Early grappling's success vs striking

[the traveler]

I was thinking about the concept of a pure striker vs a pure grappler today and an avenue opened in my mind.

In the early days of mma, those whose main discipline was grappling would had very much success against those whose main discipline was a striking art.

Why was this, though? Almost all fights start standing and because of this grapplers have been trained in the art of getting a fight to the ground. So, without even training in a striking art, they already have somewhat of an advantage over strikers who don't train in ground fighting because, though not specifically trained to perform takedowns against a person who has the rights to strike, they know how to take a standing(striker) fighter out of his domain and into theirs ( This is akin to a striker knowing how to wrestler their way out of the ground and get back to their feet. )

This skill of training to take a person out of their domain and into theirs is something that most strikers early to MMA never did as part of their training because they did not need to do it because in their art the fight is always in their domain. The inability to do this basically was a handicap that strikers had when fighting grapplers.

Another advantage that early grapplers had over strikers is that they trained in keeping their opponent in their domain. It's part of a grapplers art to keep their opponent locked in position in the ground. This is akin to a striker training on a sprawl (ala Chuck Liddell) Striking arts, with the exception of perhaps Mau Thai with it's clinch) never trained on how to
keep a fighter in their domain because their arts never required it.

This is another handicap they had against them.


Everyone claiming that grappling arts are so much more superior than striking arts are not giving you the full story. There is much more that goes into early grapplings success over striking.

It's recently with fighters such as Cro Cop, Liddell, Machida and others that possess the skills that early strikers did not have, that we've begun to see how successfull a person that decides to stay and strike can be against a pure grappler.

With more emphasis being put on sprawling and ground defense and more studies and advancement being done in the area, I'm not so sure that we can just clearly say that grappling is for sure the way to go.

[Xyei]

Good post..

[Equilibrium]

Good post, i would say that in the early days of mma most fighters were not as well rounded as they are now. When the gracies were dominating the scene most fighters were really 1 dimentional, they were either striker, wrestlers, karate guys, judo guys, ect, ect. Hell i even remember seeing a couple of fat sumos in the first few UFC events.

So when a striker would get taken to the ground by a submission guy, he had no idea what he was in for and had no idea how to defend himself in order to not be submitted.

Things changed a lot over the years and fighters have to be well rounded in order to succeed. You can't expect to to good in mma today as a striker if you don't have a ground game and atleast know how to defend takedowns.

[SnoopySmurf]

I remember when Dan Severn had Royce on his back, I thought "well, this is where Dan wants him."

Boy was I wrong.

[1bad65]

First off, that was a good, thought-out post. But I'll touch on this part with my 2 cents.

Everyone claiming that grappling arts are so much more superior than striking arts are not giving you the full story. There is much more that goes into early grapplings success over striking.

When standing, even a good striker can fall victim to a lucky punch thrown by an opponent with no striking training. The good old 'punchers chance'. But a trained grappler vs an opponent untrained in grappling is a little different. He is not going to get submitted, and in a dominant grappling position like mount or back mount the opponent cannot inflict damage on him.

[the traveler]

That's a good point.

[Brave_turtle]

Here my 2 cents.

We've seen more successful grapplers than strikers because MMA has showed us that most of the fight ends up on the ground and that it's easier to take someone by the body than hitting someone right on the button.

That's why I think 1 dimensional grappler has more chance to win than 1 dimensional strikers. Nowadays, people are so well rounded. Good strikers use their grappling skill to defend takedowns while good grappler use their striking to set up a takedown.

[Drunken Cat]

Here my 2 cents.

We've seen more successful grapplers than strikers because MMA has showed us that most of the fight ends up on the ground and that it's easier to take someone by the body than hitting someone right on the button.

That's why I think 1 dimensional grappler has more chance to win than 1 dimensional strikers. Nowadays, people are so well rounded. Good strikers use their grappling skill to defend takedowns while good grappler use their striking to set up a takedown.

I think the last paragraph pretty much hits the nail on the head. However, I think another dynamic that has been in play is that grapplers have also frequently become strikers. For instance, Dan Henderson is a 2 time Olympian, who is undeniably among the very best wrestlers in the sport, yet he is most renowned for his right hand; Robbie Lawler, who is also from a wrestling background, has become a venerable striker who almost never goes to the ground; the Nogeira twins, so renowned for their Ju Jitsu, have developed into two of the most technically fluid boxers in MMA; Norifume "Kid" Yamamote (see my sig.) is yet another top-notch wrestler who has absolute bricks for hands; the list goes on and on.

I think it really just has to do with the evolution of the sport. For instance, more and more high kicks have appeared as of late. I think the sport will continue to evolve at a rapid pace, until it comes to a state where all fighters are proficient in all aspects. Until then, it will continue to be a highly dynamic and evolutionary sport.

[sunthunder]

I think it's important to point out that a lot of fighters who have dominated their divisions through their striking skills often picked up atleast some grappling before becoming dominant strikers.

Chuck Liddell for example, was a division one wrestler before he developed his potent stand-up game. Tim Sylvia wrestled in high school. Rampage was a wrestler first. In the instances where you have fighters who started learning to strike first, such as Machida and Anderson Silva, it's important to note that even these guys started training grappling relatively soon after starting striking.

It's quite rare to have a well established striker come from a purely striking sport like K-1 and pick up defensive wrestling and submission skills late in the game. Crocop is the only fighter to do this and reach the top of the sport.

It works the other way aswell, the Nogueira brothers started boxing before BJJ, but they became two of the best submission artists in their divisions.

To date though, it seems that over-all more grapplers have picked up good striking than strikers have picked up good grappling. But ofcourse, as has been pointed out, everyone is so well rounded, we're almost past the point of discussing successful styles in MMA.