Thoughts on Wrestling Dominance

[HHJ]

Its almost as if fighters who won belts lose them to other fighters.

A lack of wrestlers as champs or guys from usa or russia or canada at any given time doesnt mean shit.

If you wanted to talk about a 10 yr period it might have some legs,but TODAY? things are constantly changing.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Great post @CorninginChristianburg, that's the answer I was looking for. I follow the smaller orgs with a passing interest, but pay very little serious attention to them. I've seen a few of the Bellator guys, the ones who haven't been in the UFC, and thought they'd potentially be interested in them. Good, effective wrestlers can still be plenty exciting. Look at Gillespie's last fight, some of Khabib's beatdowns, etc.

I can understand why guys like Bader, Davis and Anderson were let go from the UFC. For Bader and Davis, I can see that the UFC drained them of their value, and they probably wanted "more money than they're worth" in Dana's eyes. Whether or not that's accurate, that's a different argument (I'd say they still absolutely had value, imo).

 

[NicholasJBasile]

Not that long ago, almost every champion in the UFC came from a US wrestling background, and today many American wrestlers still occupy the top-10 of every division. However, the days of American wrestling glory seem to be gone as only two champions (Usman and Sterling) come from US wrestling. That's being generous, since we all know how Sterling became champ.

So, what happened? Has US wrestling fallen off? Has the rest of the combat sports world caught up? Or is it just part of a new trend in combat sports?

I've been following MMA for a long time. I also come from an American folkstyle background (albeit not a very accomplished one despite competing at high levels; I barely have any wins to my name post high school). I have always preached how effective wrestling is and have always pointed out particularly that it is folkstyle (American collegiate) wrestling that was the best translated style. Where I still hold many of my beliefs, I can't deny that the game has evolved slowly but surely.

I've noticed a higher premium with regard to one's ability to stand up after getting taken down. I've always opined that folkstyle shines in MMA due to the down-wrestling techniques inherited from the sport that translate well to MMA (I competed at the same time as Gregor Gillespie and he became an All-American multiple times with his down wrestling, much more so than from his takedown ability). Being able to slow down highly active fighters and anchor them to the ground supplemented with a basic understanding of submissions has always yielded a tough style to top.

However, as we have seen, there have not only been a large influx of strong Eastern European fighters with grappling bases (sambo and wrestling mostly), but also many optimized strategies to stand up after being taken down from many fighters with striking bases. Doing this over and over, as anyone that has done MMA sparring can attest, is incredibly exhausting and soul draining -- I am seeing this being used as a mean's end to get up shortly after being taken down in addition to simply just preventing being taken down.

A few examples that come to mind off the top of my head would be Darion Caldwell VS Kyoji Horiguchi 2, Movsar Evloev VS Nik Lentz, and Israel Adesanya VS Marvin Vettori. Holding fighters down in modern MMA is really difficult, even for the highest level wrestlers, against competent grapplers. Hell, even against suspect grapplers such as Derrick Lewis it seems to be a painful task. Daniel Cormier straight up avoided wrestling altogether against Miocic as he didn't find it to be economical to wrestle unless he could do it for 25 minutes (paraphrasing).

Keep in mind that there are definitely exceptions to this rule (not even a rule really) such as Gregor Gillespie who has an insanely good gas tank. I'm also not trying to make a point that grappling is still not a great path to victory among the elite. However, as someone that is a huge wrestling nut (I'm admittedly even biased towards American wrestling styles), I think we are seeing a slow change to strategy in competition in this regard. There are other changes I am noticing as well in the overall game, some of which I feel are benefitting wrestlers (i.e. using wrestling as a means to outstrike opponents that have superior striking).

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

I've been following MMA for a long time. I also come from an American folkstyle background (albeit not a very accomplished one despite competing at high levels; I barely have any wins to my name post high school). I have always preached how effective wrestling is and have always pointed out particularly that it is folkstyle (American collegiate) wrestling that was the best translated style. Where I still hold many of my beliefs, I can't deny that the game has evolved slowly but surely.

I've noticed a higher premium with regard to one's ability to stand up after getting taken down. I've always opined that folkstyle shines in MMA due to the down-wrestling techniques inherited from the sport that translate well to MMA (I competed at the same time as Gregor Gillespie and he became an All-American multiple times with his down wrestling, much more so than from his takedown ability). Being able to slow down highly active fighters and anchor them to the ground supplemented with a basic understanding of submissions has always yielded a tough style to top.

However, as we have seen, there have not only been a large influx of strong Eastern European fighters with grappling bases (sambo and wrestling mostly), but also many optimized strategies to stand up after being taken down from many fighters with striking bases. Doing this over and over, as anyone that has done MMA sparring can attest, is incredibly exhausting and soul draining -- I am seeing this being used as a mean's end to get up shortly after being taken down in addition to simply just preventing being taken down.

A few examples that come to mind off the top of my head would be Darion Caldwell VS Kyoji Horiguchi 2, Movsar Evloev VS Nik Lentz, and Israel Adesanya VS Marvin Vettori. Holding fighters down in modern MMA is really difficult, even for the highest level wrestlers, against competent grapplers. Hell, even against suspect grapplers such as Derrick Lewis it seems to be a painful task. Daniel Cormier straight up avoided wrestling altogether against Miocic as he didn't find it to be economical to wrestle unless he could do it for 25 minutes (paraphrasing).

Keep in mind that there are definitely exceptions to this rule (not even a rule really) such as Gregor Gillespie who has an insanely good gas tank. I'm also not trying to make a point that grappling is still not a great path to victory among the elite. However, as someone that is a huge wrestling nut (I'm admittedly even biased towards American wrestling styles), I think we are seeing a slow change to strategy in competition in this regard. There are other changes I am noticing as well in the overall game, some of which I feel are benefitting wrestlers (i.e. using wrestling as a means to outstrike opponents that have superior striking).

It has never been and will never be economical for a heavyweight to wrestle 5 rounds. That's why typically fighters who do wrestle literally 5 rounds are welterweights or even lightweights, maybe a middleweight could pull it off. Particularly for a 40+ year old man in DC, by the late 30s wrestling becomes hard in general for a lot of elder statesmen who say have hip or knee issues or even just regular wear and tear. Maybe there could be a generational exception. In general, I consider it elite level cardio for a middleweight to be just wrestling for 3 rounds. Particularly if it's grappler vs grappler, an example is Amosov vs. Storley, Amosov was so gassed after the fight he left the arena and didn't conduct any interviews, but against a striker in Lima he had energy for days left after the fight. So depending on what the exchanges look like, even 3 rounds can be difficult for even good grapplers with good cardio.

I think Adesanya vs. Vettori (I assume you mean 2, really either). Vettori is not a wrestler, really whatsoever. He did not train wrestling as a kid. He's western european, there's no good wrestling there, and his wrestling is I think a really clinical example of how people who don't wrestle well tend to wrestle. He's really a classic Dana White jack of all trades tough guy. He basically has no ability to transition from one takedown to another. He tries and tries and tries for one type of takedown, doesn't get it, tires himself then gives up. Lentz and Evloev are both grapplers so one shouldn't dominate the other. Vettori, if anything, is a good example of the old-school outdated wrestling tactics that are falling by the wayside.

Now you're right about the evolution of the sport in that there are techniques now to get up. More people implement things like butterfly hooks or are good at making top half float around and not be able to land effective gnp. But for every one of these evolutions there's a counter-evolution. For example, Lima was trying to use the cage to stand back up so Amosov used bodylock takedowns that threw him in the center of the cage. The placing the head under the chin and using intermittent strikes. Or if you're up against the fence, trapping the legs. Also, people are getting better at doing economical mat returns. I think a lot of the new innovation is incorporating judo elements into wrestling, making transitions smoother. Gone are the days, you're absolutely right, that you just double legged someone, lay on top of them and swung elbows. You have to know more techniques now. But that's true for any profession right? Software engineers today need to know way more than software engineers 25 years ago, but that doesn't mean software engineering is less relevant or more elitist. I don't think the threshold is nearly as high as you think to implement a ground game. It's certainly not restricted to some individual elite talents.

The best gym right now for wrestling/grappling in my opinion is unquestionably American Top Team Coconut Creek (Kyoji trains there for example). I think they have a great system down there. Sadly, much of the great grappling that I describe is in Bellator, due to Dana's preferences. But you can still see ATT in the UFC as well, even recently. Dana's intention isn't to eliminate wrestling from the UFC, it's just to keep it at a trickle. Recent examples, Movsar Evloev beating hyped Muay Thai prospect Hakeem Dawodu, ATT guy. Renato Moicano choking out Jai Hebert, ATT guy. Tony Gravely (a former D1 wrestler) who knocked out Anthony Birchak 2 months ago, another ATT guy. Sanford MMA is another great gym, known for striking but their grappling is good too. Many people saw Shavkat Rakhmonov last week, he trained at Sanford before submitting Prazeras. Phil Hawes, a juco wrestler, won his fight last month vs a bjj guy. One of my favorite guys, Derek Brunson, has wrecked 4 straight hype trains with his wrestling, including Holland in March, also a Sanford guy. None of those guys I just named are "elite" guys in the wrestling world, or even are prospective champs right now. They're not Gregor, or like Khabib, Usman, GSP, but the tech still works even though they're not elite.

So I think it's there if you look for it. And as you mentioned, it is true that wrestlers are also transitioning better because there's more inter-disciplinary work, and people mix takedowns with strikes and strikes with takedowns. It's both good an natural, I think Blachowicz's strategy against Adesanya, for example, to strike for 3 rounds to preserve his tank and then wrestle for 2 rounds, brilliant. And more people will implement plans like that. So I think wrestlers are actually only going to proliferate more as time goes on. The only thing that is passing to the wayside are the old methods because of the natural evolution of tech, but the fundamentality of the sport and its importance as a base hasn't changed.

 

[Grappler111]

Movlid Khaybulaev and Ali Isaev another 2 PFL champions with freestyle wrestling background.
Isaev is an Olympic caliber athlete. He defeated Timofey Mishev (combat sambo world cup winner) and Denis Goltsov (2 time combat sambo world champion).
Sergei Pavlovich is another interesting athlete with greco background.

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

Great post @CorninginChristianburg, that's the answer I was looking for. I follow the smaller orgs with a passing interest, but pay very little serious attention to them. I've seen a few of the Bellator guys, the ones who haven't been in the UFC, and thought they'd potentially be interested in them. Good, effective wrestlers can still be plenty exciting. Look at Gillespie's last fight, some of Khabib's beatdowns, etc.

I can understand why guys like Bader, Davis and Anderson were let go from the UFC. For Bader and Davis, I can see that the UFC drained them of their value, and they probably wanted "more money than they're worth" in Dana's eyes. Whether or not that's accurate, that's a different argument (I'd say they still absolutely had value, imo).

Thanks! And certainly prospecting is not for everyone, you don't need to follow the smaller orgs. Most UFC cards, like even the upcoming ones, will still have some wrestlers in them, just not nearly as many as if it was a meritocracy. If you still look for it on the cards you'll see it, it's just a managed trickle. And those in the UFC are not necessarily the best wrestlers or grapplers in the world, but they still can be entertaining if you want to stay on that card.

If you have UFC fight pass, some of the LFA cards are pretty entertaining. LFA and the UFC aren't really on the same page about wrestlers because the LFA is the UFC's D league but almost every LFA card has a bunch of wrestlers, and the UFC often ends up passing on those guys anyways even though they win most of their fights. Nevertheless you'll see a lot of them there. And I think they're trying to adapt to the fan's desires for more entertainment because I think they're attempting more vicious and risky behaviors. LFA in general, unmatched by any of the big orgs whose fighters all know defense, for its level of violence, if that is interesting to you haha.

 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Thanks! And certainly prospecting is not for everyone, you don't need to follow the smaller orgs. Most UFC cards, like even the upcoming ones, will still have some wrestlers in them, just not nearly as many as if it was a meritocracy. If you still look for it on the cards you'll see it, it's just a managed trickle. And those in the UFC are not necessarily the best wrestlers or grapplers in the world, but they still can be entertaining if you want to stay on that card.

If you have UFC fight pass, some of the LFA cards are pretty entertaining. LFA and the UFC aren't really on the same page about wrestlers because the LFA is the UFC's D league but almost every LFA card has a bunch of wrestlers, and the UFC often ends up passing on those guys anyways even though they win most of their fights. Nevertheless you'll see a lot of them there. And I think they're trying to adapt to the fan's desires for more entertainment because I think they're attempting more vicious and risky behaviors. LFA in general, unmatched by any of the big orgs whose fighters all know defense, for its level of violence, if that is interesting to you haha.

I do indeed have fight pass. I know about LFA a little, I've watched maybe a few fights from there. When it formed though, I knew it would be one of the higher level feeder orgs given it was a merged between two of the higher end shows for that circuit.

I might have to check it out a little more. It can just be time consuming to watch a bunch of three round decisions.

It's an interesting read from yourself and from @NicholasJBasile. I'm from Canada, and we don't have much in the terms of wrestling here, from what I understand, at least. Obviously GSP, but that's not particularly relevant to the credentials/background discussion. I don't think we've produced one MMA fighter with any wrestling credentials worth mentioning.

It's also interesting to see the discussion you guys are having about where things are trending. I've been watching pretty steadily for a very long time now. One of the biggest missed opportunities to see wrestling take a major style shift was with Lesnar. It seemed like if he would have been able to add an effective submission game, he would have brought huge attention to a more aggressive, submission focused attack. Not to go on too much of a tangent, but he had the ability to get anyone down, seemed like the kind of guy who was motivated to win whichever way he could, and the defensive grappling skills at heavyweight have never been too impressive.

Definitely agree on that ATT Coconut Creek team. They've been very good for a number of years now. It took them awhile to get the recognition because a few truly great and dominant fighters were running the tops of multiple divisions, and none of those guys happened to come from there. But they always seemed to have a ton of high level fighters.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Dana's choice in style preference. The sport, unfortunately, is always going to suffer from the need to appeal to a fanbase that is interested in more striking. Both aspects of fighting can be boring, it's just that even the most boring striking has a higher potential for the highlight reel someone wants to see. The tedious 14 minutes between Mir and Cro Cop is a classic example. I like submission that might quickly happen from grappling, but they're very rarely going to top a KO in terms of pure entertainment value.

It seemed like in the past, Dana was willing to give these guys a go, let them have their run and make things tough on them, leading to a chance to cut them loose. Lots of the guys mentioned, like Anderson, Davis, Bader, in the past Fitch, Shields and so on.

 

[Tweak896]

Yeah some part of the sport evolved, but UFC has snuffed out many of the Jon Fitch style wrestlers that grind to decisions, which I think led to more striking dominance. Ufc would cut Fitch and others with one loss just to push them out, and wrestlers probably understood what that means. Hard to blame them because if there were 10 Fitch fights every card no one would watch mma.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

It has never been and will never be economical for a heavyweight to wrestle 5 rounds. That's why typically fighters who do wrestle literally 5 rounds are welterweights or even lightweights, maybe a middleweight could pull it off. Particularly for a 40+ year old man in DC, by the late 30s wrestling becomes hard in general for a lot of elder statesmen who say have hip or knee issues or even just regular wear and tear. Maybe there could be a generational exception. In general, I consider it elite level cardio for a middleweight to be just wrestling for 3 rounds. Particularly if it's grappler vs grappler, an example is Amosov vs. Storley, Amosov was so gassed after the fight he left the arena and didn't conduct any interviews, but against a striker in Lima he had energy for days left after the fight. So depending on what the exchanges look like, even 3 rounds can be difficult for even good grapplers with good cardio.

I think Adesanya vs. Vettori (I assume you mean 2, really either). Vettori is not a wrestler, really whatsoever. He did not train wrestling as a kid. He's western european, there's no good wrestling there, and his wrestling is I think a really clinical example of how people who don't wrestle well tend to wrestle. He's really a classic Dana White jack of all trades tough guy. He basically has no ability to transition from one takedown to another. He tries and tries and tries for one type of takedown, doesn't get it, tires himself then gives up. Lentz and Evloev are both grapplers so one shouldn't dominate the other. Vettori, if anything, is a good example of the old-school outdated wrestling tactics that are falling by the wayside.

Now you're right about the evolution of the sport in that there are techniques now to get up. More people implement things like butterfly hooks or are good at making top half float around and not be able to land effective gnp. But for every one of these evolutions there's a counter-evolution. For example, Lima was trying to use the cage to stand back up so Amosov used bodylock takedowns that threw him in the center of the cage. The placing the head under the chin and using intermittent strikes. Or if you're up against the fence, trapping the legs. Also, people are getting better at doing economical mat returns. I think a lot of the new innovation is incorporating judo elements into wrestling, making transitions smoother. Gone are the days, you're absolutely right, that you just double legged someone, lay on top of them and swung elbows. You have to know more techniques now. But that's true for any profession right? Software engineers today need to know way more than software engineers 25 years ago, but that doesn't mean software engineering is less relevant or more elitist. I don't think the threshold is nearly as high as you think to implement a ground game. It's certainly not restricted to some individual elite talents.

The best gym right now for wrestling/grappling in my opinion is unquestionably American Top Team Coconut Creek (Kyoji trains there for example). I think they have a great system down there. Sadly, much of the great grappling that I describe is in Bellator, due to Dana's preferences. But you can still see ATT in the UFC as well, even recently. Dana's intention isn't to eliminate wrestling from the UFC, it's just to keep it at a trickle. Recent examples, Movsar Evloev beating hyped Muay Thai prospect Hakeem Dawodu, ATT guy. Renato Moicano choking out Jai Hebert, ATT guy. Tony Gravely (a former D1 wrestler) who knocked out Anthony Birchak 2 months ago, another ATT guy. Sanford MMA is another great gym, known for striking but their grappling is good too. Many people saw Shavkat Rakhmonov last week, he trained at Sanford before submitting Prazeras. Phil Hawes, a juco wrestler, won his fight last month vs a bjj guy. One of my favorite guys, Derek Brunson, has wrecked 4 straight hype trains with his wrestling, including Holland in March, also a Sanford guy. None of those guys I just named are "elite" guys in the wrestling world, or even are prospective champs right now. They're not Gregor, or like Khabib, Usman, GSP, but the tech still works even though they're not elite.

So I think it's there if you look for it. And as you mentioned, it is true that wrestlers are also transitioning better because there's more inter-disciplinary work, and people mix takedowns with strikes and strikes with takedowns. It's both good an natural, I think Blachowicz's strategy against Adesanya, for example, to strike for 3 rounds to preserve his tank and then wrestle for 2 rounds, brilliant. And more people will implement plans like that. So I think wrestlers are actually only going to proliferate more as time goes on. The only thing that is passing to the wayside are the old methods because of the natural evolution of tech, but the fundamentality of the sport and its importance as a base hasn't changed.

Thank you for this well thought out response. It is very well worded and informative. I have to agree with you about ATT. My current grappling coach comes from ATT as well as some of my mates and they all have very high praise for ATT. I feel a lot of folks may mention AKA as the superior gym, but I would disagree -- I am not a fan of how they do things as they get too many injuries and furthermore despite having high level wrestling, can't match the level of grappling at ATT (not to mention that Steve Mocco, one of the best modern collegiate heavyweights, is a coach there). I'm from the Bay Area originally and have a pretty good grasp on AKA -- great gym but there is a reason why they are notorious for injury pullouts and whatnot. Also -- Brunson is one of my favorites to watch these days as well, glad I'm not alone.

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

Thank you for this well thought out response. It is very well worded and informative. I have to agree with you about ATT. My current grappling coach comes from ATT as well as some of my mates and they all have very high praise for ATT. I feel a lot of folks may mention AKA as the superior gym, but I would disagree -- I am not a fan of how they do things as they get too many injuries and furthermore despite having high level wrestling, can't match the level of grappling at ATT (not to mention that Steve Mocco, one of the best modern collegiate heavyweights, is a coach there). I'm from the Bay Area originally and have a pretty good grasp on AKA -- great gym but there is a reason why they are notorious for injury pullouts and whatnot. Also -- Brunson is one of my favorites to watch these days as well, glad I'm not alone.

Yeah...I mean, you caught me haha, I was intentionally omitting AKA. Goes back to what I said about, tech should be executable by normal talented athletes not just a few elite guys, that's how you know tech works. Yes Khabib is amazing, yes DC is amazing. But they're amazing really on their own, they're so talented they would be amazing whoever they trained with. They have the partnership with Eagles, some of the Eagles guys are pretty good too but that feels distinct from AKA.

AKA's prospects just don't seem to have very good technique. I say that as someone who roots for their prospects. They go hard, but they seem to lack the same creativity and dynamism. Their prospects lose a lot of grappling exchanges to ostensibly equal opponents, and sometimes come out with some terrible gameplans. This results in lost fights. In fact, upon the retirement of Khabib and DC, I can't think of any significant guys from that gym in the UFC right now omitting Eagles, and the ones in Bellator are also not doing particularly well. It seems like maybe there was a shift in innovation and they simply haven't caught up.

 

[NicholasJBasile]

Yeah...I mean, you caught me haha, I was intentionally omitting AKA. Goes back to what I said about, tech should be executable by normal talented athletes not just a few elite guys, that's how you know tech works. Yes Khabib is amazing, yes DC is amazing. But they're amazing really on their own, they're so talented they would be amazing whoever they trained with. They have the partnership with Eagles, some of the Eagles guys are pretty good too but that feels distinct from AKA.

AKA's prospects just don't seem to have very good technique. I say that as someone who roots for their prospects. They go hard, but they seem to lack the same creativity and dynamism. Their prospects lose a lot of grappling exchanges to ostensibly equal opponents, and sometimes come out with some terrible gameplans. This results in lost fights. In fact, upon the retirement of Khabib and DC, I can't think of any significant guys from that gym in the UFC right now omitting Eagles, and the ones in Bellator are also not doing particularly well. It seems like maybe there was a shift in innovation and they simply haven't caught up.

Yeah man -- I'm a longtime believer in Bob Cook and Javier Mendes, but I've also felt some levels of ego that hold them back; and they aren't as relevant with grappling. That and they just train in unsustainable ways in my observations; I had a buddy that was an Olympic wrestler for Bulgaria (I'd care to leave his name out) that took Khabib down in a takedown drill, and then they threw him right into sparring full on with one of Khabib's cousins and he went about 90% intensity and destroyed my buddy who was way undersized and had no experience other than wrestling (this was all on video). I was pretty disgusted.

But by comparison, if you look at ATT, everyone there has incredibly clean and improved grappling that is well optimized for MMA context. Mike Thomas Brown is a very underappreciated coach that seems to have a great head on his shoulders -- they train very smart, it seems. Drama aside, it seems like the mecca of MMA gyms; probably the strongest gym in the game at the moment.

 

[ChumpyKiwi]

Yeah. Because folkstyle emphasizes ride time a lot more. If you ride someone for 1 minute + in folkstyle, you pick up an extra point after the match has concluded. It's not as beneficial to do that in freestyle. Also, in folkstyle, you don't have the ability to lock hands and gutwrench or leg lace someone to pick up points like you can in freestyle. Only real way you can score bonus points in folkstyle is to pick up near-fall points. That's what Spencer Lee does. That's his entire MO. Takes you down, tilts you, racks up near-fall points, turns you back to your stomach, tilts you again, racks up near-fall, keeps doing that until he either tech falls you or gets you super close to it, so he can finish you off with one more takedown or so. They're just so vastly different.

Yoel comes to mind as someone who had really great explosive takedowns but never sought to retain control. And we just saw Mike Grundy against Lando, who he took down many times but Lando just turned his back, stood up and attacked the hands.

Also don't forget Spencer Lee's bar/half which is how he gets all of his pins

 

[Applehead]

Yoel comes to mind as someone who had really great explosive takedowns but never sought to retain control. And we just saw Mike Grundy against Lando, who he took down many times but Lando just turned his back, stood up and attacked the hands.

Also don't forget Spencer Lee's bar/half which is how he gets all of his pins

We've got another wrestling fan here, I see! Good deal. You're correct. I didn't mention that. Spencer Lee is an absolute hammer on top. Just grinds you into the mat until you're dust haha.