It may be odd to be reading an article like this only days after former Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier stormed through the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix to win the final against Josh Barnett.
It was a match that displayed some of the bast wrestling ever seen inside the cage, as Cormier picked up and slammed a man built like a brick house repeatedly for 25 minutes.
Since the birth of the sport, as it emerged from the backwaters of Brazil’s Vale Tudo tournaments, wrestlers have consistently dominated. From Dan Severn to Mark Coleman, Matt Hughes, Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar—wrestlers can constitute an MMA Hall of Fame all of their own.
In this light, Cormier’s victory over Barnett is just another stamp of authority from the wrestling fraternity over the sport of mixed martial arts. But looking across the roster of UFC champions and MMA stars fighting currently, we see a different story.
Of the seven current UFC champions, only three wrestled in high school. And while it can be argued that the likes of George St. Pierre and Jose Aldo can grapple with the best of them, it’s their high level of striking that sets them apart.
Even Cormier’s victory in the Strikeforce tournament, it can be argued, owes more to his highly-developed striking than his wrestling. While his match against Barnett was a showpiece of Olympic wrestling skills, for most of the match the Louisiana native relied on his striking as he out-boxed his rival over five rounds.
All of Cormier’s fights so far can be said to have gone the same way. Against Soa Palelei, Devin Cole, Jeff Monson and Antonio Silva, anyone would think that this was an accomplished striker putting a beating on his opponents, and not a wrestler.
In fact, it could be argued, that we are witnessing an era of resurgent strikers in MMA. Fighters such as Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit, Frankie Edgar, Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem have displayed some of the best boxing and Muay Thai ever seen inside the cage. And we’ve seen in fights including Dos Santos against Cain Valesquez and Overeem against Brocck Lesnar, wrestlers totally stunned and incapacitated by high level striking.
But perhaps all this talk of “bases” is already an outdated way of thinking about MMA. It is true that grappling is an essential component of the sport and wrestling is one of the most effective grappling disciplines there is. But the new stars of the sport are the ones who have grown and developed as well-rounded fighters from the beginning. Fighters such as the much hyped Rory MacDonald can claim to have no “base” except mixed martial arts in its entirety.
And even accomplished wrestlers, such as Jon Jones, are quickly developing skills in all disciplines to such an extent that their wrestling backgrounds are becoming obscured.
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