How are so many amazing grapplers unable to take the fight to the ground?

The problem is that BJJ is now table stakes. I don't see a BJJ focused fighter ever becoming champion again. The same is increasingly happening to wrestling... All the top fighters have solid defensive wrestling, its the differentiation of the striking that is making the difference. Khabib is a notable exception.
I disagree on the wrestling part ....wrestling is dominating like never before.
 
Why are we not seeing this revision of the leaders of the BJJ community? The Rickson Gracies etc....silence. Very sad. Tyron Woodley vs Rickson Gracie in his prime.....Rickson would be dismantled bij Woodley. BJJ would be worthless.
We are, I just don't think its trickled down yet. You have guys like Gordon Ryan, Craig Jones, Leandro Lo all starting to train wrestling more. Even Danaher said it himself that take downs will be the next evolution of bjj.
 
The Danaher camp in the BJJ community is probably the best camp in really promoting development.
 
I disagree on the wrestling part ....wrestling is dominating like never before.
I have to agree with the guy who said that BJJ and now wrestling have become tablestakes. It's right up the with solid striking defense and a chin as a necessary component to high level mma. However, putting aside Cejudo and Khabib, your best wrestlers aren't using that skillset in any offensive manner, electing to strike instead. People are learning wrestling to avoid wrestling. Can you still call them wrestlers then?
 
Yes ofcourse. Chuck Liddle was a wrestler. Tyron Woodley was a wrestler. Wrestling is the most important foundation in fighting. No doubt. You can use wrestling for defense or offense. Its a control art, not a finishing art
 
BJJ and grappling comps usually do not award a guy keeping it standing. So either one guy is taking the other down or one is pulling guard.

There is no real sense of urgency or need to go full boar into takedowns like in wrestling or MMA.

Look at bjj and no gi matches. The guys aren't super aggressive at taking the other down...USUALLY. Both guys tend to softly play chess instead of driving a single or double.

Not all guys are like that...There are players who will go after it.
 
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mir was the funniest with this. spent all this time getting bulked up, building body mass and muscle and never developed the slightest improvements in his TD game.
 
'cause no wrestling, no judo (or the cross between two + extra spice on top, sambo).
 
Whitaker too but he's talking about guys that started with jiu jitsu
Whittaker won national wrestling championships.

He was also a good kickboxer and has that as a base too. He's a great all-around fighter. He actually has multiple martial arts as bases and that's probably why he's champion. But he does also have a wrestling base.
 
lmfao at the first post wrecking the thread.

Did it ever occur to you TS that just because someone like Max Holloway likes to hit people in the face that he hasn't spend hundreds of hours of his life grappling as a champion of a grappling based combat sport?
Max Holloway trains at landing punches. He doesn't just train to be good at punching. He trains how to get in place to land those punches. He trains distance, timing, footwork, all that. Those are the "takedowns" of striking. Krazy Horse is a guy with excellent punching but poor "takedowns" in striking. He has no distance control, timing, or footwork and so he has a hard time landing his excellent punches.

BJJ guys are amazing on the ground. But they suck at the set up of getting to the ground. They're the grappling equivalent of strikers that just blindly throw haymakers. It's like they're half retarded.
 
But how many of them are actually using their wrestling offensively?
Cejudo- yes
Dillashaw- striking almost exclusively for a while now
Holloway- striker
Khabib- yes
T-Wood- exclusively striking
Whittaker- striker
Romero(since he did beat whittaker)- striking predominately
DC- striking predominately, lots of dirty boxing also
Gus- striker
Jones- i'm not sure he's taken anybody down since chael, at least not done so and kept them there.

It's almost like wrestling is the only martial art that is accepted as a sport, thus it brings in much higher level athletes than other martial arts, and then these higher level athletes who initially dominate using their wrestling realize that striking is just easier and more effective.

Just my 2 cents.

All of them use their wrestling offensively. To set up striking. That's why wrestlers are better strikers than strikers. EG -- Khabib and Conor.

Jones, DC, T-wood, are all capable of taking guys down and winning easily with dominate grappling. Jones especially; incredible takedowns and the best ground and pound (hellbows!) of all time. But it's so much cooler to just win with KNOCKOUTS!! that they win by striking if they can. Even if it's harder. Matt Hughes talked about this. Even though he had the best wrestling, he was always jealous of the guys that could strike because winning by knockout is fucking awesome. See Koscheck becoming a haymaker guy. Etc.

Chael Sonnen was a rare guy that put his ego aside and just used his strength in wrestling with no shame. Just completely abandoned striking and shot for takedown after takedown like Maia did against Woodley. He honestly had mediocre talent even wrestling wise. But just his honesty with his ego brought him to world championships. Tons of much better wrestlers than Chael have egos and, at their own expense of being successful in MMA, want to be the knockout guy.
 
The thing about bjj is you are supposed to engage. Unlike wrestling whereas not getting taken down/controlled is half the sport and “refusing to engage” is simply playing defensively.

Hell, you aren’t even allowed to “slam” people in bjj, whereas as long as you don’t make a fist you can essentially smack/hit people in wrestling (or force an elbow into their throat and forearm across their face).

Haha I used to wrestle and smacking a guy in the face during a collar tie to piss him off was definitely a thing.

BTW i think you mixed up wrestling and bjj. Wrestling encourages engagement. BJJ does not.
 
I'm not denying that at all. I just find it funny how we've kinda come full circle on this. For millennia, striking arts were the predominant martial systems, then UFC, and more specifically, BJJ, turned that on its head. But now that everybody has high level takedown defense, they're all going back to striking. It's too risky and expends too much energy to force a guy to the ground who has a working knowledge of how to prevent it.
I disagree with this. Pankration was very grappling focused and the Greeks practiced pankration as MMA with less rules for a thousand years as their most popular sport. The Chinese used to have NHB fights a few hundred years ago; many Kung Fu arts are grappling oriented. We just don't know that anymore because fighting became illegal in colonial and then communist China. See Tai Chi. Its movements are pacified but their roots are in an ancient submission grappling system.

Every time fighting actually became a sport, grappling -- especially wrestling, if you look into pankration's history -- became a, even the, major focus. We only referenced striking as the major martial arts because, until 1993, no one had actually hosted NHB fighting tournaments as a major sport for hundreds of years. Those that did host NHB fighting at a smaller scale, like Vale Tudo in Brazil, also saw that grappling was a thing.
 
If I am mistaken, forgive my American ignorance, but I am assuming you are referring to collegiate or freestyle wrestling, as both is extremely prevalent in the UFC. I can tell you first hand that "not engaging" in wrestling will get you stalling call. In my experience, stalling calls come fast too. Our refs were brutal about that.

He was drunk and meant BJJ, not wrestling. He typed them wrong in both places lol. American wrestling definitely does not allow "not engaging". That's called stalling. And it's punished with losing points. One of BJJ's major weaknesses is allowing what wrestling (and MMA against the fence) would call stalling.
 
It's almost as if fighters have been practicing a way to not get taken down...
i hate guys like you that believe everything is a complot!!!
Come off it! Next you'll be trying to convince me that some guys cut weight to fight below their weight class or shit like that!
 
I can't believe you put maia in that category. lol. He MAKES it a priority to take his opponent to the ground if you go and watch all his fight. Can't base it on one fight where he couldn't get his opponent to the ground.
 
I have to agree with the guy who said that BJJ and now wrestling have become tablestakes. It's right up the with solid striking defense and a chin as a necessary component to high level mma. However, putting aside Cejudo and Khabib, your best wrestlers aren't using that skillset in any offensive manner, electing to strike instead. People are learning wrestling to avoid wrestling. Can you still call them wrestlers then?
Kevin Lee and Usman to name a few
 
because they train their grappling starting from the ground rather than standing up.
 
So no fighter ever in the history of fighting was sucessful at pulling guard on later rounds?
<{vega}>

Im not denying what you just said makes it harder, but not impossible. Specially for a BJJ master.


If youre talking the same position i recalled myself, there was no way that would have held when Ortega pulled guard. Also, Ortega was burned out and didnt have the arm strength.
Doesnt really have much with being a master or not.
If early in the round, different story entirely, but Ortega wanted to stand...which i was against, personally.
 
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