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

[MMAart]

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.

You made a REALLY great point! Never thought about this!

One overlooked part of a martial art development is the type of high-level full contact competitions there are, and how the competitions are scored will shapes the evolution of the martial art as time passes.

For example, in Karate and Tae Kwondo, the competitions are point based, so over the years, these styles have been fine-tuned for point fighting and not really for real full-contact knockouts that is suitable for real combats like in MMA.

On the flip side, Muay Thai competitions are about who can avoid / absorb damages while dissing out the most firepower to KO the opponents, and thus, Muay Thai's training system evolved into one that focused on top-notch conditioning, simple but powerful techniques.

Getting back to BJJ and wrestling... if BJJ is to evolved into a complete grappling martial art by combining with wrestling, then the competition's rule and scoring system must ALSO combine wrestling's rule and scoring. Such a grappling match would allow and reward for takedowns, slams, control, pins, etc. (like in wrestling) and allows for submission holds (like in BJJ).

 

[migeru29]

Unbelievable that nobody can answer this correctly. BJJ guys suck at standing grappling, they keep pulling guard at tournaments and they literally train 90% of the time just ground grappling. Not only wrestling but Judo, and Sambo are much better at standing grappling than BJJ.

 

[migeru29]

Maia has the 7th most landed takedowns in UFC history. The narrative that he sucks at taking people down needs to stop.

Yeah, and not having a wrestling background, that's impressive but lets be honest here, he's a Judo black belt (just like Jacare) and many of his nice trips TD's are obviously from Judo.

 

[fortheo]

Yeah, and not having a wrestling background, that's impressive but lets be honest here, he's a Judo black belt (just like Jacare) and many of his nice trips TD's are obviously from Judo.

Nothing wrong with that. Part of what makes Maia special was how he blends judo, wrestling, and BJJ together.