Attn American Wrestlers : Brazilian martial arts are still here, and are still the most dangerous.

Wrestling is the best base for MMA. Period. No argument.


This is the common thought process out there. I obviously don't doubt it's one of the best, but there is a wealth of evidence to point to Brazil's continued relevancy in the MMA world. For every Warren over Pitbull and Fitch over Alves there is a counter example of Brazilian martial arts continued success at the highest level.


Jose Aldo def Mike Brown and Urijah Faber
Jacare Souza def Tim Kennedy and Matt Lindland
Feijao def King Mo
Machida def Rashad Evans
Anderson Silva def Chael Sonnen
Junior Dos Santos def Roy Nelson
Werdum def Fedor


The question is do these type of fights represent the last gasps of sprawl and brawl MT fighters and the guard itself, or do they represent a counter evolution of Brazilian fighters that will continue to compete with the influx of wrestlers? I believe it is the latter. The sport has gone through these cycles before. In predator-prey evolution in nature, when a new selective advantage appears in a predator species, immediately counter measures develop in prey species. A big reason Brazilian strikers and grapplers will continue to find success against dominating wrestlers is Brazilian martial arts are finishing arts, where wrestling is not. It's much easier to turn the tide on a wrestler with a triangle or knee than it is for a wrestler to finish the fight with a slam. Factor that with ever improving wrestling from Brazilian fighters like JDS, Feijao, Jacare and especially Jose Aldo, who right now looks like the best wrestler in his weight class(and he's actually a BJJ fighter who operates as a KO artist) and I don't think we can close the book on the best starting point for MMA quite yet.

Honestly I think the problem with the Wrestlers in MMA today is that there are too many of them and the styles are too uniform. Whereas Jiu Jitsu can vary from teacher to teacher and various techniques can have a quirky spin put on them depending on who your up against. If your set to fight an olympic level Greco Roman Wrestler you can find plenty of training partners to bring in to at least help you understand what it is you'll be facing. This doesn't mean you'll win after a few months of training to counter these techniques but there is more out there to work with.

If your about to face a ADCC and BJJ National champion the "box" is now gone. Does he work from guard? Is he a top control specialist? Does he like armlocks, chokes, leglocks, or does he not a true "bread and butter" technique? Having a general idea of what your looking at isn't always enough when facing a high level Jiu Jitsu practicioner. Yes finishes have a thing or two to do with it as well but on the whole I think that while wrestling is the best pure base for MMA, jiu jitsu offers the most tools to be successful.

At the same time, learning takedown defense seems to be easier and a bit less overall time consuming than learning submission defense because submission defense comes in many areas and positions whereas takedown defense is mostly a two position concept in the clinch and shot. However there are those guys who seem almost unsubmittable like Jon Fitch, Tito Ortiz(barring the Guy Mezger fight), Mayhem Miller, Matt Hughes and Diego Sanchez(though Hughes and Sanchez kind of are special cases). Though as you said, Wolf, the jury is still out on what the true absolute best base for MMA is.