Grappling Wizards

There are several facets to the game of mixed martial arts. With its unique blend of boxing, muay thai, kickboxing, traditional karate styles and grappling, our sport has truly been a revolution in martial arts. Even with all of these variables in play during both training and competition, there is one skillset that can be the difference between winning and losing…grappling.

While being a well rounded fighter is the goal of all fighters, the true goal of a fight is to win. The ability to dictate where the fight takes place hinges on the ability to take opponents down or to prevent your opponent from taking you down.

World class strikers have the ability to knockout anybody while standing.   However, in mixed martial arts the striking prowess of even the most accomplished karate, kickboxing and muay thai specialists can be nullified by controlling his/her opponent on the ground. Wrestling, judo, Russian sambo and jiu-jitsu are the most prevalent forms of grappling in mixed martial arts. The best example of the effectiveness of both bjj and wrestling has to be the fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen at UFC 117. Silva, who is widely considered the best pound for pound fighter on the planet and without doubt the best fighter mma has ever seen, was battered and bruised for almost 5 full rounds by Chael’s dominant wrestling ability. However, Anderson was able to submit Sonnen late in the 5^th round by using… jiu-jitsu.

To the uneducated fight fan who only tunes in to a fight to see the possibility of a head kick or brutal hand strike knockout, grappling can seem anti-climactic and maybe even a bit cowardly. I will not argue that there are some grapplers that employ the game plan of “lay and pray”,  but there is no arguing the effectiveness of the ability to control the pace and place of where and how a fight evolves.

Grappling is an important part of what MMA has become. In the early days of the UFC Royce Gracie was able to beat multiple opponents much bigger than himself because of his ability to take his opponents down and submit them. The realization of the importance of the ground game actually sparked an entirely new aspect that was previously lost on the early mixed martial artists.


Enter two of the most accomplished grapplers in mma, Yushin Okami and Ronaldo Souza. With Yushin Okami’s game hinging on his ability to take his adversaries down and gain complete control and Souza’s ability to take opponents down and finish them via submission, these two men have had great success specifically because of their prowess on the ground.  Even though their grappling styles are completely different, their effectiveness and success are similar.

In Okami’s case, wrestling is his key to victory. He is a huge middleweight who controls his opponents from the clinch and has the skills to control the fight from top position once the fight hits the ground. Okami has beaten some of the most well rounded mixed martial artists in the world by simply controlling them on the mat. With wins over great grapplers like Nate Marquart, Mark Munoz, Hector Lombard and Alan Belcher, Okami has demonstrated time and time again the superiority and effectiveness of grappling over some of the most feared strikers in the game today.

Ronaldo Souza’s success in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is legendary. Commonly referred to as the best BJJ practitioner in the world, “Jacare” instills fear in to his opponents even before they are in the cage/ring. They know once Souza gets them to the ground they need to get up IMMEDIATELY or they will be added to Ronaldo’s highlight reel of submissions.

While striking and knockouts may be more “exciting” than a dominant ground game to some fans, the arts of grappling are an integral tool in becoming successful in mma. When a fighter is concerned with being taken down, his striking is basically nullified simply from the fear of being taken down and being controlled on the ground.

After suffering two straight losses for the first time in his career, a tko loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 134 and a knockout loss to Tim Boetsch at UFC 144, Okami has rebounded with three straight wins over Buddy Roberts, Alan Belcher and former Bellator middleweight champion Hector Lombard. In all three wins in his current win streak Yushin used his wrestling and dominant top game to control the pace and smother his opponents.

Souza, a former Strikeforce middleweight champion, has won his last four fights all by way of stoppage. Not surprisingly three of those four wins have come by way of submission. In his UFC debut on UFC on FX 8, Jacare was able to control tough UFC veteran Chris Camozzi en route to a technical submission by putting Camozzi to sleep with an arm triangle.

Yushin Okami and Ronaldo Souza are rumored to be squaring off soon in the octagon. Although the fight is not scheduled yet and no fight agreement is in place, all fans of the ground game are looking forward to seeing this matchup. The dance between wrestling and jiu-jitsu practitioners is as old as our sport and I, for one, am looking forward to the chess game that is grappling.

Thank you and be safe

Randy Casjens
On Twitter @SavageRandy