Tag: Jordan Burroughs

Jordan Burroughs has revealed the reason he never transitioned to Mixed Martial Arts despite flirting with the idea for many years.

The 32-year-old has enjoyed one of the best wrestling careers of all-time. As well as winning gold at the 2012 Olympic games he has claimed top prize at the World Championships on four separate occasions.

Speaking to UFC commentator and popular podcaster Joe Rogan, Burroughs revealed that he was seriously considering a move to MMA before meeting his wife who advised him against crossing over into a new sport.

“I’ve been close,” Burroughs said about transitioning to MMA. “Mostly the lady outside, my wife, Lauren is the one who has talked me out of it.” When I graduated from college in 2011 wrestling was in its infancy of marketing and branding and really making it a professional career. MMA was the new kid on the block, and it was growing and expanding, and we had a lot of our guys transitioning in. Henry Cejudo, Ben Askren, Daniel Cormier and so I really thought about it. I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to wrestle in the Olympics in London, 2012, win the gold and the I’m going to make the transition to MMA. I’ll be 25 years old. I’ll have plenty of time and then I met Lauren and she was like, ‘listen, you’re doing well in the sport. Stay here, you are comfortable.’

All these years on and Burroughs is thankful for that advice. Especially when he watches MMA and see the immense amount of damage fighters often take.

“I think about going to MMA until I see a guy like ‘Platinum’ Mike Perry get his whole thing split, nose crooked. I’m like ‘naa I’m good’”, Burroughs said. “In wrestling if you lose you get taken down, pushed out, you get pinned. In fighting you lose you get something broken, choked out, tapped, unconscious. It’s a very different sport, wrestling is scoring as many points as possible with doing the least damage as possible. In MMA I feel like it is different.”

Do you think Jordan Burroughs would have been successful in MMA?