The problem with Wrestling in MMA (and how to fix it) 

bad maths

@@rottencamel3467 didn't think I had to mention rnd 4 was 10-8 volk aswell

@@MMAChe. gotchu

Didn't Islam spend a lot of time controlling Volk from his back? The way I see it, in a serious fight, having someone's back is the best ending position you can have.

@@Docinaplane it doesnt matter if you sit on someones back if you do no damage and every submission is easily defended, so it wasnt really anything significant while he was controlling him

🤯🤯🤯🤯

Exactly.

Lmao

🤯

99% they go too the ground wrestlers always making a fight boring af

The best technique is to have no technique Bruce lee

Agree🎉

@@CultureSamurai Yeah, that makes zero sense but sounds pretty. The best technique is the one that's constantly evolving.

But that's a CAREFUL SYNTHESIS of D1 (or equivalent) and BJJ. You have advanced skills in both D1 & in elite BJJ... so you know not all D1 wrestlers are gonna be that good, much less all becoming Division I champs, let's be honest. You also know STATS: neither D1 alone nor BJJ, alone, is that good in MMA. I did a WAR AND PEACE posting in MM CHE channel's video --- in his video with the title of HOW BENNY WOULD ABSOLUTELY DESTROY CHARLES .... that he posted 14 or 15 days ago, RIGHT BELOW his comment (to another poster of his) ---- trying to remind him why all his documentation of why Benny was superior to Charles in ADCC, why Benny's being a former ADCC champ several times over.... MEANT NOTHING MUCH IN PARTICULAR in Benny's-then-up-coming fight against Charles... My argument in that long, winding piece was that MMA, at the UFC at least, Charles BJJ is superior to all others... & that Charles problems, with someone like Islam..... was NOT a deficiency in skills but (#1) a lacking in tactics and (#2) his ultra aggression. But that either or both of things about Charles could be EASILY remedied... and that Benny's more pedigreed BJJ would still not be enough to overwhelm Charles... In that WAR AND PEACE posting, I also reminded MMA CHE that ZERO of the current champs of the UFC is a D1 wrestling. I reminded MM CHE that Jon Jones, Aljo, and Islam are the only 3 wrestling based champs, very elite wrestlers.... but that THEY ARE NOT D1 & that they don't even boast any illustrious BJJ pedigree of any kind. But that, more importantly, the vast majority of current UFC champs are elite strikers with good to elite skills in TDD, in wrestling, and in BJJ... but that their specialties are striking based. The reality of the matter is, all these endless deep one-word/one-line posters.... from one video to another.... who keep saying, for example, that Colby's D1 wrestling is gonna "rag doll" Leon also are the same 4-year-old crystal ball readers who were 100% sure Usman's high quality D2 wrestling --- good enough to effectively cancer Colby's D1 --- was going to rag doll Leon in the Leon-Usman II & III fights, too. Some of them bet big, on both times, saying it's "easy money," as Henry Cejudo... and they all lost big. And they will lose even bigger, 3 times in a row, when they bet on "an actual D1 Colby" rag-dolling Leon. That's the problem with deep thinking herd mentality mma fans: ---- they behave and think like easily impressionable 4 year-olds who are still into comic book heroes... But all the other facts NOTWITHSTANDING --- the lack of D1 wrestlers and touted ADCC champs being MMA champs of the UFC, the largest MMA organization in the world ---- there's also other realities Colby and Usman both having to deal with: in the annals of the UFC's recording keeping, only 2 in 29 fights that someone 35 or older, from Welterweight division down to 125, ever defeated a prime champ, either in "getting back" their belt or in winning it for the first time. In other words, Usman and Colby ----- both over 35 years of age... close to 36, in fact ---- have around a 7% probability, each, of winning the belt from prime, 31 year-old Leon, who is the most agile, fasted, and a 6'2" solid 190lb of nothing but muscles, with elite Muay Thai, elite TDD, very good wrestling, & very good BJJ. In addition, Colby is only 5'11" & walking around between 185 and 190. After rehydration, Leon returns to being around 190lb and he is nothing but muscles. He may not be as big as Usman, but Leon is a one of the biggest Welterweights at the UFC. And, again, he's more agile than 99.99% others at 170. People erroneously think Leon is a decision machine, whereas Usman is a KO artist. FACTS: both Leon and Usman each has 10 SUDDEN-FIGHT-ENDING wins (KOs and/or Subs). To beat a big, tall, prime, fast, agile, & an all-arounder ELITE striker like Leon, you need more than two aging veterans like Colby and Usman; you need someone equally priming, equally big, equally tall & rangy, & equally strong... with AT LEAST equal skills guys like Shavkat and Khamzat.... who could EASILY finish you standing or on the mat. Neither Usman nor Colby's BJJ is that good.

@@kiabtoomlauj6249 lotta break down but to simplify for others I think it's a simple equation that leans to success in all aspects of life. Those who solve problems by working backwards will be more equipped to win.

wdym askren???

Mostly BJJ copersl ike MMA Che can barely get past Amateur MMA circuits

Each of these grappling sports: jiu jitsu, wrestling, and judo, have certain deficiencies and in order to nullify these deficiencies, a good combination of all three is needed for a good grappling base in MMA

Ya

Real

If he's cool with it, I'm absolutely okay with that.

That crowd pays his (and the rest of the UFC's) bills.They're paying for entertainment,not BJJ class.🤷🏿‍♂️

I wouldn't even say "the best base". Wrestling is just a ruleset. l think these days you could make a ruleset that is an even better base for MMA.

Gaping tee hee...

Young fighters coming up nowadays can't even just have one base. You need to start wrestling, BJJ, and striking and become equally proficient in all of them. You need multiple bases.

Nar this is a misconception that's parroted all the time. You don't need wrestling as the stats show the person who shoots has their backs taken and loses more often than the person defending takedowns. You just need to know how to defend wrestling.

And taking advantage of the horrible ruling about kneeing downed opponents, he intentionally downs himself so he can be touched

Both Usman and Leon are black belts in BJJ

​@@eveningstar7812Black belt? Who give them dis? We have to check dat moment.

@@eveningstar7812 yeah that means pretty much nothing lmao khabib is a white belt

@@Mrimperialbeast I’m just saying, calling Usman “just a wrestler” is literally retarded.

​@@Mrimperialbeastyeah but he is a black belt in judo

Your exactly right bro, that’s why Fedor was so dominant in the early days, he was a Sambo grand master practicing since he was 7.

I mean top tier sambo practicioner > top tier bjj. Khabib > RDA, Islam > Olivera, Fedor > Big Nog, what more do you need?

@@МихаилЧалый-щ3жFedor also got submitted by Fabricio Werdum so it’s a lot more complicated then your letting on.

Sambo overtime has transitioned into more mma focused styles aswell. Unlike in your bjj class and wrestling class where its pure grappling sambo mixes in the striking as a part of setups and such. Which in my opinion makes it that much better.

@@greysonsmith2054 Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that how Combat Sambo had always been since it’s conception?

Sticking your chin out & low & the front leg stances one dimensional wrestlers take doesn’t translate to mma whatsoever. Life long Wrestling unlike Judo or BJJ ingrains some extremely terrible habits that are very hard to get rid off.

@@DADRB0B55 true that’s why Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones, Dan Henderson, Usman, Colby, Couture, Cejudo, Woodley, Hughes, TJ Dillashaw, Cain Velasquez, and many others couldn’t translate to MMA very well 😂

@@DADRB0B55 wrestling is the best base for mma..people still argue against this in 2023?

@@DADRB0B55 sped

Jon Jones isn’t a wrestler, that’s an insult to Jones he is the most well rounded martial artist on the planet except maybe DJ, also look up any wrestler vs judo video the wrestler always losses. Khabib even explained Judo is a way more tougher sport to actually be good at vs wrestling. Hendo has been beaten by Belfort twice, who is a Judoka & BJJ black belt even lost to the Karate boy. Woodley is more of striker, Couture lost to a 2 different Karate bois. Usman & Colby are legit fair play, those the only 2 you got

Problem with mma in mma

Spoiler alert for the judo video, no gi in mma :(

no probelm for muy tai except for the high stance prone to takedowns. Problem with boxing is no kicking or anything else. Problem with judo is no gi, but nogi judo works well

Judo is a tough one in MMA because of sample size and other issues. Many judoka make more money in their sport vs UFC. The other issue is it takes arguably more time to have a decent judo skill set than wrestling skill set esp in the USA where most judo schools are watered down or non existent. I love judo but those are some major issues with it not really existing as much as wrestling in the UFC.

the problem with problems in mma

I think this is why jiujitsu is so enduring; it’s non-traditional. If a technique works really well in wrestling, we’ll just incorporate it into the syllabus and grow. But wrestling, as a standalone discipline, cannot do that. A Greco-Roman wrestler (for instance) can’t learn a triangle choke and then incorporate it into his next competition. They can crosstrain jiujitsu (and they all do) for MMA, and incorporate it there, but wrestling, as a style itself, is inherently limited (in much the same way judo has been for half a century). There is only so much space for evolution there. If wrestling truly were inherently superior, BJJ just would have evolved into wrestling, which it hasn’t. There is no rule, no limitation, that would keep that evolution from happening, unlike in wrestling which has rules that prevent its evolution into BJJ (if that is indeed the most “fit” adaptation).

​@@elenchusMy biggest problem is that when it comes to do that technique adapted from wrestling to a wrestler the execution sucks. Just as a comment i saw some months ago "ADCC is turning into low tier wrestling championship".

@@omegadeepblue1407 I would say that one of the reasons for wrestling's success, and perhaps (if I read you correctly) the lower quality of wrestling from BJJ adherents is that wrestling has an absolutely enormous filtering mechanism by the time it gets to high-level MMA or grappling. Most of the top wrestlers have been wrestling since middle school, on through high school, and through college. They have been tough enough to make it that far without any major injuries and athletic enough to get into top college programs and find success there. That is, a lot of the wrestlers we see have a pedigree that the average jiujitsu guy lacks. A lot of us are like engineers, accountants, that kind of thing. Most of us don't begin until our 20s, and we don't benefit from a multi-nationwide middle school or high school program that begins training vast numbers of students from a young age with frequent and tough competition. Some jiujitsu guys have a similar pedigree as the wrestlers, but a relatively small percentage.

Grappling is not grappling. Jiu Jitsu inherently defensive and wrestling is inherently offensive. Wrestling is more than just takedowns.

@@elenchus Is more related on how are this taugh, they got out of their comfort zone, as an engineer doing a master i can relate to that. You just can't pretend you can do wrestling that is being teach by someone who just knowed the technique few months before you learned it.

Wrestlers control where the fight takes place it’s as simple as that. Land or water, it’s the better wrestler’s choice

Beautifully said.

yeah bro really thought he did something there

I thought he was going to say "sambo" not "wrestling + judo + jiu-jitsu"

u think sambo guy will throw judoka

@@JanCzasami that's a bit random and has nothing to do with my post

Can someone explain how Judo is remotely useful in MMA? It's not. Once you lose the gi those throws stop working.

sambo can be misinterpreted as foul language as its a slur

It's a racial slur in the US that has nothing to do with the grappling art

What are you talking about bruh, why would you want to be on bottom in MMA? Unless you’re elite at it BJJ it isn’t gonna save you from getting smashed by elbows and punches from a guy equally as big/strong as you.

@@asapra7elite591 you misread my comment. I would never ever want to be on bottom. I’m a judo guy. I’m not a coward guard pulling cuck. What im saying is Jiu Jitsu does have top game style but jiu Jitsu schools engrain a style of playing bottom all the time. Which is stupid for MMA.

​@@marconopolo5723i agree, bjj at high level could save you from bad positions with triangles, arm bars or transitions but being in bottom is the last thing that you want, i think a fighter in the ufc who haves learned this lesson is oliveira, in his fight with islam he pulls guard when he got knockdown and got submitted, and now against dariush the first thing that he do when he was in bottom was to stand up inmediately when he haves the oportunity and not play in the bottom like a regular bjj guy

Being on bottom is always worse. In MMA or a street fight. You always want to be in a position on top where you can decide that you want to bail if you get uncomfortable.

Very true. Especially when you can just pull guard without having to worry about punches being thrown.

Revolutionary take right there!

and go belly down. Wrestling has to have an overhaul before it can be used in MMA (which it receives).

as judo Blackbelt i can assure you that they can take your back only if you do it poorly, also most judo throws don't require you to give your back, most people when they hear Judo they think about ippon-seoi or uchi-mata but most techniques don't require to give you back

Nah, pure wrestling won't work. You need to have knowledge of submission , you can shoot the same and turn the corner using the neck, ect, but as soon as you understand it, it would be a beating for a regular bbj dude, of course is the Gordon of the words but for the rest lol ..

@@elenchus you're a casual and not ncaa wrestler. get off the internet kid

Muay Thai/Kickboxing*

not his experience

@DireGoth03 you're a genius

His fight with Maia was the best showing of how important jiujitsu is. As good as Maia is, Askren was hands down better at getting to the ground in a better position. Problem for Askren, Maia was hands down better at rolling to a win.

Yeah but when he got to ufc git demolished

You seem like a smart guy, but I'm sorry, I couldn't really tell what you are doing and what against the rules in catch wrestling. Could you clarify?

@@themanhimself9899 Thanks, I could try and elucidate but I'm not sure what you are asking, exactly. Could you re-state your question please?

My only issue with catch is that there are so few people who can actually teach it. And some of the rules make catch fights a little less interesting compared to jiu jitsu because how small the duration of a pin needs to be to get a win. If they just made it a little longer to get a pinfall victory, we'd probably see more submissions, but a lot of Catch matches I see involve a standup clinch fight, followed by a takedown/throw and a pin that immediately ends the match.

@@rohitchaoji You aren’t wrong about the matches. But I’m more referring to the skill set they teach. I think it’s about as well rounded as we have available currently. It’s weakness is grappling from the guard but based on what I got taught everything else is pretty high level, they even have a few interesting sweeps from the bottom that I rarely see elsewhere, they are expected to be executed quickly though. Perhaps the speed of the pin is why the guard game is so limited. I think you’re onto something.

@@-MacCloud- Oh definitely. I'd love to learn catch wrestling some day, but coaches are very rare I'd presume. But in my country, submission grappling of any sort is relatively new and we have only ever had one Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt in the entire country. But there are now several very good purple and some brown belts. Even though we have a long tradition of wrestling, any submissions it had, have been forgotten in favour of the kind of wrestling that matters for financial security and success in sports (Olympic wrestling).

Nah he’s right they are no longer just pure wrestlers, they become mixed martial artists in UFC & Bellator. Plus I’ll take his word over a nobody like you & me lol.

@@billcipher3946 you a dummy.

Sport Sambo is is 70% judo ,Khabib and Islam used alot trips to finalize their takedowns. In Russia and the former Soviets country sambist and judoka competes in both sports.

Sambo guys frequently crossover into Judo and back. They are happy to do all sorts of grappling.

But Melanson is a guard player, how he is gonna prefer control from the top than back takes?

This! In fact, coaching high school folkstyle, I'd *often* be yelling "Get your points!" from the corner, i.e. get behind and finish the takedown rather than lose it by getting greedy and trying too hard to get the opponent to their back all at once. (Which more experienced guys were adept at reversing.)

i think bjj does back takes better than even folkstyle wrestling. a turn isn’t quite the same as taking someone’s back. you see the “two boots/hooks in” position a lot more in bjj than folkstyle. justin gaethje and ben askren both had folkstyle backgrounds and got submitted by people with better bjj (khabib and damien maia)

@@johnpedouify Better back takes for subs? Probably. But better back takes for mma? Not even close. The most *lethal* ground and pound position for a long time has been revealed to be riding position, sticking to a guy's hip and wailing away from behind him where he can't reply. One of the Achilles heels of bjj guys has been to be too eager to lock in going for a sub and overlook the riding position. (As well as--going back to how Hughes schooled Royce, using hooks to *flatten* guys out to wail away from behind.)

You need to have someone's back fully under control in order to turn them. They use the full spectrum of leg riding, one leg two leg, alternating legs. The only thing not there is figure four which is illegal in wrestling. I've seen at least as much where someone that practices BJJ doesn't know all the control from turtle and rushes for slopped leg hooks like a kid at a candy store.

@@towardstar Exactly. (And of course I'm even long enough in the tooth to remember when figure-four was actually legal. 😉)

Andrew Wiltse said once when he was a bouncer he took a guy down with a double leg perfectly and dominated him but his knee were opened till the bone from the impact he made with the floor. On surface that is harder than wood i would rather go with a Marcelo Gracia style dropping butt takedown than destroying my knee.

@@katokianimation absolutely agree. I would love to see the rules of wrestling changed to no knees on floor during takedowns...and stopping this belly down parachute when there conceding a point. For me those are the worst habits of wrestlers that relate to fighting

​​​@@goku-pops7918 talking about the rules bring back had kicks against grounded opponent. I want to see wrestlers getting kneed. Open guard passing to soccer kick. And finally pounded guard players striking back as effectively. Andarson Silva loosing a match bc he knocked out his opponent from guard is such a bs. I dont think kick like this is worse to your health than full body generated standing blow.

That true if you do a traditional single double. If you do a blast double, body throw, or trip you can be safe from that.

@@katokianimation yes pride rules were so exciting except they didn't have elbows

Basically yeah I agree

Was just gonna say this. Wrestlers also like giving their back. I did wrestling for a while and realized how much trouble it got me in when I fought. Still won the fight tho :)

@@ZappaGetSlappabjj nerd mad

Wrestling is not the only art that can win you MMA fights on its own. There are kickboxers, for example, who have won plenty of fights only using their kickboxing.

That's rubbish. Wrestling alone has no submissions and prioritizes positional dominance and not very much else.

@@linds6609 even in submission grappling position is more important than submission. Ask any Gracie and they will tell you if they could be on top or bottom in a street fight top every time. Wrestling insures that you get there. It is also true. That jujitsu can be learned to a high-level later in life where as wrestling on starting early so that you don’t get behind. There are many instances of fights that pure wrestlers beat pure jujitsu guys in MMA because they can control position and just not get submitted. Like Yoel Romero vs Jacre Souza

@@kaelcrane2076 bro you are delusional. You said ' wrestling alone can win you some MMA matches.' that's absolute rubbish. Wrestling is a tool on your belt, the same as BJJ and Muay Thai. The difference is that you can Finnish a fight with BJJ and Muay Thai. How would you do that with wrestling? Take downs and positional dominance are vital but they don't win MMA fights. Put a wrestler against a BJJ guy with the same amount of years training, size and level of athleticism and see who wins. Almost every time it will be the BJJ guy coz he can finish a fight. He might not be able to get you to the ground but once you get him there you are likely done.

@@linds6609 I might give you that point, but a world-class wrestler with a couple years of BJJ experience, maybe a purple belt, could beat any pure jujitsu fighter in the world with a few years of wrestling training, maybe high school level in mma. 95% of the time the positional dominance and competency at defending submissions is going to be more valuable and effective them, potentially submitting someone off your back while getting hit in the face

The only way Khabib could be beaten it him ending in a close guard but it has never happened dude was too smart on the ground he decide where he wants to end.

He subbed Gaethje with a triangle

BJJ is similar to what we refer to as a “pubstomp” kit in video games. If your opponent doesn’t know how to counter it you will win just de facto. But if your opponent understands it even to a basic level they will neutralize your abilities and likely beat you at their own game. In short you can’t be good at MMA without knowing at least how to defend against BJJ, but beyond that level it’s entirely complementary. It’s the reason why pure BJJ guys did so well at first but now they don’t succeed in the UFC. You still see pure wrestlers like colby or pure strikers like pereira though.

Tthats just cap, in the past yes but today, everyone is training all aspects of grappling and BJJ offers a full conceptual understanding of grappling in a way that no other school does, which specifically helps with grappling DEFENSE. Hence why Craig Jones a BJJ guy trained Volk to the best performance against Islam we've seen. Name a modern fighter thats the best in the world with mediocre bjj, keep in mind mediocre means NOT GOOD.

@@buckets3628 I mean relative to the top guys in the bjj world. Think about it like this if you could be exceptional at grappling wrestling or striking, but average at the other 2. Bjj would be the least valued, because without takedown ability. It won’t mean much unless you’re extremely exceptional of your back.

@@rico14 It would mean that no one can keep on your back, no one can sub you, no one wants to even go to the ground with you because they're terrified that even from a disadvantage position, you have the advantage, which means no one will clinch you, no one will want to kick you. That sounds QUITE FUCKING USEFUL BRO

@@buckets3628 There’s like 5 guys in MMA that have legitimately dangerous guards, and even then I wouldn’t say they have the advantage. You’re pretty much always losing the fight on your back, and even Ryan hall struggled once he fought the top guys.

also while stating the obvious lmao, like wow wrestling + BJJ is better than either alone? no way!

@@youngornitier lol yeah he's pretty mainstream with opinions but he's funny af

Talent beats hard work when talent works hard. Example: ramon dekkers in muay thai. Beat everyone. Most dutch kickboxing didn't start when they're 5. They had to train harder because they could not train everyday like thai fighters.

Also his pharmacist brother giving him HGH

he's also on roids

@@capalottyslimalini2878 that helped him thats why hes the champ

​@@bluedonkey180 then it destroyed his knees

ground control and mat returns also good

Wrong Folkstyle wrestling also promotes no being on your back,escaping when someone gets your back, chain wrestling,putting your bodyweight on your opponent to gas him out, keeping your opponent on bottom wrestling has much more value for mma then just a takedown.

The top control and movement on bottom is great in folkstyle you mouthbreather