Ilia's wrestling/grappling level

[KBE6EKCTAH_CCP]

GSP was an elite MMA wrestler from Canada with little to no wrestling background

Yeah, fair enough. But he trained at Tristar...

There was no wrestling at Tristar at all at least back then. GSP trained freestyle wrestling in a club pretty much populated by Eastern Euros / former Soviet dudes.

 

[Rapa]

Another top fighter who has avoided all wrestlers?!?!

Bryce mitchel is wrestler and before ilia fucked him up everyone was on brycez hype train

 

[Rapa]

When Bryce took him down, he couldn't do a damn thing. He was stuck on his back for the entire rest of the round. Clowned Mitchell in grappling? Oh you're talking about only after he rocked the living dogshit out of him standing....

U are dumb as monkey ilia had 100% won round and he didnt want to spend energy so he just froze bryce in his guard who could not do shit and that was bcs of ilia but again u are dumb as monkey

 

[CeRcVa]

There was no wrestling at Tristar at all at least back then. GSP trained freestyle wrestling in a club pretty much populated by Eastern Euros / former Soviet dudes.

GSP's wrestling coach was Georgian wrestler Givi Sisauri in Montreal, who competed for Canada.

Guivi Sissaouri - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Georgian MMA fans knew this, but a few weeks ago when GSP met with Merab, he told Merab that his wrestling coach was Georgian.

 

[Hog-train]

Hard to say because he hasn't fought an elite wrestler.

 

[Qays Stetkevich]

Yeah, but there wasn't much grappling at all in the Hall fight though -- illia just backed away any time hall rolled for a leg until eventually he just punched him in the face. Hall was useless because he got knocked out lol and has zero wrestling.

Out of all the opponents he's faced, I really though volk was the best suited to try to implement a wrestling gameplan, at least to make illia's arms heavy and tired, but he went out there with a cardio kickboxing plan instead. Disappointed by Volk's gameplan in that one.

I suspect Ilia is a very good grappler, and I've liked what I've seen, but we really haven't seen much at all in the UFC.

Agreed with everything you say, particularly about Volk's IQ. And yeah, Hall vs Ilia was definitely not a grappling match lol.