Media Which Combat Sport Base or Style is Best for MMA? (I counted)

[tymikeson]

i think the fact that there is no pro wrestling association (other than fake wrestling) skews the stats.


amatuer boxers go to pro boxing
amatuer kick boxers go to pro kick boxing

amatuer wrestlers go to.....pro wres...uhh wait.... mma.


so you have all the best young strikers sticking with boxing (way more money) or kickboxing and ALL amatuer wrestlers who have the desire to compete professionally have no choice but to go to mma.

i guarentee if there was a pro olympic wrestling association that paid just as much as boxing the stats would even out in mma.


accomplished strikers like poaten transitioning over will trend upwards as MMA gains more acceptance in the 'striking' world.

 

[fortheo]

It makes sense that wrestling would be the most represented. UFC is an American promotion that has historically been targeted at americans and they filled their roster with a far, far higher percentage of American fighters than any other nationality. Wrestling is the most easily accessible combat art available for Americans through the public school system, so of course it would be the most represented art in an org where the most represented nationality is american..

If the ufc had a long history of their roster being filled with more koreans than any other nationality, then tae kwon do would be the most popular base art for champions lol. If the UFC was a Brazilian org filled with more Brazilians than any other nationality, bjj would be the most represented etc etc etc.

 

[filthybliss]

View attachment 1037812

Had some free time today and I wanted to create an updated list on which combat sport background and/or base style produces the most champions.
There is an old list out there, but it is extremely outdated.
I made this list based on a combination of the champions prior combat sport history before starting MMA, as well as their primary fight style.
There is a ton of overlap, for instance, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson has an extensive wrestling background, but you would never know it because his style is primarily boxing based. And instances like this I would give 1 point to boxing and 1 point to wrestling.
Another example is GSP, I give him a point for wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and karate. He does not have a wrestling background whatsoever, but his fight style was heavily wrestling based.
The list might still be flawed as I was using a mixture of my own personal knowledge as well as Wikipedia bios, but I think it's 90% accurate at the very least.

Let me know what you think!

I imagine sambo is gonna shoot up just based on how many daegstani mutants are on the come up.

 

[Paolo Delutis]

Historical numbers like these will tend to be skewed because, for a long time, the UFC was overrepresented by wrestlers (i.e., there was a direct pipeline for American wrestlers to transition to the UFC).

Out of the 11 current UFC champions, only 2 are wrestlers. If you want to include Topuria as a wrestler (I wouldn't), that makes 3. Rogan has tricked people into thinking that wrestling is "by far the best base."

Personally, I would say there isn't a "best base" for MMA. It comes down to the individual athlete. We've seen non-wrestlers become the best wrestlers in the sport (e.g., GSP) . We've seen grapplers turn into devastating strikers (e.g., Aldo). And everything in between.

Beautiful post

 

[JustBleed69]

Cool idea and interesting.
I'm not surprised by anything, although I thought that either bjj and/or boxing would be a bit higher, and wrestling a bit lower.

But as you point out, a TON of primarily boxing/striking guys' background is actually something else, and I also feel that wrestling has seeeveral champs on there from the early UFC days when, in a US based promoting especially, wrestling was the de facto background of a ton of cage fighters.

As far as Jiu Jitsu goes, I'm hoping there will be more champs in the future, however, I don't think it will happen until Jiu Jitsu adopts a much better ruleset that actually incentivizes takedowns more. The current sport Jiu jitsu rulesets are god awful, even the better ones like ADCC aren't great.