@aerius Also I think that a wrestling / grappling base is simply superior to a boxing / striking base.
Unless you just have nuclear power in your hands / feet AND you are at HW specifically, you aren't going to have success generally.
Examples being obvious: Cro Cop of the past, Ngannou of the present.
Two guys who have rudimentary wrestling/grappling compared to the average MMA fighter or even HW really, yet had success due to their striking / pure power.
So yeah there's not an avenue to money for wrestlers/grapplers usually after they become really good and their collegiate or I guess training careers are over, but it's also the ideal base for MMA imo.
You can be an elite wrestler/grappler and learn striking on the fly and have success, plenty of guys have done it. Who has been an elite striker and learned wrestling/grappling on the fly and had success?
It's happened probably, but guys like Overeem developed it over time and put the work in. There's tons of work to be put in either way, but I would definitely argue that you can get away with shitty striking more easily than shitty wrestling. And it's obvious that having a good blend of both adapted to MMA makes you great, i.e. Jon Jones, GSP, ~Silva, ~DC, Mighty Mouse, etc. etc. etc.
Khabib for example is a guy who had very shitty striking for awhile but was undefeated due to his wrestling/grappling. Conor is the foil to that arguably, but it's also arguable he avoided wrestlers up until Mendes and was basically exposed and taken down easily and could have lost that fight if Mendes went for control rather than a finish. Both have improved since their early UFC runs though, in respective areas.