Are we starting to see a Decline in MMA in general or is it just the UFC that is declining?
Specifically I'm referring to skill level.
With the exception of Jones LHW and HW had much more skilled guys years ago. MW is the same.
WW is still fairly stacked but I'd say it was even more stacked with skilled fighters before
LW and BW are probably the only divisions that have continued to get better.
FW is decent but it seems to be a 2 man show
I don’t see a decline. I see evolution.
who were these much more skilled LHW’s? Forrest griffin? Tito Ortiz? Chuck? Shad?
And besides the champs, HW’s always sucked outside of the top 5. Pride HW’s were juiced. This is on record, not libel. Without juicing, most of those guys would be LHW. And consider the fact that Randy owned Tim Sylvia and Brock owned Randy.
what is this magical old school superior skill level you speak of?
the one area where I do see a decline is in jiu jitsu/grappling. This is why guys like Khabib and Islam have been able to excel. Guys have fallen in love with the KO and neglected the nuances of grappling/submissions.
But the striking is, on average, better than ever. Better defensive wrestling. Better submission defense. It’s gonna be a while before we see more compete grapplers like Jones, Khabib, DC, Cain, GSP, etc because striking is the current trend.
So I’ll walk back my statement a bit and say yes/no.
Yes there is a decline, or stagnation, in the grappling aspect of modern mma…on average….but no, I don’t see an overall decline.
It’s just the current era’s evolution.
Remember, bjj dominated, then wrestlers, then strikers with grappling defense, then wrestlers who learned to strike, and now the average mma fighter wants to bang bro so the trend is that there are just more strikers who train counter grappling than there are great grapplers with good striking.
It’s really up to the grapplers to step their game up.
