It is no secret that I think that wrestling is the most important element of MMA, but what are the differences in wrestling in against wrestlers and wrestling in MMA.
The wrestling I am talking about is Olympic Freestyle wrestling, which in a nutshell means you can do both upper body and lower body attacks ie you can grab the legs. That is compared to Greco Roman wrestling where you can only grab the upper body. When drilling wrestling you are very close to your opponent as most of the time you have your head six inches or closer to your opponent. Almost all the takedowns are set up form inside that six inch distance. You are either looking to clear your opponents arms out of the way or unbalance your opponent in the hope of getting to their legs or back to get a takedown.
You are now going to MMA and trying to execute take downs from striking range which is going to cause some serious problems. Therefore we are going to be looking at this from two separate angles with the first being from a striker who has adopted wrestling and then wrestlers who have moved in to MMA.
As I was a kickboxer with some BJJ who picked up wrestling later this is more or less me. The biggest change is firstly the distance it was very hard to let someone get in that close without lifting your hands to protect your head from a striking instinct. Instead of protecting you head you had to drop your hands to protect your legs from the takedowns. So all it took for a wrestler to take down a striker is to fake a neck grab, or go for a neck grab, so they would lift their hands from instinct where the wrestler would shoot under and get the legs or single leg to get the takedown. Then if you are lucky your BJJ brain would came in and you fall to my back, which the exact wrong thing to do as in Wrestling if you are on your back you lose via pin. So once you have clicked to that little trick it is all about keeping up with the level changes. Once you have some wrestling defence then you can strike with some confidence. Then with confidence you can keep distance more effectively and against a wrestler and that distance is a life line. From a technical standpoint the biggest struggle is changing what foot you had forward. In wrestling you constantly changing stance to set up both defence and offence and to counter your opponents movement. However most strikers w only feel comfortable with one foot forward depending if they are orthodox or southpaw depends on the foot. This means that if you have your right leg forward you do not have to worry about a double leg from an orthodox striker. In MMA this is not such an issue as a lot of take downs are set you using strikes. Using striking to set up takedowns is all about selling a punch or a move to make your opponent react in a certain way to create the opening that you want. To use striking to keep wrestlers away is all about maintaining distance and making the wrestler make the first move. That is you want to wrestler to try and step forwards so you can change your distance and keep them on the end of your punches until they get frustrated and do something silly and then make them pay. However keeping distance is difficult as there is only a limited distance to work in and you get tired which both limit your mobility. This means that sooner or later you are going to have to defend some wrestling sooner or later no matter what.
To make a wrestler an absolute beast all they need to learn is to deal with punches and submissions then they are a nightmare. If you can’t stop the takedown down and then being underneath a wrestler is insane as wrestlers are next to impossible to sweep and their scramble is top class. If you have a wrestler in your guard and they avoid your submissions then you are not going to have a good night. The fundamental skills and mind set in wrestling transition really well to MMA they have an absolute desire to win, which to me is greater than in other sports I have done. It is not easy to deal with strikes and submissions but if they can do it – Watch Out.
When I was competing in wrestling I would focus on my wrestling at all times, even while doing MMA training / sparring and I enjoyed the change and the challenge. Firstly the specific wrestling training was great and the intensity is like nothing else. The reactions you gain and how quickly you can drop your hips was surprising. Then changing the way you spared in MMA was fun. The stance drops drastically and movement is minimised as all you are looking at doing is closing the distance. This is done in two ways either going to them or making them come to you. Working off the jab is the easiest way for both, when going in you use your back hand to parry the jab and you slide and feet in to get close where you usually end up in the clinch. To make them close the distance you need to drag them in by doing something along these lines. They throw a jab you parry it and take an exaggerated step backwards, then you repeat, there is something you see in their body language and you now they are thinking ‘I am going to get you this time’ and they put more on the jab so your drop down for the double leg and they get very frustrated. Once you are comfortable with your wrestling and you can avoid being hit then something great happens. That is you start wearing your opponents down both mentally and physically, once you get hold of them you find yourself going from one takedown to another until you get them down and this is all done subconsciously. Then once you get them down you just smother them, you may even let them get up so you get work the process again. One thing is for sure this takes the heart from your opponent and the fight leaves them like nothing else I have seen in MMA. The other fun thing that happens with the wrestling training is the desire for the takedown, the effort just does not stop until you get the takedown or you are completely stuffed. There is no such thing as too hard in wrestling. Then with the defence you become very hard to takedown as you have wrestling hips. Wrestling hips are very heavy and stay horizontal. By staying horizontal you can’t get rolled over or taken down. Then your scramble becomes better so if you do get taken down you can flatten out your hips (horizontal) and get back to feet which then deflates your opponent. Having this confidence in your wrestling allows you to decide how you want the fight to go as you are comfortable with both your attack and defence.
Overall the range for pure wrestling is closer than in MMA as you have less to worry about, and also less to attack with. Unless you have wrestled a pure wrestler then you have not wrestled as they just have another level that only wrestling training gives you. A good athlete will be able to transition in to most sports it just seems that wrestling transitions in to MMA very very well.
Gareth Lewis
Head MMA Instructor
http://www.Lockdown.co.nz/
