Why haven't more people adopted Khabib's style?

[djason1988]

I heard eddie bravo say this the other day. Why haven't more fighters adopted Khabib's style? It seems pretty easy to replicate Khabib's leg trips, foot sweeps and takedowns against the game. So why haven't more people just tried to fight like him?

Because you couldn't do that in any other weight class. Lw is lacking any elite wrestlers aside from khabib. You think anybody at WW is gonna get away with a 100% grappling centric gameplan? Maia and Askren didn't, and only a fool doesn't think usman and Colby is gonna be an ugly kickboxing match. At a certain level, grappling skills neutralize each other, there's just no other high level grapplers at lw.

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Probably because it requires roughly 25 years of grappling experience in 3-5 different arts.

 

[BJpencil]

Because you couldn't do that in any other weight class. Lw is lacking any elite wrestlers aside from khabib. You think anybody at WW is gonna get away with a 100% grappling centric gameplan? Maia and Askren didn't, and only a fool doesn't think usman and Colby is gonna be an ugly kickboxing match. At a certain level, grappling skills neutralize each other, there's just no other high level grapplers at lw.

You don't consider Gregor Gillespie a high level grappler?

 

[djason1988]

You don't consider Gregor Gillespie a high level grappler?

Yes I do, but he hasn't fought khabib yet and won't for the foreseeable future, so I considered that a moot point.

 

[3nigma]

10 year old kids thinking about getting into MMA and adopting Khabib's style have already lost about 7 years of training.

You think adults can just adopt it like that?

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Life-long disciplined training

Not bubble America touch-butt every kid gets a trophy video game playing soda child entitlement.

 

[davidlemonparty]

And on top of it all, Khabib having his dad being a local combat Sports coach of extremely high standing in the community. So Khabib literally lived and breathed combat Sports for every second of his life.

 

[Hatorade]

I heard eddie bravo say this the other day. Why haven't more fighters adopted Khabib's style? It seems pretty easy to replicate Khabib's leg trips, foot sweeps and takedowns against the game. So why haven't more people just tried to fight like him?

It's the same reason more people haven't adopted Brock's strength or the Diaz Bro's cardio. These are God given talents. You can't train to be as good at grappling as Khabib no more than you can train to hit 500 foot home runs or throw a football 70 yards. Training certainly helps, but that level of talent needs to already exist.

Khabib is a 1 in a million athlete. That's why....

 

[Sansnom]

Come to think of it, why doesn’t everyone just throw punches like rumble and ngannou while they’re at it

 

[2EZ]

Why dont other fighters replicate a lifetime of grappling and experience geez.

 

[Ube]

Aside from the obvious and valid stuff everybody is posting,

We gotta remember these grinder wrestler types don’t get hype or access to big money paydays the way more exciting fighters do. It takes a whole body of work and extended streaks to get respect using this style.

 

[Karelinator]

Are you seriously saying that chain wrestling against cage is rare in MMA, or what?

 

[Benoitthegr8]

Most talented grapplers aren’t 1/2 as good as Khabib is at chain takedown, control, sticking to opponents like white on rice. He literally has damn near no holes in his game.