why do wrestlers make great mma fighters

[MMA MASTER]

1. Skills of being able to dicatate where the fight takes place

2. Athleticism almost all wrestlers are great athletes and able to pick up other skills quickly.

3. Used to the weight cutting and are great weigh cutters.

4. Mental toughness

5. Compition experience usually have compition nerves out of them before they even fight.


Just some of the reasons.

 

[Levi_]

They do great and they do terribly- depending on which wrestler you are talking about. Why are a high percentage of wrestlers at the top of MMA? For the same reason a high percentage of wrestlers are at the middle and bottom of MMA- because that is mostly what is IN MMA. Unlike other martial arts, wrestlers can't make money anywhere else. BJJ makes pretty good money in teaching and tournaments these days, and boxers always made better money than MMA. That's the reason there has NEVER been a top boxer attempting to join MMA- no reason to spend all that time learning grappling when it would make you less money.

I know there are wrestling people here that would have you believe it is because wrestlers are better at MMA, but that is pretty much laughable. Anderson, GSP, Fedor, Nog, Penn, the list goes on and on. It's the fighter and not the combat sport they come from. Striking, wrestling, and BJJ-type skills (sub, sub defense, the guard) are all necessary for anyone who wants to be at the top in this sport.

 

[Congo66]

WTF? The talent pool is HUGE! Countries take a lot of pride in winning Olympic medals and therefor sink alot of money into trying to accomplish that. Every developed and semi developed country has a developed wrestling program. We are talking millions and millions who compete in wrestling. That is alot talent to tap into and why those that rise to the top are so good.

So where are they all then? Football (soccer) the pool is huge, wrestling is a minority sport, in participation terms it's tiny globally.

The UFC has been about for 25 years so go from 1996, how many wrestling medallists have done anything in the UFC? Cejudo, Yoel, Linland so 1x champ and 2 not quite good enough MWs.
Compare that with boxing over the same period but just one weight class. Wlad, Povetkin, Joshua all won Olympic gold. Include HW and you have Usyk and Wilder.

Wrestling is a minority sport where there was no way to make any money, anyone with any sense would be doing another sport.

Ok DC but he was only 4th in the Olympics.

 

[777 Others]

.........................wrestling

 

[abedm]

They do great and they do terribly- depending on which wrestler you are talking about. Why are a high percentage of wrestlers at the top of MMA? For the same reason a high percentage of wrestlers are at the middle and bottom of MMA- because that is mostly what is IN MMA. Unlike other martial arts, wrestlers can't make money anywhere else. BJJ makes pretty good money in teaching and tournaments these days, and boxers always made better money than MMA. That's the reason there has NEVER been a top boxer attempting to join MMA- no reason to spend all that time learning grappling when it would make you less money.

I know there are wrestling people here that would have you believe it is because wrestlers are better at MMA, but that is pretty much laughable. Anderson, GSP, Fedor, Nog, Penn, the list goes on and on. It's the fighter and not the combat sport they come from. Striking, wrestling, and BJJ-type skills (sub, sub defense, the guard) are all necessary for anyone who wants to be at the top in this sport.

what about the wrestling talent pool since its world wide sport and even the poorest ppl can participate as there is no balls or nets or field required

 

[Lift2live]

What an original thread, crazy no one has thought to ask this before

What ever happened to roasting people about the search function, this place has really fallen off

its not a Myo clinic forum, it is a mma disscussion with new ppl everyday

 

[StrikerKing]

So where are they all then? Football (soccer) the pool is huge, wrestling is a minority sport, in participation terms it's tiny globally.

The UFC has been about for 25 years so go from 1996, how many wrestling medallists have done anything in the UFC? Cejudo, Yoel, Linland so 1x champ and 2 not quite good enough MWs.
Compare that with boxing over the same period but just one weight class. Wlad, Povetkin, Joshua all won Olympic gold. Include HW and you have Usyk and Wilder.

Wrestling is a minority sport where there was no way to make any money, anyone with any sense would be doing another sport.

Ok DC but he was only 4th in the Olympics.

I think your talking about 2 different things. I never said or mentioned anything about Olympic wrestlers in the UFC. I am pointing out the fact that wrestling by itself has a huge number of competitors. if we measure talent pool by the amount of people who partake in that specific sport, then wrestling is enormous. The idea that people would be doing another sport for money outside their own is a fallacy in most countries, except for maybe Soccer. People gravitate to what they are good at. Are you saying that wrestlers who have started to gravitate to the top globally should pasue and ask themselves... hmm maybe I should try Tennis or Soccer instead?

 

[Levi_]

what about the wrestling talent pool since its world wide sport and even the poorest ppl can participate as there is no balls or nets or field required

Yeah, that's part of it since you can participate in school, and don't need to pay for private lessons.

 

[mike_2613]

My guess is besides teaching grappling and the Olympics wrestlers don't reallyh ave anything to do. Ronda was living in her car at one point I believe

 

[Paolo Delutis]

an how deep is the global talent pool for wrestling
Every country has some form of wrestling from third world villages to high schools in states

soccer you need a ball with wrestling you just need one more person and seems so natural you see kids wrestle all the time

Many countries try developing very competitive grapplers and wrestlers

Is it the talent pool that allows wrestlers to be great mma fighters an why there seems to be more successful wrestlers in mma then muay thai fighters?

Bro you gotta slow down with the threads.. .This like number 10 today...

Are you new to watching MMA if so... Watch some more... Learn more.. .Post new threads less... Try finding similar topic before creating a new thread

 

[mooseman17]

You get to control where the fight takes place. Also you are already used to weight cutting and the grind of grueling training and starvation. Wrestling develops mental strength.

 

[Congo66]

I think your talking about 2 different things. I never said or mentioned anything about Olympic wrestlers in the UFC. I am pointing out the fact that wrestling by itself has a huge number of competitors. if we measure talent pool by the amount of people who partake in that specific sport, then wrestling is enormous. The idea that people would be doing another sport for money outside their own is a fallacy in most countries, except for maybe Soccer. People gravitate to what they are good at. Are you saying that wrestlers who have started to gravitate to the top globally should pasue and ask themselves... hmm maybe I should try Tennis or Soccer instead?

Thread - why do wrestlers make great mma fighters.
Well they don't seem to. Having a wrestling base clearly helps but being a top wrestler doesn't translate into being a great MMA fighter.

Where are you getting the 'claimed' participation levels in wrestling from? Assuming this is accurate https://www.statista.com/statistics/268028/participation-in-us-high-school-wrestling/ there are about 250k doing it in US schools so there will be a lot less in colleges and there probably aren't even 300k in the US. How many other countries have the same high school/college wrestling set up?

Where do you see any wrestling on television? People won't even try it as there are far more appealing sports that they see on television every day, you don't get the best athletes doing it in the first place so they won't need to decide to change as they never even started doing it in the first place.

 

[kuka45]

because they fight inside cage, at least in UFC, ring won't favor them

 

[bad seed]

most of them have been doing since before they hit puberty. You cant replicate that kind of lifelong adaptation as an adult no matter how hard you train. The rare exceptions like GSP and Whittaker prove the rule.

 

[abedm]

So where are they all then? Football (soccer) the pool is huge, wrestling is a minority sport, in participation terms it's tiny globally.

The UFC has been about for 25 years so go from 1996, how many wrestling medallists have done anything in the UFC? Cejudo, Yoel, Linland so 1x champ and 2 not quite good enough MWs.
Compare that with boxing over the same period but just one weight class. Wlad, Povetkin, Joshua all won Olympic gold. Include HW and you have Usyk and Wilder.

Wrestling is a minority sport where there was no way to make any money, anyone with any sense would be doing another sport.

Ok DC but he was only 4th in the Olympics.

why do people work so hard and pay so much to train for very little reward in other Olympic sports like snowboarding gymnastics and swimming. Unless one wins an Olympic medal there really isn't any money

 

[Tyr XIII]

Theres a lot of reasons actually.

The fact that most martial arts dont even have a basis for how to take a fight to the ground, how to defend against it, or what to do with it at all is a HUGE advantage.
Two, its easily the best martial art when it comes to mental toughness
Three, it promotes actual physical conditioning along side training the art. Most martial arts put technique before weight lifting and running etc. Wrestling puts it all together.
Four, teaches you balances and body control extremely well. Cant say its the best at this, but its def up there.

 

[boyer]

Because its the only martial art offered at most schools in America anyway. Also to be a good wrestler you gotta be a tough son of a bitch. I help teach At our youth program and around here everyone tries youth wrestling. Its shocking really that we get hundreds of kids in our small town. At my high school everybody that thought they were a badass wanted to be on the wrestling team. That kinda sucked since, they made it real hard the first couple weeks to weed out all the guys who just didnt have what it takes. They're definitely going to have to do start doing that here, even at the junior high level.

 

[Coolkid666]

It builds warrior spirit and helps build the little muscles in between the big ones.
Anyone that thinks its "gay" is gay themselves, and weak

 

[RoMeIx]

Speaking from the US, Wrestlers typically begin training at a relatively young age. Aside from learning technique and strengthening your body, you learn discipline and also how to compete.

 

[ermac88]

Most wrestlers have been participating since childhood.

In addition to being a great foundation for mma starting at a young age, were seeeing higher calibre athletes coming from D1 schools etc.