guards. That's why they're white belts. You can't extrapolate that at all.

At the top level, all of the heavy guys who are consistently in the running for medals have very good guards . I'd even say that Buchecha isn't even the most technical guard player among the heavies, but he more than makes up for it with athleticism.
 
For me, wrestling is important in both.

I've competed mostly in no gi. I like to implement my top game, so I've clinched and wrestled to keep that. But I've done well and won matches that I had to work off of my back in.

That being said, I started gi in Dec and competed two weeks ago in my first gi tournament. We wrestled the entire time.

I'm a good wrestler for bjj, but a bad wrestler against wrestlers. That guy was a much better wrestler than I am. It was a good experience for me. I lost when I tried a terrible lateral drop, the guy saw it coming a mile away and ended up in side control. I escaped, but those were the only points of the match.



Wrestling is part of ground fighting, I think it's important no matter who you are and what your game is, either defending it or using it offensively.
 
I don't think it is the most important thing. BJJ is more permissive than wrestling or Judo, allowing most techniques from those sports and adding more. With such a glut of allowable moves, it is easy to go down a rabbit hole of learning hundreds of techniques and being hardly good at any of them - the fancy mess Bruce warned about.

For mma or self defense, there are abilities that I think are indispensable - hiding behind the jab, defensive wrestling, escaping bottom positions, closed guard and standing up technically, break falling, defending power shots such as the overhand right and possessing knock out power with clean striking technique that you can threaten with anytime someone over commits to an attack, which will force them to act right.

There isn't a whole lot of a point in learning other stuff before you get that stuff for mma training, because it gives you the base for further learning and exploration without losing as much IQ. Then you can start focusing on a game plan unique to yourself or your school - pulling guard, scoring takedowns and finishing with submissions or ground and pound, or remaining up and winning with superior striking. Which ever of those three paths you pick will have indispensable techniques as well, but you don't need all of them. You probably want some capacity in all of them in the long run.

Without knowing as much about different grappling rule sets, I imagine you could come up with a similar list of indispensable abilities. I think it is natural to think wrestling is indispensable for no gi, and if you see yourself being a submission grappling fighter in MMA or being able to throw / pin / arrest someone in law enforcement then I think it might be, but if you are only worried about the sport of submission wrestling, I don't think you can say stand up fighting is that important, because you can win just fine without it.

BJJ schools don't have weaker take downs than Judo and Wrestling because they are weak people. They have weaker take downs because they don't have a sense of urgency to learn them because they are dangerous and they can get by without them. Also, many fine BJJ schools have Muay Thai kick boxing, and from a self defense perspective, their students will defend themselves first from standing with that and then resort to BJJ if forced, which is a classic way of thinking about it.
 
Not all that important..here's what's important:
If your guard game is your A-game, make your guard game better than your opponent's A-game..if your wrestling game is your B-game, make your B-game better than your opponent's B-game..also..if your guard passing is less than stellar..wrestling isn't all that important.

A wrestling advantage gets you 2 pts MAYBE half the time, and can be neutralized pretty easily by just pulling guard..and only helps you if you are good at not getting swept and are decent at passing guard. Many more points are scored by sweeps and passing guard than by takedowns, so I'd focus on wrestling only enough to not get taken down, and have a few takedowns in your back pocket if you need to at the end of the match..ground work is way more important.

Mind you..I wrestled in high school and college, and dabbled in some judo..and haven't shot a takedown or attempted a throw in a match in years. I'm no world champion, but win more than I lose.
 
Not all that important..here's what's important:
If your guard game is your A-game, make your guard game better than your opponent's A-game..if your wrestling game is your B-game, make your B-game better than your opponent's B-game..also..if your guard passing is less than stellar..wrestling isn't all that important.

A wrestling advantage gets you 2 pts MAYBE half the time, and can be neutralized pretty easily by just pulling guard..and only helps you if you are good at not getting swept and are decent at passing guard. Many more points are scored by sweeps and passing guard than by takedowns, so I'd focus on wrestling only enough to not get taken down, and have a few takedowns in your back pocket if you need to at the end of the match..ground work is way more important.

Mind you..I wrestled in high school and college, and dabbled in some judo..and haven't shot a takedown or attempted a throw in a match in years. I'm no world champion, but win more than I lose.

Mostly agree. Wrestling is only really important if you want to start on top. If you're a strong guard passer and that's how you win matches it is important to have a strategy for being on top and wrestling is a good way to do that.
 
Mostly agree. Wrestling is only really important if you want to start on top. If you're a strong guard passer and that's how you win matches it is important to have a strategy for being on top and wrestling is a good way to do that.
Yeah, these are pretty much my thoughts. I weigh more than 200lbs and like to crush people so it'd be an awkward situation for me if I literally had no strategy for getting to the top. I wouldn't care about it as much if I felt comfortable pulling guard, but I don't, mainly because my guard is quite weak (I don't reguard enough, have pretty weak escapes, and just hang on to half or closed guard, I also don't really know anything from butterfly guard #whitebeltproblems).

I still want to be that big MW dude with a slick, attacking and countering and recountering guard, though. Perhaps one day.
 
Knowing to scramble and get on top is important.

But the key to best offense is stellar defense

Top and bottom. Wrestling or working for a sweep.

It is all about control.
 
Knowing to scramble and get on top is important.

But the key to best offense is stellar defense

Top and bottom. Wrestling or working for a sweep.

It is all about control.
That's a good point. I'm very wary of getting passed off armbars, triangle attempts, etc which I know is more just me leaving shit open out of inexperience than anything else. I definitely don't control my opponent's position from the bottom very well.
 
Since pulling guard is permissible, I don't think wrestling is a cornerstone of no-gi grappling.


However, I think it's good to know so that you can control whether or not if you have to pull guard. When competing, guard is going to be the last place I want to be in no-gi; I'll take top position 10/10 times.
 
This rule made most of the finals suck ultra badly.

True. But, that's partially because the rules change across the rounds in ADCC. You can pull in the qualifying rounds (at least in the "no-points" period) and you can't in the finals (even in the no-points period).

 
Yeah, these are pretty much my thoughts. I weigh more than 200lbs and like to crush people so it'd be an awkward situation for me if I literally had no strategy for getting to the top. I wouldn't care about it as much if I felt comfortable pulling guard, but I don't, mainly because my guard is quite weak (I don't reguard enough, have pretty weak escapes, and just hang on to half or closed guard, I also don't really know anything from butterfly guard #whitebeltproblems).

I still want to be that big MW dude with a slick, attacking and countering and recountering guard, though. Perhaps one day.

I've been working at that for the last 2.5 years. It's a good time. Though learning how to use inversion properly to prevent passes has been really, really hard and I'm still not great at it.
 
I've been working at that for the last 2.5 years. It's a good time. Though learning how to use inversion properly to prevent passes has been really, really hard and I'm still not great at it.

I think you said before you train at a smaller gym. Does most of your team pass the same way?
 
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