Bad wrestling is enough.

Ysgramor

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Interesting point of view, can't wait to see if he learned enough of it.
 
Khabib is a not a wrestler, however he knows enough wrestling tricks give off that impression.
 
Great points.

Thing is Khabib is not a wrestler, but Combat Sambo fighter who utilizes wrestling, Judo, Bjj.

So grappling will be at least as inmportant here.

As well as movement, distance control and everything else.
 
All these points are valid for any of Khabib's former opponents and he still easily took them down (except for a massive and roided Tibau).
 
Chael's real strength is the ability to talk for 5 minutes about a 30 second topic.

Khabib by armbar.
 
Great points.

Thing is Khabib is not a wrestler, but Combat Sambo fighter who utilizes wrestling, Judo, Bjj.

So grappling will be at least as inmportant here.

As well as movement, distance control and everything else.

Conor's grappling is not that good either. He's decent from the top and knows how to defend himself from all positions, but from the bottom he doesn't have a lot of tools to get up quickly. When people say "wresting" they are usually refering to takedowns, takedown defense, top control and getting up from your back. But a lot of that is 'grappling'.
 
Chael is trying to frame McGregor.
 
What does your avatar mean?

It's one of the main symbols of the band Current 93.







 
What Chael is referring to as bad wrestling, is bad by D1 AA/Olympic standards. Don't get it twisted, what's bad by normal standards is far from enough.

You need a solid sprawl, and plenty of wrestling techniques learned while on the mat can be utilized to create openings for escapes and control (such as a peek-outs, front headlock offense/defense, etc).

Seems like Chael is forgetting about some folk-style techniques that work well in specific MMA situations, and overall just over-minimizing the various ways in which wrestling techniques can be applied.
 
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What Chael is referring to as bad wrestling, is bad by D1 AA/Olympic standards. Don't get it twisted, what's bad by normal standards is far from enough.

You need a solid sprawl, and plenty of wrestling techniques learned while on the mat can be utilized to create openings for escapes and control (such as a peek-outs, front headlock offense/defense, etc).

Seems like Chael is forgetting about some folk-style techniques that work well in specific MMA situations, and overall just over-minimizing the various ways in which wrestling techniques can be applied.

There's A LOT of wrestling techniques that work just as well in MMA, but he said that "almost zero of the set-ups" translate, and I think that's the biggest difference. In MMA you're either shooting from a kickboxing stance, or you're standing straight and tied up in over/under which doesn't resemble pure wrestling.
 
All these points are valid for any of Khabib's former opponents and he still easily took them down (except for a massive and roided Tibau).
True but he's had a lot more trouble taking some fighters down and or keeping them down. For example he took Trujillo down like 21 times, that really just means Trujillo was able to get back up over and over again. Plenty of people have defended his tdd attempts though, Conor just needs to do it consistently. Stopping the first couple attempts is no big deal, Khabib will keep trying.
 
True but he's had a lot more trouble taking some fighters down and or keeping them down. For example he took Trujillo down like 21 times, that really just means Trujillo was able to get back up over and over again

Do you feel like it made the fight any harder for Khabib or that he was in any sort of trouble during that fight? IMO it showed that Khabib has such good TD that standing up didn't even matter.
 
There's A LOT of wrestling techniques that work just as well in MMA, but he said that "almost zero of the set-ups" translate, and I think that's the biggest difference. In MMA you're either shooting from a kickboxing stance, or you're standing straight and tied up in over/under which doesn't resemble pure wrestling.

Nothing in MMA resembles pure anything, if that's the case. It's not pure boxing/kickboxing when you have to tweak your stance in order to defend TDs and kicks. It's not pure BJJ when you have to adapt your guard to defend GnP. Etc...

Sure, a Russian Tie isn't nearly as useful (as you're exposed to strikes if done haphazardly in MMA), but knowing how to herd your opponent into a shot, level change properly, and use their momentum against them to achieve a TD, are all part of the setup. This applies also on the defensive end.

I don't think Chael is entirely wrong here. Just that he went a bit into nonsense territory, trying to impress upon us that he was revealing something secretive.
 


Interesting point of view, can't wait to see if he learned enough of it.


MMA wrestling =/= Amateur / Olympic Wrestling

Chael is mixing the two. There are fighters who are great MMA wrestlers but never had that success on the amateur scene.

With that being said, I doubt McGregor can wrestle with the likes of Khabib.

This notion that "bad wrestling is enough", yea okay.
 
Nothing in MMA resembles pure anything, if that's the case. It's not pure boxing/kickboxing when you have to tweak your stance in order to defend TDs and kicks. It's not pure BJJ when you have to adapt your guard to defend GnP. Etc...

Sure, a Russian Tie isn't nearly as useful (as you're exposed to strikes if done haphazardly in MMA), but knowing how to herd your opponent into a shot, level change properly, and use their momentum against them to achieve a TD, are all part of the setup. This applies also on the defensive end.

I don't think Chael is entirely wrong here. Just that he went a bit into nonsense territory, trying to impress upon us that he was revealing something secretive.

Well Shale gonna Shale.

One of my favorite Shale moment was when he was talking about the missed weight of that female fighter who ws supposed to fight Shevshenko (Erico / Rico something legit can't remember her name).

He wanted to give the % by which she missed weight and goes "I am going to calculate it by head, it's like 7.2% or 7.3%."

At that moment I'm thinking wow, Shale can calculate to such precision in his head and while I was pretty impressed by that, I was missing the big picture, which was that Shale was off in his calculation by a huge order of magnitude, lol.

Later on what occured to me is that I should have noticed that he had totally fucked up his calculation but no, because Shale knows how to make you believe subconsciously that he is always 5 steps ahead.

Love Shale, he is the smartest, most charismatic guy in MMA. That allows him to get away with a bunch of shit, lol.
 
People saying Khabib isn’t a wrestler...

You’re right, if we go by his base coming into this sport.

Training at AKA with the likes of DC and Cain for so many years, he fuckin may as well be classified a wrestler. Sambo is like a mix of wrestling and jiu jitsu anyway. A lot of it is based on control like wrestling and submitting opponents/making them give up like jiu jitsu, judo, etc.

All arts are built off of something else. He’s known as a sambo fighter but that’s like saying GSP isn’t a wrestler because he didn’t enter the sport with it. Khabib is sambo as everybody is saying, but working the guys he’s with, he’s learned a lot of American wrestling that’s been so well adapted to MMA. I dont even want to call him a sambo fighter I’d rather just call him a grappler.

He’s not just sambo. He’s a perfect mix of sambo, high level wrestling, jiu jitsu, judo, etc. The man is a grappling genius.

There’s more to Khabib than just sambo. He’s sambo with everything else included to perfect the art of grappling overall. What ever works.
 
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