| Mixed Martial Arts is a combination of many martial | | | | is due to their fantastic strength and conditioning, a |
| disciplines, all of which offer specific benefits. Due to | | | | discipline that they learn from an early age and |
| the relatively new nature of MMA, a lot of fighters | | | | practice throughout their amateur wrestling career. |
| weren't brought up cross training. This makes MMA, | | | | Pound for pound, wrestlers are the strongest and |
| which is still in its infancy, a clash of styles as much as | | | | most well-conditioned athletes in the sport. This gives |
| it is a clash of fighters. For this reason, it's often | | | | them a significant advantage in picking up new |
| beneficial to have a strong base style in which the | | | | techniques and just being all-around better than their |
| fighter has trained from a young age. There are | | | | opponent. Their great conditioning increases their |
| several popular ones, including wrestling, boxing, | | | | punching power, ability to take a punch, and their ability |
| kickboxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, Karate, | | | | to power out of submissions. With a fair amount of |
| and Tae Kwon Do. Wrestling is the most dominant of | | | | cross training, good wrestlers can crush even |
| these for reasons that will be outlined below. | | | | seasoned BJJ fighters on the ground. |
| Wrestling bequeaths certain benefits that the other | | | | On top of the obvious benefits, wrestling also makes it |
| styles don't; granted, the other styles also give benefits | | | | easier to learn other styles. One of the most important |
| that wrestling doesn't, but the ability to quickly adopt | | | | aspects of wrestling is having good balance, which is |
| techniques in other disciplines is one of wrestling's | | | | something that helps the fighters pick up boxing and |
| strengths. The main advantage that wrestling gives the | | | | kick boxing. While strong wrestlers aren't often the |
| fighter is the ability to dictate where the fight goes. | | | | best strikers in their division, the risk of a takedown, |
| Very few fighers are able to take an opponent to the | | | | their strength, and their strong chins often allows them |
| ground as easily as a wrestler can. Since wrestlers | | | | to dominate better strikers even in the stand up. |
| have the best takedown offense and defense in | | | | While wrestling is the best base for mixed martial arts, |
| MMA, they can effectively neutralize their opponent's | | | | success in the sport still has a lot to do with the |
| strengths by utilizing their own. An example of this is a | | | | individual. Take Georges St. Pierre and Lyoto Machida, |
| wrestler who refuses to take down or be taken down | | | | for example. They both come from karate, which is |
| by a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitoner. He forces the | | | | one of the least-used base styles. While GSP has |
| submission grappler to strike, effectively eliminating his | | | | essentially become a wrestler, Lyoto still sticks to his |
| greatest weapon. | | | | guns and puts on impressive performance after |
| Being able to choose where the fight goes might | | | | impressive performance. When looking at all of the |
| seem to be a useless ability if wrestler has no other | | | | champions in the UFC, you'll find that only two are |
| skills. If his boxing is terrible, won't he risk getting beat | | | | dominated by wrestlers: welterweight with GSP and |
| up by the BJJ guy with equally bad boxing? While | | | | heavyweight with Brock Lesnar. With that in mind, |
| anything can happen in an MMA fight, wrestlers are | | | | there are a disproportionate amount of wrestlers in the |
| generally more well-prepared than other fighters. This | | | | top 10 of any given division. |