Dern, Ortega..and all BJJ players in general.

MarleyLynx said:
In every school i've been in we've taught take downs. However, when you have clothes on the takedown game completely changes as you cannot simply just change levels when someones arm is framing against you with a strong grip by your collar or lapel. You typically see more foot sweeps, judo takedowns, collar drags or body lock takedowns in BJJ. Since you're not allowed to grab anything and everyones naked and greased in MMA these are nearly impossible.

BJJ gets a bad rep for having a bottom game but in every match one athlete is on top and one is on bottom. Points are rewarded for takedowns, guard passes, knee on belly, mount and back control. It's structured to incentivize top position. Bottom position can just be that powerful. Especially when in BJJ you don't have the forced action rules of wrestling. Much of the time the "Anti-pullers" just end up doing shitty hand fighting for the majority of the match. Hitting a double on an opponent whos not moving forward or who naturally keeps his lead arm in a down block is nearly impossible.

IMO I think the BJJ athletes aren't lacking in takedowns necessarily but footwork and striking pressure. You need to trap them against the fence. Takedowns against the cage are the bread and butter of MMA. Even someone who never wrestled before can takedown a collegiate wrestler there.
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Disagree on footsweeps, judo takedowns, and body lock takedowns being hard in MMA. Those are actually pretty bread and butter takedowns in MMA and much easier to pull off with a cage for leverage. You see all of them a lot in MMA. Not as much as basic singles or doubles, but a ton of wrestlers, judokas, and even BJJ guys do them.

See my post above why BJJ athletes are lacking. There's a whole series of hand fighting, clinching, pummeling, scrambling, and other techniques you'll never learn in BJJ because most never get good at it due to the ruleset. A huge difference between wrestling/judo/sambo and BJJ is the balance and upper body clinch aspect too. If you don't regularly train high upper body level takedowns on the feet from multiple angles and from the clinch, your balance is not going to be elite level. That's a big factor with clinching against the cage. It seems boring when you have two guys clinching in a BJJ tournament, but for MMA practice, they're getting more out of that then a guard pull.

The BJJ rules definitely reward bottom position more than top position. In MMA, if you pull guard, you're accepting the possibility you'll get punched in the face. In BJJ, there are no strikes and the guard puller loses no points. The onis is on the top person to pass guard, which is completely contradictory to MMA. The guard puller gets almost every advantage in BJJ based on the ruleset.
 
TheGreenMachine said:
Disagree on footsweeps, judo takedowns, and body lock takedowns being hard in MMA. Those are actually pretty bread and butter takedowns in MMA and much easier to pull off with a cage for leverage. You see all of them a lot in MMA. Not as much as basic singles or doubles, but a ton of wrestlers, judokas, and even BJJ guys do them.

See my post above why BJJ athletes are lacking. There's a whole series of hand fighting, clinching, pummeling, scrambling, and other techniques you'll never learn in BJJ because most never get good at it due to the ruleset. A huge difference between wrestling/judo/sambo and BJJ is the balance and upper body clinch aspect too. If you don't regularly train high upper body level takedowns on the feet from multiple angles and from the clinch, your balance is not going to be elite level. That's a big factor with clinching against the cage. It seems boring when you have two guys clinching in a BJJ tournament, but for MMA practice, they're getting more out of that then a guard pull.

The BJJ rules definitely reward bottom position more than top position. In MMA, if you pull guard, you're accepting the possibility you'll get punched in the face. In BJJ, there are no strikes and the guard puller loses no points. The onis is on the top person to pass guard, which is completely contradictory to MMA. The guard puller gets almost every advantage in BJJ based on the ruleset.
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We'll have to disagree.

The takedowns you listed are less than 1%. The bread and butter is cage takedowns. You may see an occasional Harai Goshi at the lower rankings and Islam pulled off a nice Uchi Mata with the glove grab but they're few and far between. I don't believe i've ever seen anything like Deashi Harai.

I believe overall athletecism contributes most to their lack of clinch fighting and scrambles. It's not as if pummeling takes any form of talent or intelligence. Balance and athletecism do play hand and hand. However, I wouldn't say all BJJ athletes lack balance or scrambles. It's simply that they don't scramble to the feet.

Lastly... if all the points and advantages are essentially top position based then the sport isn't structured for a bias to bottom position. The cards are actually stacked the other way. It's just bottom game is that strong. Particularly when you're not naked and greased up and banned from grabbing anything. If you haven't gripped a glove wrapped in tape or had to grab by the forearm you really don't understand the difference in control and leverage it is as opposed to traditional wrist grips or sleeve grips. If you lift weights with a grip pad on the dumbell you can really get a feel for how much it matters.
 
MarleyLynx said:
We'll have to disagree.

The takedowns you listed are less than 1%. The bread and butter is cage takedowns. You may see an occasional Harai Goshi at the lower rankings and Islam pulled off a nice Uchi Mata with the glove grab but they're few and far between. I don't believe i've ever seen anything like Deashi Harai.

I believe overall athletecism contributes most to their lack of clinch fighting and scrambles. It's not as if pummeling takes any form of talent or intelligence. Balance and athletecism do play hand and hand. However, I wouldn't say all BJJ athletes lack balance or scrambles. It's simply that they don't scramble to the feet.

Lastly... if all the points and advantages are essentially top position based then the sport isn't structured for a bias to bottom position. The cards are actually stacked the other way. It's just bottom game is that strong. Particularly when you're not naked and greased up and banned from grabbing anything. If you haven't gripped a glove wrapped in tape or had to grab by the forearm you really don't understand the difference in control and leverage it is as opposed to traditional wrist grips or sleeve grips. If you lift weights with a grip pad on the dumbell you can really get a feel for how much it matters.
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Good videos below on the judo takedowns in MMA. The thing is, Judo and Greco are very similar, so there are a ton of these takedowns in MMA between the two arts. You could also add Muay Thai sweeps and dumps to that as well. All the above takedowns are probably third in use vs. singles or doubles, but they are definitely used a lot in high and low level MMA, and especially against the cage. De Ashi Harai is a harder footsweep to pull off without a Gi, so you're more likely to see other foot sweeps like sasae or kouchi, but it still does happen in MMA.

The other thing is that a takedown, sweep, or trip will usually land you in side control or half guard. So in MMA, you don't need to be a wizard guard passer if you can pass the guard off a standing takedown. Its why all these wrestlers in MMA are able to pass the guards of way better (in theory) BJJ grapplers.







Pummeling and the clinch takes a ton of work and experience to get good at. Its not something that's just an easy one and done. If you look at the wrestlers who have had the most success in MMA, its probably greco roman wrestlers or those who have trained in it at a high level. Randy Couture, Jon Jones, Khabib, Islam, Topuria, etc. Fedor wasn't a greco guy, but sambo/judo shares a lot of greco moves. Those guys weren't necessarily better athletes than everyone else. Most of their opponents were good athletes, including the BJJ ones. The difference was that they trained positions you had a high probability of getting into, and did moves that are just higher percentage in MMA. The difference between the balance of someone who does BJJ and someone who does wrestling, judo, or sambo is huge. Wrestlers, judoka, and sambo spend almost their entire time on the feet. BJJ doesn't require much balance from the feet (because so much is done on the ground), so they're obviously not going to train it as much and get good at it. Someone who does greco for example, doesn't need to be good at doing or defending a bow and arrow choke gi choke, so obviously they don't train it and get good at that either. Same concept.

And yes, you can get an advantage being on top while trying to pass guard, but you only have one option as the top grappler in guard...which is pass. As the bottom grappler, you can sweep or submit from guard. Statistically, 2 v 1 is more options. In MMA, its even because the bottom grappler gets striking, so 2 v 2 options, but without the striking, and because the bottom person isn't penalized for a guard pull, the bottom person basically has the advantage. You could also say that the top grappler is penalized even more because if they were to stand up from guard to try to initiate a takedown engagement, they can't disengage because it would be considered stalling.
 
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Who says they do not? Some are just not good at it.

They also have to learn striking as well. Only so many hours in a day.

And despite popular belief, "BJJ players" still need to work on their BJJ in MMA.

No different then why some wrestlers are not good on the ground or some strikers aren't good at kicking.

I have no idea about this "ego" stuff - most truly world class BJJ have great takedowns. Ortega, Oliveira, Diaz Brothers are high level black belts not world class BJJ competitiors. They chose a method of using their BJJ so they can strike and try to finish their hurt opponents with submissions. Why is that not a legitimate method?

Actual guys who are world class in BJJ like Arona, Maia, Burns, Lovato Jr, Penn, Jacare have very good wrestling. The idea that those type of guys are "pulling guard" or imanari rolling around is a misconception. Do Dariush and Matt Serra look like they butt scoot around?
 
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moreorless87 said:
I think you need to remember as well that the Werdum we saw in the UFC was already in his mid 30's, he'd made his striking more dangerous but he'd lost quite a bit of agility which obviously limited the kind of takedowns he tended to go for earlier in his career(leg shots rather than clinch work).

His latter run he basically shifted to using the threat of his grappling to aid his standup, that nobody wanted to take him down was a significant advantage and meant he could commit to his strikes a lot more, especially throwing knees plus of course there was the threat of his own takedowns.
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Did he actually? He three a lot of kicks, knees, muay thai combos. His striking was very agile
 
xhaydenx said:
I shit on Dern and her takedowns a lot, but to be fair to her, in that first round against Lemos she hit what was probably one of the best double legs in SW history haha.
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Yeah that was beautiful timing on that one sir.
 
StonedLemur said:
I don't want them to retire, I want them to recognize the hole and fill it sir.
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I think Ortega simply isn't as talented with wrestling and even if he does a lot I don't see him taking down fighters like Volk, Holloway, Ilia. His striking got him very far.
 
HerpDerp said:
Agreed, has been driving me nuts for almost 20 years now.

For a majority of these high level grappling competitors, I feel it's not a matter of being somehow physically incapable of becoming sufficiently good at wrestling due to a lack of wrestling specific physical attributes or some shit. Not like they need to become Olympic level.

Instead, I suspect the main culprit is that they are so used to being at the top of the food chain in their respective sport, that it must be a horrendous experience for
them to suddenly do something that isn't at all far removed from their original area of expertise, but being absolutely terrible at it. It's different when they start picking up striking: because they're completely new to the whole thing, it's both expected and acceptable to initially suck at it, so it doesn't hurt their ego the same way.

Seems to take a very special kind of a person to face the reality of getting dominated over and over again on a daily basis for years, and still being able to embrace the grind with an actual passion for improvement and not just sucking it up and half-assedly phoning it in because "I guess I have to do this shit".
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DeSean and Alex
 
michi972 said:
I think Ortega simply isn't as talented with wrestling and even if he does a lot I don't see him taking down fighters like Volk, Holloway, Ilia. His striking got him very far.
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He showed some good takedowns in this last fight tbf sir.
 
michi972 said:
Did he actually? He three a lot of kicks, knees, muay thai combos. His striking was very agile
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I think the knees especially benefited from it or even the threat of the thai plum, I think that was a massive factor vs Cain were he'd hook it up and Cain would have to disengage this fence clinch which didnt allow him to rest as vs JDS. He wouldn't have been able to do that if he was afraid of the takedown as Cain could just have gone for his legs.

I think his striking overall benefited from just not having to worry about takedowns at all whilst his opponents were often afraid of his even if he didnt hit them very often.
 
TheGreenMachine said:
Good videos below on the judo takedowns in MMA. The thing is, Judo and Greco are very similar, so there are a ton of these takedowns in MMA between the two arts. You could also add Muay Thai sweeps and dumps to that as well. All the above takedowns are probably third in use vs. singles or doubles, but they are definitely used a lot in high and low level MMA, and especially against the cage. De Ashi Harai is a harder footsweep to pull off without a Gi, so you're more likely to see other foot sweeps like sasae or kouchi, but it still does happen in MMA.

The other thing is that a takedown, sweep, or trip will usually land you in side control or half guard. So in MMA, you don't need to be a wizard guard passer if you can pass the guard off a standing takedown. Its why all these wrestlers in MMA are able to pass the guards of way better (in theory) BJJ grapplers.







Pummeling and the clinch takes a ton of work and experience to get good at. Its not something that's just an easy one and done. If you look at the wrestlers who have had the most success in MMA, its probably greco roman wrestlers or those who have trained in it at a high level. Randy Couture, Jon Jones, Khabib, Islam, Topuria, etc. Fedor wasn't a greco guy, but sambo/judo shares a lot of greco moves. Those guys weren't necessarily better athletes than everyone else. Most of their opponents were good athletes, including the BJJ ones. The difference was that they trained positions you had a high probability of getting into, and did moves that are just higher percentage in MMA. The difference between the balance of someone who does BJJ and someone who does wrestling, judo, or sambo is huge. Wrestlers, judoka, and sambo spend almost their entire time on the feet. BJJ doesn't require much balance from the feet (because so much is done on the ground), so they're obviously not going to train it as much and get good at it. Someone who does greco for example, doesn't need to be good at doing or defending a bow and arrow choke gi choke, so obviously they don't train it and get good at that either. Same concept.

And yes, you can get an advantage being on top while trying to pass guard, but you only have one option as the top grappler in guard...which is pass. As the bottom grappler, you can sweep or submit from guard. Statistically, 2 v 1 is more options. In MMA, its even because the bottom grappler gets striking, so 2 v 2 options, but without the striking, and because the bottom person isn't penalized for a guard pull, the bottom person basically has the advantage. You could also say that the top grappler is penalized even more because if they were to stand up from guard to try to initiate a takedown engagement, they can't disengage because it would be considered stalling.
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I'll keep this short
I love seeing Judo but there's a reason there's a highlight. It's a rarity - and again typically found at the lower levels.
Pummeling and cage work is self explanatory to the 70 iq and over. No disrespect - it's just the most brainless part of MMA but most grueling and exhausting.
Lastly... You're not supposed to be in their closed guard. Their hips are higher than yours which is why you lose that fight. It's 4 lims vs 2. Striking here is effective in MMA due to being naked, greased and having the bottom fighter not allowed to grab or use half their strikes. In a BJJ comp a sweep and position is worth less points than a pass and position. If he got the TD to land in guard as well then thats 2 more. Guard pulls aren't without risk either or without requirements. Sitting guard is at a severe disadvantage to a standing opponent as well for reasons I can get into but I said i'd keep it short.
 
I know it’s been said already, but this does make me appreciate Demian Maia more.

He developed competent enough wrestling to overwhelm good wrestlers like Fitch and Story who would have otherwise shrugged off a BJJ player easily with good ole fashion defensive wrestling, and he even took down Rory Macdonald and dominated him up until he gassed out. Maia will always be one of my favorite guys.

But yeah, BJJ aces are a dime a dozen regarding those who come over with such decorated credentials, only to be turned into a butt scooter against anyone with a sprawl, or turned into a sloppy kick boxer who’s just trying to make it the score cards.
 
michi972 said:
I think Ortega simply isn't as talented with wrestling and even if he does a lot I don't see him taking down fighters like Volk, Holloway, Ilia. His striking got him very far.
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Ortega said in some Interview a year ago pr so that he needs to learn wrestling because lack of wrestling is what's keeping him from being a champion. I think he's made some improvements there, but he should have had this realization like 8 years ago.
 
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