centrality of grappling

White_Savage

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Alot of people, seeing that the number of people K.Oed standing in MMA events is often exceeding the number grounded'n'pounded or submitted, seem to think grappling is waning in importance in MMA.

WRONG

Like I try to explain to the grappling un-iniated who watch this sport, you can never be a great striker in MMA without FIRST being a good grappler. You've got to have an excellent takedown defense, and the confidence in your ground skills if taken down, if you want to stand a prayer of a chance of KOing a guy determined to put you on the mat.

The best example of this is the most famous MMA striker of all, Chuck Liddell. His ability to avoid being taken down and to stand back up is legendary.

Time to time, I hear people debating how well various MMA strikers would do in regular boxing/kickboxing-what is more pertinent IMO, is asking whether boxers and kicboxers have the high level defensive grappling to avoid being easily destroyed by grapplers, as was the striker's usual fate in early MMA events. Edited by: White_Savage
 
Spot on. Any top boxer with no grappling skills is dead meat against a
guy who can take him to the ground - ground and pound. MMA guys
have to be very well rounded today - they can put themselves in position
to strike. Try to imagine Tyson in his prime fighting Matt Hughes or
Couture or whomever
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.I really enjoy the MMA events as they
haven't been infected (well, most of them) by the caste system. Yet,
anyway. I'll give credit where credit is due, but the 'gatekeepers' have so
much control in boxing, the NFL, NBA, MLB and so on, it's good to see
athletes in a situation where they apparently make or break it all on their
own.

The new season of "TUF" starts tonight - I hope it hasn't been PC
'sanitized' for the masses.
 
The new season of "TUF" starts tonight - I hope it hasn't been PC 'sanitized' for the masses.

You can check out the new fighters on the UFC website. There are a couple of black guys, one Hispanic (I think), and the rest are white. A couple of them have some serious MMA experience already, according to their bios anyway.
 
Great point guys! I should've read this thread before mentioning Liddell's take down defense in the other thread. Beat me to the punch... no pun intended.
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The fight between Marcus Davis and Joe Stevenson proved your point. If you can't grapple or sprawl you are not going to last long against a submission guy.
 
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