MMA has become a conglomerate of Martial Arts forms that can in many ways be considered a form unto itself. If you want success in MMA you need to be familiar with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, Mui Tai, Kickboxing, and Boxing in the least. Most fighters also demonstrate a familiarity with other forms such as Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Sambo or any number of others. More often than not it is difficult to tell where one traditional style ends and the other begins in a fighter’s repertoire. The days of determining which style is superior are long over. We no longer see pure Jiu-Jitsu practitioners versus pure kickboxers. When one fighter brings a style to the fore it begins to seep into the collective of MMA fight conscious, varying its influence between fighter types, weight classes, and organizations. The most recent example is of course the rising influence of Karate as a result of Lyoto Machida’s meteoric rise in the UFC. It is still how Karate will position itself in the larger MMA landscape but it influence seems an almost certainty in the years to come as more Karate schools are opening up and Karate teachers are in higher demand.
One style is currently changing the game more than any other, but not as a generally new addition to the MMA fighting lexicon. There is something of a second wrestling revolution going on in MMA, new fighters bringing a new level of wrestling that the MMA world is just going to have to adjust to. This new push is coming at virtually every level in the game. The first and most visible manifestation is headed up by the two men who will meet at UFC 116 for the heavyweight title, Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin. Lesnar and Carwin have pushed the division around as of late, making it look easy to hold a guy in place and punch his face off. The brute size and strength at this level of wrestler is giving fits to the UFC’s big boys and is going to force the division to figure out new ways of dealing with this kind of wrestling. Georges St. Pierre brings a different wrestling to the table, one predicated upon speed and world class athleticism. GSP was not raised a high level wrestler but many would argue that he has the best wrestling in the sport today, forcing anyone thinking of competing against the WW division to address thi part of GSP’s game if they want to be the best. Then we come to Rashad Evans, wrestling’s prodigal son. Rashad Evans likened himself a striker until he lost his belt in somewhat spectacular fashion. His road back to the title has featured his wrestling pedigree in a whole new way. The jury is very much out on weather the new Rashad will win any new fans but there is no doubt that wrestling suits Mr. Evans very very well, yielding him one sided victories against Thiago Silva and Rampage Jackson. His victories are not unlike what we saw from Strikeforce champion King Mo as he took the title from then top 5 LHW Gegard Mousasi. King Mo and Suga’ are showing their division just how dangerous big athletic wrestlers can be. Finally, lest we forget, the west coast dynamic duo of Jake Shields and Gilbert Melendez, who recently outwrestled two of MMA’s all time greats in Dan Henderson and Shinya Aoki respectively. Melendez further demonstrated what relentless athletic wrestlers can do in the current MMA and landscape while Shields followed GSP’s lead in incorporating wrestling into his style heavily influenced by other martial arts and his superior athleticism.
It is easy to miss the forest for the trees though. Each case can be easily isolated or countered in light of some case of a top-level striker changing the game. No aspect of MMA is stagnant; everything is always evolving and moving. The point is more about how wrestlers are in a position to make people adjust to them. Every aforementioned fighter is either a champion or in line for a title shot. Wrestlers or fighters heavily influenced by wrestling hold 6 of the 10 major belts in the UFC and Strikeforce, 7 if you count Carwin’s interim title. This represents a full-blown surge in the sport. Fighters must reckon with a new kind of wrestler, one with a better pedigree, who is more athletic, and utilize wrestling in light of other styles effectively. Expect takedown defense to improve over the next few years. Expect new striking techniques that punish shots quickly to creep into MMA as fighters get more creative with how they solve with tpuzzle of wrestling. Personally I expect styles like Sumo, Sambo, and Judo to become more influential as fighters determine how to best use leverage in the clinch and on the ground to deal with some of the problems this new surge of wrestling has been causing. No matter how you cut it, the sport evolves. What it means to be an MMA fighter evolves right along with it. Wrestling is pushing that evolution again and as fighters and coaches deal with the ramifications we can expect a more finely tuned elite sport to emerge out the other end.
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