Who's the all-time greatest MMA Wrestler?

Who's the all-time greatest MMA Wrestler?


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Better than matt hughes' have you even seen hughes fight before? Khabib atleast has a decent jab, some kicks and an overhand
Khabib is so sloppy on the feet, Hughes isn't a good striker either but he's more technical
 
i honestly don't know how you can pick anyone aside from khabib for this
 
Damn Brunson has only been taken down once in his entire ufc career and he doesn’t even get a mention on this list.
Whomever landed that takedown must be one of the best takedown artists, if not wrestlers, if not human beings ever to grace the octagon.

I don’t care who it was, he should easily be number one on everybody’s list.
 
My top 5 are:

1. Khabib Nurmagomedov
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2. George St. Pierre
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3. Jon Jones
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4. Kamaru Usman
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5. Cain Velasquez
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For an MMA wrestler...Khabib and GSP
 
Khabib had 16 fights prior to his UFC debut, GSP had 5 and faced Hughes less than 3 years after his pro debut. Not really a fair comparison. Khabib in his entire career has never fought anyone with the legacy of Hughes, who’s still the #2 WW of all-time. And he barely fought any wrestlers in his career at all.
GSP is a stud. No arguments there.
He jumped directly into the deep end and excelled. and he defeated some highly credentialed wrestlers in Kos, Fitch, Hughes, Sherk and Hendricks.

You could make a solid argument that he faced better wrestlers, the counter to that argument would be that MMA TDD evolved significantly between GSP’s prime and Khabib’s.

By the time Khabib was manhandling contenders you rarely saw guys being held down. Khabib is really the ONLY elite fighter of this era who consistently put guys on their back and kept them there. Can you name another fighter from this era that took down every single opponent they faced and dominated them on the ground?

anyway. Even if you give the category of level of wrestlers faced to GSP, that is one aspect, I don’t think it outweighs the fact that Khabib never lost, never took significant damage, finished all his title defenses, beat the dogshit out of everyone he faced, etc.



Like I said GSP is a tremendous fighter, well rounded, intelligent. But if you are assessing who was the better MMA wrestler I gotta go with the guy who never lost and beat everyone he faced with wrestling.
 
GSP is a stud. No arguments there.
He jumped directly into the deep end and excelled. and he defeated some highly credentialed wrestlers in Kos, Fitch, Hughes, Sherk and Hendricks.

You could make a solid argument that he faced better wrestlers, the counter to that argument would be that MMA TDD evolved significantly between GSP’s prime and Khabib’s.

By the time Khabib was manhandling contenders you rarely saw guys being held down. Khabib is really the ONLY elite fighter of this era who consistently put guys on their back and kept them there. Can you name another fighter from this era that took down every single opponent they faced and dominated them on the ground?

anyway. Even if you give the category of level of wrestlers faced to GSP, that is one aspect, I don’t think it outweighs the fact that Khabib never lost, never took significant damage, finished all his title defenses, beat the dogshit out of everyone he faced, etc.



Like I said GSP is a tremendous fighter, well rounded, intelligent. But if you are assessing who was the better MMA wrestler I gotta go with the guy who never lost and beat everyone he faced with wrestling.
He didn’t take Tibau down and dominate him though. And he struggled to do that to Iaquinta as well. And the thing is he really didn’t face many wrestlers, so it’s hard to write those performances off. I mean, literally, look at his record. What other wrestlers did he face? Gaethje, even though he doesn’t wrestle in fights. And I think we were all surprised by how poor his ground game was. Who else? Zero elite MMA wrestlers. Shalorus in his debut, but he was never an elite fighter. Yet look at the names you cited for GSP. The difference is literally night and day
 
GSP is a hell of a fighter, he is a great choice for #2 MMA wrestler, so no disrespect to him, but he simply did not dominate utilizing wrestling in quite the same way as Khabib.

You won’t find any video of Khabib in the octagon tapping to an armbar or mounted succumbing to strikes (both in the first round), or having his groin torn because he was overpowered in his guard.

Good luck even finding video of Khabib in his back being controlled AT ALL.


GSP was very smart. Very effective at utilizing all of the tools available and the strategies most likely to yield victory, including avoiding the ground and jabbing guys up. Hats off to him. And it is nothing short of miraculous how elite his wrestling was without an NCAA wrestling base or childhood wrestling experience.

But GSP had matches where the grappling was competitive. Khabib, particularly in his prime, was just absurdly dominant, making elite guys look like amateurs on the ground.

Remember that when comparing, one guy is going to have to be better, even if by a nominal margin.
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Khabib used his strength and size advantages over his opponents to control and ground and pound them because it was his way to win. He was certainly less well-rounded than GSP, and it is not GSP's fault he had a bigger toolbag to work with. Not to mention GSP's takedown defense was very good and against high-calibre wrestlers, not just scrubs, so I find that odd that you used GSP's abilities to keep a fight standing as a means to discredit his wrestling pedigree.

Also, most of GSP's fight went decidedly in exactly the manner he wanted the fight to play out in. If he kept the fight standing, it is because that is where he wanted it. If he wanted the fight on the ground, that is where he took it.

Head to head, both in their primes, GSP would fuck Khabib up and anyone who knows anything about MMA would know why.
 
GSP is a hell of a fighter, he is a great choice for #2 MMA wrestler, so no disrespect to him, but he simply did not dominate utilizing wrestling in quite the same way as Khabib.

You won’t find any video of Khabib in the octagon tapping to an armbar or mounted succumbing to strikes (both in the first round), or having his groin torn because he was overpowered in his guard.

Good luck even finding video of Khabib in his back being controlled AT ALL.


GSP was very smart. Very effective at utilizing all of the tools available and the strategies most likely to yield victory, including avoiding the ground and jabbing guys up. Hats off to him. And it is nothing short of miraculous how elite his wrestling was without an NCAA wrestling base or childhood wrestling experience.

But GSP had matches where the grappling was competitive. Khabib, particularly in his prime, was just absurdly dominant, making elite guys look like amateurs on the ground.

Remember that when comparing, one guy is going to have to be better, even if by a nominal margin.
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Also, don't forget they are roughly the same size and Khabib cut an extra 15 lbs to fight smaller men. Remember when he went to the hospital instead of fighting because he tried to cut so much weight?
 
Best wrestler?? DC - who has the accolades and accomplishments in wrestling that match his??

"MMA wrestler" - tougher question:

Khabib - ability, one of the greatest (just wasn't around long enough as a defending champ).
GSP/Jones - got the wins but not necessarily overly wrestling heavy styles
DC - Jones and Stipe have taken a little of the shine off his legacy and he was a little late getting into the game (got into Strikeforce at about the age Khabib retired)

Askren - 10 years undefeated, very wrestling heavy style, odd he didn't make the list.
 
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OG Dan Servern.

Not because he's the best, but because hes the first.

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in terms of wrestling for MMA, GSP is the most proven. The fact that he was so successful with his wrestling and yet didn't come from a wrestling background also proves that he found the formula for the most efficient style of wrestling for MMA, or at least a style that gelled the best with his own physical abilities, which is a feat in and of itself. Because of this, there was no "fat" in his style, he knew what worked but he also knew how to fit it into his already existing arsenal and he put it to use in a way that seemed almost effortless. I think that warrants a vote for him.
 
Khabib just edges out GSP due to his slick techniques and ferocious tenacity

GSP was better at power doubles and stuffing shots, some basic wrestling techniques. Khabib was better at sneaky trips, hand positions, scrambles, things like that.
 
Khabib will always have an asterisk due to inactivity. He didn't compete for years at a time and as champion would only fight once per year.

GSP had to fight and beat multiple NCAA national champions in Hendricks and Koscheck and NCAA All American in Hughes.

Because of funky timing, Khabib never really fought good grapplers in the UFC. For the uninitiated, Justin Gaethje was not a notable collegiate wrestler (by UFC fighter standards) anywhere in the universe of guys like Hendricks and Koscheck, and he flat out sucks at MMA grappling.

Jon Jones is a cheater, otherwise he would be tied for the #1 spot with Georges. Cheating aside, he's the freak of freaks in the upper weight divisions and his strength of schedule speaks for itself. He dominated outstanding wrestlers and made it look easy.
 
My top 5 are:

1. Khabib Nurmagomedov
203_Khabib_Nurmagomedov_x_Dustin_Poirier.0.jpg

2. George St. Pierre
hi-res-3a76fc2ef2e3f94c83f28514e8b0f77a_crop_north.jpg

3. Jon Jones
jon-jones-ufc-247-preview.jpg

4. Kamaru Usman
KamaruUsmanHeroUpdated.jpg

5. Cain Velasquez
085_Cain_Velasquez_vs_Antonio_Silva.0.jpg

Ha ha. The two non murrkans on the list are winning the pole by a huge margin. Flakestyle wrestling is just inferior to adult wrestling.
 
Bringing up Khabib's fight against Tibau is the same as GSP haters bringing up the Serra fight

Both were early in their runs, and are totally irrelevant to how good they were at their peak

Except what you just said is entirely false. There is no evidence that Khabib was somehow a better grappler last week than he was when he fought Tibau. Again, he’s never faced another decorated wrestler his size and the only one he did, he arguably lost to.

Moreover, GSP got caught by a strike, not out grapple. TFO with that whack reply.
 
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