Wrestling has 4 UFC belts, BJJ has 0: one explanation why

[Neil Kiernan]

I have a lot to add to this conversation as I researched this issue quite a bit recently. The first data point I would add is to also consider the dominance of some former champions. Some of these are kind of obvious. Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, and GSP. The first two had epic level wrestling from young ages. The last of which was a prodigy.

My kids are one of the main reasons I looked into this as they both claim they want to be MMA fighters when they grow up. My daughter in particular won't shut up about it. So we started with wrestling because Wrestling first of all is generally a lot cheaper to get involved in. There is usually one up-front fee to get your kids involved in wrestling every season and for that fee that get two sessions a week (on average) and can go to a tournament every single week during the season that stretches from December to March for Folkstyle, and April through June for Freestyle/Greco Roman. LOTS of mat time. Compare the say 100 bucks for six months of wrestling to the 100 bucks (or more) for BJJ PER MONTH in many instances and you get the point here.

Then comes quality and duration of training. BJJ and Judo classes usually go about 1 hour. (For kids, and you find that champions tended to start very young) Wrestling sessions can go as long as three. Ronda Rousey's mother has a great blog talking about how Judo players should train like Wrestlers because wrestling practices are VERY tough. When my daughter started wrestling last December she could barely do 20 sit ups. She wrestled from then until now and is still wrestling. During a break we decided to see how many sit ups she could do. She got to 130 and asked if she could stop because it was boring. Her conditioning is vastly improved.

Intensity is also a serious issue. My kids also do Judo and BJJ in a club that does both, though we stopped going for a while as the days for practice fell on the same days as Wrestling. So during a break in Wrestling my daughter went back to Judo and rolled with a girl who used to tap her out easily. When the two went at it after seven months or so of wrestling however my daughter dominated aggressively on the ground and then took her back and tapped her out easily. (Now, results will vary with this sort of thing obviously.) But the comparison in her ground game pre-wrestling to now was like night and day. The girl she tapped out regularly medals in Judo.

On the youth level, the intensity in training in most schools for kids doing BJJ and Judo falls far behind what kids do in wrestling so far as conditioning and aggressive pace. The core strength they develop is enormous. The amount of mat time they get is generally way higher. And they live in a no-gi environment.

Eddie talks about a lot of this in his book in the starting chapters. The stuff he says resonated with me right away as it fit with everything I had already observed. He discusses the impact the Gi has on training and why a lot of BJJ guys are not getting submissions like they used to.

Point of fact, there are now a lot of successful MMA fighters who beat BJJ black belts with only passable BJJ. Having a BJJ Black Belt is just not the "I-win" button it used to be. And while some of that certainly has to do with BJJ going soft as you put it, some of it is the natural evolution of the fight.

So now for the "fight evolution" part of my essay.

I am sure any of you who have watched Kung Fu movies know about the "rival school" concept and how martial arts schools used to be very secretive. While it makes for good storytelling it's also 100% true and has a very practical purpose.

Someone pointed out that wrestlers did dominate as soon as Royce left. I would also go so far as to say that if Royce had stayed his dominance would of gone right with it. Royce never fought Dan Severyn again. And I have every confidence that if he did, Dan would of defeated him. When the superfight wth Ken Shamrock happened you could watch as they didn't know what to do when the fight went on and on. Eventually you can watch them manufacture out of thin air the rules for a "draw". The fight ended with Ken not having a mark on him, and Royce's face looking pretty beat up. In modern MMA rules, Royce would of lost that fight. If it had been allowed to continue he would of as well.

Submissions work brilliantly on people who have no idea what you are doing. The Gracies started selling DVD sets and opening schools, it was only a matter of time before life long grapplers were going to be able to fend off submissions. The learning curve for submission defense for someone who has been wrestling their whole lives is really easy.

To further elaborate on this, watch Kazushi Sakuraba, a Catch Wrestler (wrestling with submissions that already existed in wrestling that were not being used anymore) dominate and defeat every Gracie they put in front of him.

Then watch Matt Hughes defeat Royce, in a very one sided battle.

BJJ is important. Submissions and submission defense will always be important. But it is not the foundation of MMA anymore. You cannot rely on submissions working against wrestlers who are by their nature far stronger then you, have 1000s of hours of mat time, are not wearing a Gi, and are covered in sweat. You also cannot rely on attacking a striker with takedowns to escape their boxing and Thai anymore for that matter. The secrets of the "rival school" are out. So now submissions are back to being another tool on the wall of the arsenal of the complete fighter. Whereas wrestling is becoming the pillars that hold up the foundation. Not just from technique but from a conditioning standard second to none. And as Combat Submission Wrestling and Catch Wrestling are now coming back into use, this trend will only continue.

[Neil Kiernan]

The more I talk about it, the more I realize how MMA is a sport as well. It went from being the ultimate proving ground for martial arts to being its own sport. BJJ is still self defense relevant. But MMA rules just don't favor BJJ. At all.

This is a very important point to consider. Sports affect the evolution of everything.

My Judo Sensei has been in the game for a long time and he pointed out that virtually everything in BJJ is contained in Judo Newaza (ground fighting). Why is it not emphasized? In Judo rules as they have developed you have a VERY small window to do Newaza to go for a submission or pin before the referee will stand you up. A such, a lot of Judo players came to rely on just turtling the moment they hit the ground rather then risk being submitted or pinned. The fastest way to win in Judo is to throw you flat on your back as that ends the match instantly. So they tend to work towards that.

Situations evolved different players. So for example Ronda Rousey's mother had a serious knee injury and could no longer rely on throws. Therefore she evolved an intensely aggressive Newaza game to adapt and the result? World championships. And a daughter/student who can arm bar you in the time it takes you to blink. People who didn't know Judo assumed Ronda learned her arm bar from BJJ. Nope. Arm Bars, Triangle Chokes, and the vast majority of submissions in BJJ come from Judo Newaza. There is a style called Kosen Judo that is ALL ground work and it looks very similar to BJJ when it is practiced. Sadly it is hard to find. However, Helio Gracie was very versed in it. (See the roots of BJJ here?)

Another example of changes made for competition was the rules changes in Judo. Judo used to have variations of the single leg and double leg takedowns. Now you cannot touch the legs at all in Judo. Why? Those takedowns were not practiced very heavily by Judoka, so when wrestlers showed up at Judo tournaments a lot of Judoka got cremed. (Because if you did a single or double and dumped someone flat on their back the match was over. Instantly, just like that. The term is "Ippon".)

Wrestling, ALSO went through a transformation due to rules in competition, and this included all submissions being removed. Catch Wrestling with all of it's brutal submission glory used to be an olympic sport alongside Greco-Roman.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/8/13...atch-wrestling

A lot of rules changes in combat sports are made to make the fight more interesting to spectators as well. Freestyle Wrestling for example evolved because it is fun to watch. But there are tons of ways to score in Freestyle wrestling that would not harm anyone at all in a fight. I can gator roll you, leg lace you, and gut wrench you all day long and not hurt you in the slightest. But every time I do that to you in Freestyle I get 2 points for every time your back is exposed. Which racks up quickly. If I leg laced you in a street fight it would annoy you as you would start spinning but it's not lethal by any stretch of the imagination. (Don't get me wrong, there is still some great stuff to learn in Freestyle, but I think you get my point.)

Perhaps the most useful form of wrestling (other then catch) for MMA would be Folkstyle as it is all about positional dominance and takedowns. And it's not even an Olympic sport. In both Freestyle and Greco-Roman the ground game suffers a bit as if you flatten out and lay there long enough the Referee will stand you up. No such rule in Folkstyle. If you lay there in Folkstyle and let someone control you you will lose.

The turtle position that Judokas run to as well as the flat on the belly with your arms stretched out position used in Freestyle and Greco-Roman would also get you knocked right out in a streetfight, and would not do so well in MMA either.

So now I come to MMA being a proving ground for the street.

MMA is a useful tool and every martial artist interested in self defense should consider doing it even just with their friends in a safe environment. That said, MMA fighters also make mistakes that would be exploited in a streetfight. You see it all the time when someone throws a high kick an gets kicked in the groin. Or just gets kicked in the groin in general. There would be no referee in a street fight there to give you five minutes to feel better. You would just get destroyed. MMA fighters also become reliant on the rules to protect the backs of their heads. It doesn't take very sophisticated training to know how to elbow/punch/kick the back of the head.

All of this is why Bruce Lee did not go into competitions. Though his school and students emphasize sparring A LOT.

[David Rosado]

Awesome posts Niel.

[Neil Kiernan]

Awesome posts Niel.

Thanks!

[jaywatkins67]

All good commenets but did somebody forget about Jose Also? I'm pretty sure he's a black belt. Weidman does have a huge wrestling background but is also high level bjj belt under Matt Serra. Bottom line, today it is impossible to be succesful in MMA if you are a one trick pony. Must be well rounded. Interesting post.

[BIBIANO]

Awesome Neil, this adds two important nuances to the discussion. If you don't mind, I'm gonna respond to them in the opposite order. The second argument you made was something like: BJJ has been a victim of its own success, since part of a techniques' effectiveness is the fact that your opponent is not ready for it. Your first point is about the cost and characteristics of wrestling training for kids, I think that is a good point too, and I'll talk about it in my next post.

So I agree that part of a techniques' effectiveness is the fact that it is new, or surprising, or unknown to your opponent. To take a non-BJJ example, when Anderson fought Belfort, another master striker, he had to do something unexpected (the front kick to the face) in order finish Belfort. Now, there are still front kicks landing, but they are harder to land because fighters are expecting them (especially after Machida landed it again on Randy). Analogously, part of BJJ's initial success was the fact that the guard and submissions were so foreign to the traditional martial artists. Once Matt Hughes studied Jiu Jitsu for a while, he could shut Royce's Jiu Jitsu down, then win the fight with his better athleticism and striking. Similarly, Sakaraba was such a problem for the Gracie's because he had such an unorthodox submission game, one they weren't seeing regularly in practice. If that is true, then Wrestlers will start to lose their dominance because strikers will add takedown defense to their games, and BJJ guys are getting better takedowns. I think this sort of evolution happens on a wider scale. Initially, the countries that were best at the martial arts won wars, then the countries with the best swords won...then guns, missiles, nuclear bombs. However, as the offensive weapons evolve, so do the defensive measures. As we have gone from swords to guns, we have also gone from armor to bullet proof vests. Because the rear naked choke has been such a powerful finishing move, guys have gotten really good at RNC defense, to the point that it is really hard to get one in the UFC.

I think this brings up a problem in BJJ of "tradition," "hespect," "basics" etc etc. I think you could argue that certain parts of the BJJ community have failed to embrace new techniques now that the old school moves are too well known. It's hard to imagine that being apart of 10th planet and the mass of innovative BJJ players, but I think it is not the case in every association. For example, RNC's are incredibly hard to get in the UFC right now, but I don't see fighters transition to the truck to set up a calf slicer or twister or another back take with better wrist control. Because moves like the truck are much newer and more innovative, opponents have had less time to develop familiarity or defenses to the truck.

However, the counter argument is while widely known techniques lose their surprise factor, there is a reason why they became mainstream, its usually because they have been proven in the past. Any style has to strike a balance between these two extremes.

Also, there are non-martial arts factors in fighting that have experienced a similar evolution, and heavily influence fights. Guys are better and better at cutting weight, strength/conditioning and diet/nutrition. Wrestlers are known for being experts in cutting weight, BJJ tournament discourage weight cutting with day in weigh ins. Wrestlers are known for their strength and conditioning, BJJ values technique over strength, and the little guy being able to beat the big guy. I don't really know about the difference in diet/nutrition between wrestling and BJJ or there is one. The point is, Wrestlers seem to be better at two really important factors in an MMA fight, the weight cut and strength/conditioning. That definitely explains some of the Wreslter's success, and an opportunity for improvement in BJJ (although Anthony Johnson proves you can take the weight cut too far.)

[BIBIANO]

I want to see if the point about evolution applies to my original point that Wrestling is benefiting from almost three centuries of competition to isolate the most effective techniques and training methods.

[Neil Kiernan]

Awesome Neil, this adds two important nuances to the discussion. If you don't mind, I'm gonna respond to them in the opposite order. The second argument you made was something like: BJJ has been a victim of its own success, since part of a techniques' effectiveness is the fact that your opponent is not ready for it. Your first point is about the cost and characteristics of wrestling training for kids, I think that is a good point too, and I'll talk about it in my next post.

Cool.

So I agree that part of a techniques' effectiveness is the fact that it is new, or surprising, or unknown to your opponent. To take a non-BJJ example, when Anderson fought Belfort, another master striker, he had to do something unexpected (the front kick to the face) in order finish Belfort. Now, there are still front kicks landing, but they are harder to land because fighters are expecting them (especially after Machida landed it again on Randy). Analogously, part of BJJ's initial success was the fact that the guard and submissions were so foreign to the traditional martial artists. Once Matt Hughes studied Jiu Jitsu for a while, he could shut Royce's Jiu Jitsu down, then win the fight with his better athleticism and striking. Similarly, Sakaraba was such a problem for the Gracie's because he had such an unorthodox submission game, one they weren't seeing regularly in practice. If that is true, then Wrestlers will start to lose their dominance because strikers will add takedown defense to their games, and BJJ guys are getting better takedowns.

Everyone is adding TD Defense to their game. Wrestlers are naturally good at it as it is crucial to having any success in wrestling. Statistically the one who gets the take down almost always wins in Wrestling.

But I would add another thing I realized I had left out of my previous posts. There is also something to be said for simplicity of technique. Going to call on my Jeet Kune Do fanboyism a bit here but everything Bruce brought into his game was streamlined, spartan, and direct. While submissions are not all very complicated the learning curve on getting extremely good with them as opposed to the learning curve of learning adequate submission defense is not an even race. This for example is why a lot of the standing submissions and wrist locks from arts like Aikido and JJJ don't find their way into the ring. People just pull their hands away from you because they see it coming. The same is starting to happen with BJJ submissions. You can spend decades of your life practicing JJJ submissions and destructions and be able to pull them off sometimes. Now BJJ submissions are far easier to pull off then JJJ ones but I think you get my point.

The wrestler game of takedown+ground and pound is very simple to master. And is far more difficult to counter.

Furthermore, Wrestlers make good strikers. Randy Couture actually had very little boxing experience before he went into MMA (contrary to popular belief, he hit pads in the military but he never went father then that.) but the natural strong as hell core that wrestlers have make for powerful punchers. Athleticism is a requirement for strong striking. And that's why wrestlers make that transition better then people going from BJJ to striking.

I think this sort of evolution happens on a wider scale. Initially, the countries that were best at the martial arts won wars, then the countries with the best swords won...then guns, missiles, nuclear bombs. However, as the offensive weapons evolve, so do the defensive measures. As we have gone from swords to guns, we have also gone from armor to bullet proof vests. Because the rear naked choke has been such a powerful finishing move, guys have gotten really good at RNC defense, to the point that it is really hard to get one in the UFC.

I think that situation is just going to keep happening with every submission.

I think this brings up a problem in BJJ of "tradition," "hespect," "basics" etc etc. I think you could argue that certain parts of the BJJ community have failed to embrace new techniques now that the old school moves are too well known. It's hard to imagine that being apart of 10th planet and the mass of innovative BJJ players, but I think it is not the case in every association. For example, RNC's are incredibly hard to get in the UFC right now, but I don't see fighters transition to the truck to set up a calf slicer or twister or another back take with better wrist control. Because moves like the truck are much newer and more innovative, opponents have had less time to develop familiarity or defenses to the truck.

However, the counter argument is while widely known techniques lose their surprise factor, there is a reason why they became mainstream, its usually because they have been proven in the past. Any style has to strike a balance between these two extremes.

Don't disagree with anything there.

Also, there are non-martial arts factors in fighting that have experienced a similar evolution, and heavily influence fights. Guys are better and better at cutting weight, strength/conditioning and diet/nutrition. Wrestlers are known for being experts in cutting weight, BJJ tournament discourage weight cutting with day in weigh ins.

As someone who is the parent of two wrestlers I am happy to say they have at least in youth wrestling taken measures to deal with the weight cutting issue. Personally this is something I agree with Joe Rogan about 100%. It should not be a thing at all. I am all for weigh ins an hour before a fight. Fight at the damn weight you are supposed to be fighting at. If you are not at that weight, then do healthy things to get yourself there. People should not be cutting 30 lbs by just not drinking water, getting into heat suits, on exercise bikes IN the SAUNA and then walking into the ring 30 lbs heavier then the weight class they are competing in. Hell, put the damn scale right outside the ring as they go in.

On the other side of it, some wrestlers get good at this because in the middle school and high school level where most wrestling takes place you try out for a specific weight class and if you don't maintain that weight class you don't get to compete. Unfortunately that's part of the issue with the "Dual Teams" method of competition.

Wrestlers are known for their strength and conditioning, BJJ values technique over strength, and the little guy being able to beat the big guy. I don't really know about the difference in diet/nutrition between wrestling and BJJ or there is one. The point is, Wrestlers seem to be better at two really important factors in an MMA fight, the weight cut and strength/conditioning. That definitely explains some of the Wreslter's success, and an opportunity for improvement in BJJ (although Anthony Johnson proves you can take the weight cut too far.)

There is nothing to stop BJJ and Judo players from adapting to the level of intensity that wrestlers train at. For some reason the BJJ and Judo world has just never done so. I think an important point to mention though is that a strong part of that conditioning is cardio/endurance of the core, not just the strength.

There is also a lot of technique to wrestling and you see it with wrestlers who are not naturally strong. Particularly with the girls who are generally forced to compete against boys most of their careers. My daughter generally gets stuck wrestling boys who outweigh her by 10-15 lbs at some tournaments and that means a lot when you are 75 lbs. She still wins matches when she is against people who have been wrestling about as long as her but to do so she has to wrestle smart. I admit that the wrestling game needs more options for that but hey, that's why my daughter is going to be enrolled in 10th Planet to learn some ways to move people around with leverage.

[Neil Kiernan]

I want to see if the point about evolution applies to my original point that Wrestling is benefiting from almost three centuries of competition to isolate the most effective techniques and training methods.

Well, I would say that it should impact it to a certain degree. Wrestling being older and such. The problem is that at the same time Wrestling has been hit very hard on the technique side because of the competitive sport side. When it comes to submissions Wrestling was not just hit, it was basically lobotomized. Thankfully it's making a comeback.

[Kurzy]

Awesome thread guys. Great conversation. This thread makes me want to seek out wrestling in addition to BJJ now, lol. (No time for that though)