Mixed martial arts is a combination of many martial disciplines, all of which offer specific benefits. Due to the relatively new nature of MMA, many fighters were not educated in cross training. This makes MMA, which is still in its infancy, as much a clash of styles as it is a clash of fighters. For this reason, it is often beneficial to have a strong base style that the fighter has trained in from a young age. There are several popular ones, such as wrestling, boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, karate, and tae kwon do. Wrestling is the most dominant of these for reasons outlined below.
Wrestling leaves certain benefits that the other styles do not; Granted, the other styles also provide benefits wrestling doesn’t, but the ability to quickly adopt techniques in other disciplines is one of wrestling’s strengths. The main advantage that wrestling gives the fighter is the ability to dictate where the fight goes. Very few fighters can take down an opponent as easily as a fighter can. Since fighters have the best takedown offense and defense in MMA, they can effectively neutralize their opponent’s strengths by using their own. An example of this is a fighter who refuses to take down or be taken down by a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. It forces the submission fighter to attack, effectively removing his best weapon.
Being able to choose where the fight goes can seem like a useless skill if the fighter has no other skills. If his boxing is terrible, won’t he risk getting hit by the BJJ guy with equally bad boxing? While anything can happen in an MMA fight, fighters are generally better prepared than other fighters. This is due to their fantastic strength and conditioning, a discipline they learn from a young age and practice throughout their careers as amateur wrestlers. Pound for pound, wrestlers are the strongest and most conditioned athletes in the sport. This gives them a significant advantage in learning new techniques and being better than their opponent in all aspects. His great conditioning increases his hitting power, his ability to take a hit, and his ability to get out of submissions. With a fair amount of cross-training, good fighters can crush even experienced BJJ fighters to the ground.
In addition to the obvious benefits, wrestling also makes it easier to learn other styles. One of the most important aspects of wrestling is having good balance, which is something that helps wrestlers learn boxing and kickboxing. While strong fighters are often not the best punchers in their division, the risk of a takedown, their strength, and strong chins often allow them to overpower the best punchers even on their feet.
While wrestling is the best foundation for mixed martial arts, success in the sport still has a lot to do with the individual. Take Georges St. Pierre and Lyoto Machida, for example. They both come from karate, which is one of the least used basic styles. While GSP has essentially become a fighter, Lyoto still hangs on to his guns and delivers impressive performance after impressive performance. Looking at all of the UFC champions, he’ll find that only two are dominated by fighters: welterweight with GSP and heavyweight with Brock Lesnar. With that in mind, there are a disproportionate number of fighters in the top 10 of any given division.
