Discussion What is holding us back from becoming an MMA powerhouse?

Sep 12, 2007
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The f’ed thing too is all these Americans now are starting to look off the pace compared to these Sambo wrestlers. The Russians are just nuts

Yeh they are goddamn terrifying. I actually texted a mate on Sunday saying "Ive got 6 inches and 30 kilos on Petr Yan but im terrified of him".

I think theres still a bit to be said for the place and circumstances of a fighter shaping some of the qualities in them. No one fights harder than someone raised in a tough, hard, harsh place especially when they are raised with nothing and fight for everything. Its just a different mindset.
 
Sep 12, 2007
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I was in the crowd, when this happened I started yelling "Holly's got her! Holly's got her!", geez it was exciting.
To take a pro wrestling term the crowd popped at that. All 40odd thousand of us were like "OOOOOOHHHHHHH".

I actually remember thinking "jeez thats gotta be demoralizing for Ronda". As Topkent said, Ronda needed to stick to her fundamentals, trying to throw hands with anyone (especially Holly who is still one of the better technical strikers in womens MMA) was silly.
 
Aug 1, 2006
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To take a pro wrestling term the crowd popped at that. All 40odd thousand of us were like "OOOOOOHHHHHHH".

I actually remember thinking "jeez thats gotta be demoralizing for Ronda". As Topkent said, Ronda needed to stick to her fundamentals, trying to throw hands with anyone (especially Holly who is still one of the better technical strikers in womens MMA) was silly.

I dragged my wife along to that event, even she was up on her feet yelling her head off. MMA isn't for everyone but there's no doubt even non fans would have found that fight incredibly exciting.
 

Topkent

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Yeh they are goddamn terrifying. I actually texted a mate on Sunday saying "Ive got 6 inches and 30 kilos on Petr Yan but im terrified of him".

I think theres still a bit to be said for the place and circumstances of a fighter shaping some of the qualities in them. No one fights harder than someone raised in a tough, hard, harsh place especially when they are raised with nothing and fight for everything. Its just a different mindset.

Haha yeah there's all the fighters say theyd be willing to die in the cage, but you reckon the Russians actually mean it
 
Sep 12, 2007
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I dragged my wife along to that event, even she was up on her feet yelling her head off. MMA isn't for everyone but there's no doubt even non fans would have found that fight incredibly exciting.

I give Ronda alot of credit for bringing in casuals and upping the profile of the sport. The only times my non MMA friends wanted to come watch a fight was Ronha (and Conor to a lesser degree)
 
but if we had an ACTUAL wrestler there i have no doubt id have had my ass handed to me.
This. Unless you've grappled with a wrestler you don't know how strong they are. My little brother was an Olympic lever wrestler and judoka and the strength and control he had was crazy. Add to that they know exactly how to use your weight against you too. The last time I even bothered trying to grapple with him was when he was 16 and 75kgs, I had 10 years and 20kg on him and still got owned.
 
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I also remember Robert Whittaker fighting a wrestler (Colton Smith?) and having his lead hand pinned to his hip for the whole fight to help shrug off the takedown. He and his team essentially decided Smith couldnt box with Rob so the only danger of being beaten was a takedown. It was brilliant planning and execution.
I remember that fight, Colton Smith had just come from a really average, bottom of the barrel season of TUF and won purely from being the best wrestler on the season, he was undersized as a welterweight and had no striking or power, but I was nervously watching in hopes that Rob wouldn't let him get too close to be able to clinch with him.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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It seems like we've come a long way as a nation/region since I created this thread in 2019. Volkanovsk has been the UFC champion for close to 2.5 years, Whittaker just fought in a title re-match, Tuivasa looks like he could be one win away from a heavyweight title shot and Crute & O'Neill are both ranked inside the top 15. A few new UFC fighters from Australia have really caught my eye lately as well like Jack Della Maddalena. It's worth mentioning that City Kickboxing in Auckland have done really well lately too with Adesanya, Hooker, Kara-France, Riddell etc. Having these high level kiwi fighters helps us as well.

So what happened? I think we're genuinely at a point where our fighters have improved their wrestling/grappling to a level that's allowed their superior striking skills to shine through over the course of a fight. Tuivasa is an example of this. He is mostly living in Dubai these days and has worked tirelessly on his wrestling/grappling so he'll (hopefully) be ready one day when he needs to use it and now look at him - ranked inside the top 3 and on a five fight winning streak in the UFC. Adesanya is another great example of a guy that came from a striking background and has improved his wrestling/grappling defence so much that his opponents really can't use it as a pathway to victory unless they are considerably bigger than him (see the Blachowicz fight). I think we'll see more and more Aussie/Kiwi fighters coming through over the next few years and following this path of high level striking mixed with an acceptable level of wrestling/grappling.

Special mention to two Gold Coast girls who I think will both be future UFC champions - Casey O'Neill and Jasmine Parr. Most MMA fans will already know King Casey but Jasmine Parr is arguably just as/if not more of an exciting prospect. She is the daughter of Muay Thai legend John-Wayne Parr and Angie Parr. Very accomplished Muay Thai fighter/Kickboxer in her own right and is already a national boxing champion. She's only just started her transition into MMA and wants to make her professional debut later this year, most likely for Eternal MMA. Keep an eye on Princess Jazzy Parr!
 
Aug 1, 2006
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I remember watching Whittaker v Jacare and thinking that the tide was turning and our guys were really learning how to grapple properly.

Props to Tuivasa, I thought he might have just been a fun guy to watch but not taking it too seriously, he's sure worked hard on his game in the last few years and doing all the right things, we're seeing the results now.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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Good time to revisit this thread again now that we have the number 1 (Volkanovski) and number 2 (Adesanya) pound-for-pound MMA fighters in the world. I never thought this would be the case because we can legitimately say that it is unanimously accepted that an Australian is the best MMA fighter in the world but here we are! Shoutout to Tai Tuivasa as well who is now ranked number 3 in the heavyweight rankings and is facing the number 1 ranked Cyril Gane in his next fight. Kai Kara-France deserves some credit for climbing the flyweight rankings as well.
 

burge13

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Good time to revisit this thread again now that we have the number 1 (Volkanovski) and number 2 (Adesanya) pound-for-pound MMA fighters in the world. I never thought this would be the case because we can legitimately say that it is unanimously accepted that an Australian is the best MMA fighter in the world but here we are! Shoutout to Tai Tuivasa as well who is now ranked number 3 in the heavyweight rankings and is facing the number 1 ranked Cyril Gane in his next fight. Kai Kara-France deserves some credit for climbing the flyweight rankings as well.
All for pumping up Aussies but 2 you listed there arent even ours lol.

Volk is the king though
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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All for pumping up Aussies but 2 you listed there arent even ours lol.

Volk is the king though
Confusion aside, City Kickboxing has clearly played a big part in this rise of Australasian MMA fighters. We saw it last week with Aussie Tyson Pedro when he looked as sharp as ever after officially joining CKB a few months ago and of course Volk has been a part of the team for many years as well. Tuivasa also took the big step of basing himself at TK MMA in Dubai and that appears to have paid dividends as well.

I think the way in which we really take this thing all the way is if we're able to establish a super MMA team somewhere in Australia and that would compliment the amazing job they've done across the ditch at CKB. Eugene Bareman is legitimately one of the best MMA coaches in the world and I feel that's a big reason why things have worked at CKB but there's no obvious contenders for an Australian version of that. Perhaps the 2032 Olympics in Queensland are a good opportunity to establish some high level martial arts gyms that could turn into the MMA powerhouse gym we would like to see? I know MMA could be an Olympic sport in the future but even if it isn't included there's still sports like wrestling, taekwondo, judo and boxing that can contribute.
 
Aug 1, 2006
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Confusion aside, City Kickboxing has clearly played a big part in this rise of Australasian MMA fighters. We saw it last week with Aussie Tyson Pedro when he looked as sharp as ever after officially joining CKB a few months ago and of course Volk has been a part of the team for many years as well. Tuivasa also took the big step of basing himself at TK MMA in Dubai and that appears to have paid dividends as well.

I think the way in which we really take this thing all the way is if we're able to establish a super MMA team somewhere in Australia and that would compliment the amazing job they've done across the ditch at CKB. Eugene Bareman is legitimately one of the best MMA coaches in the world and I feel that's a big reason why things have worked at CKB but there's no obvious contenders for an Australian version of that. Perhaps the 2032 Olympics in Queensland are a good opportunity to establish some high level martial arts gyms that could turn into the MMA powerhouse gym we would like to see? I know MMA could be an Olympic sport in the future but even if it isn't included there's still sports like wrestling, taekwondo, judo and boxing that can contribute.

Yeah Eugene Bareman must be some sort of genius. He's built a very close team there as well, they're always cornering each other and supporting in the crowd. In the pandemic Israel had just won a fight (so quarantine there and back) and basically went straight back into quarantine again to corner someone, can't remember who, maybe Riddell?

Anyway if I was an AFL coach going on one of the "fact finding" missions I'd be straight across the ditch to speak to Eugene.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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Yeah Eugene Bareman must be some sort of genius. He's built a very close team there as well, they're always cornering each other and supporting in the crowd. In the pandemic Israel had just won a fight (so quarantine there and back) and basically went straight back into quarantine again to corner someone, can't remember who, maybe Riddell?

Anyway if I was an AFL coach going on one of the "fact finding" missions I'd be straight across the ditch to speak to Eugene.
Gotta be, right? Despite all the disadvantages that come with being based in New Zealand and fighting in the UFC, somehow they've bucked every trend and shown that any gym can become the best in the world if it has the right people. Adesanya and Volkanovski are obviously freak athletes and may have made it to the top regardless of where they train but I feel the CKB fighters like Dan Hooker are the ones that really benefit from Bareman's tutelage.

At this stage it's all about getting as many Aussies and Kiwis as possible into the UFC so they can gain the kind of top level experience that they can pass on to the next generation of fighters in our region and we can continue this for many decades. Look at any sport we've consistently done well in at the international level over the years (cricket, tennis, rugby etc) and you'll see that we've had decades of champion players reaching the top and then giving back to the game after they retire. It might not be obvious now but fighters like Volk, Adesanya and Tuivasa have the potential to set up a complete generational shift towards Australasian combat sports and the really great thing about MMA is you're encouraged to always give back to the team, as opposed to a sport like boxing where you need to be very selfish to make it to the top and there's nowhere near the kind of expectation to give back.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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Joe Rogan often talks about how most current UFC champions come from some form of wrestling background:

Heavyweight: Stipe Miocic - NCAA Div I Wrestler (Cleveland State University)
Light Heavyweight: Jon Jones - State High School Wrestling Champion (New York)
Middleweight: Israel Adesanya - No wrestling background growing up
Welterweight: Kamaru Usman - NCAA Div II National Champion Wrestler (University of Nebraska)
Lightweight: Khabib Nurmagomedov - Wrestling/Judo/Sambo background (Russia)
Featherweight: Alexander Volkanovski - National Wrestling Champion (Australia U13)
Bantamweight/Flyweight: Henry Cejudo - 2008 Olympic Wrestling Gold Medalist
Women's Featherweight/Bantamweight: Amanda Nunes - BJJ background (Brazil)
Women's Flyweight: Valentina Shevchenko - Judo black belt (Kyrgyzstan)
Women's Strawweight: Zhang Weili - Shuai Jiao/BJJ background (China)
This is an interesting anecdote to revisit now that things appear to be changing since the end of 2019 when the above was posted.

Heavyweight: Francis Ngannou - No wrestling background growing up (boxing)
Light Heavyweight: Jiri Prochazka - No wrestling background growing up (kickboxing)
Middlweight: Israel Adesanya - No wrestling background growing up (kickboxing)
Welterweight: Leon Edwards - No wrestling background growing up (muay thai)
Lightweight: Islam Makhachev - Wrestling/Sambo background
Featherweight: Alexander Volkanovski - U13 National Wrestling Champion (kickboxing)
Bantamweight: Aljamain Sterling - NCAA Div III wrestling background
Featherweight: Deiveson Figueiredo - Folk wrestling background
Women's Feaherweight/Bantamweight: Amanda Nunes - BJJ background
Women's Flyweight: Valentina Shevchenko - Judo black belt (Kyrgyzstan)
Women's Strawweight: NAIA wrestling background

The heavier men's divisions appear to be swinging towards strikers and wrestlers seem to have less influence in those weight classes. Will the lighter divisions follow suit or is this just reserved for the heavier divisions? My theory is that strikers like Ngannou and Adesanya were able to develop their wrestling/grappling to a point that they can successfully neutralise a wrestler's strengths by stuffing takedowns or scrambling enough to not get finished and that has allowed them to have more influence with their superior striking.

What do you think?
 
Sep 12, 2007
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Honestly outside of Islam and Aljamein the lower weight class backgrounds aren’t really what Joe was talking about.

Volk, Fig, Nunes and Val aren’t what anyone considers wrestling first or even trained wrestlers (not anymore than anyone in MMA).

I also think Joe made those comments a while back now and he was focusing on the discipline and “grind” life that wrestlers are accustomed to (train, recover, weight management etc). That professionalism has developed now and is the bare minimum expected of anyone at UFC level now, so the advantage wrestlers used to have in professionalism is gone.

Mma is still so young that strategy and trends will continue to develop. Fwiw when I trained I thought the judokas had the best versatility, strength and endurance. Those guys and girls were absolute savages, that’s the background I think develops the best guys.
 
Aug 1, 2006
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Honestly outside of Islam and Aljamein the lower weight class backgrounds aren’t really what Joe was talking about.

Volk, Fig, Nunes and Val aren’t what anyone considers wrestling first or even trained wrestlers (not anymore than anyone in MMA).

I also think Joe made those comments a while back now and he was focusing on the discipline and “grind” life that wrestlers are accustomed to (train, recover, weight management etc). That professionalism has developed now and is the bare minimum expected of anyone at UFC level now, so the advantage wrestlers used to have in professionalism is gone.

Mma is still so young that strategy and trends will continue to develop. Fwiw when I trained I thought the judokas had the best versatility, strength and endurance. Those guys and girls were absolute savages, that’s the background I think develops the best guys.

Yeah I do forget how young MMA is too sometimes. A year or two ago I didn't really think any grapplers were going to come in and dominate a UFC level fighter anymore, I figured those days were gone. Then a guy like Makhachev comes in and you're wondering how he's on that level, and how many others are we don't know about.

Also Pereira coming in and getting a shot now as well, he sort of was given a good path to the shot given the history but he's still there. There are also quite a few coming in from Glory and other kickboxing orgs, this is great for the UFC to see this level of striking in MMA.

I'd love one day to have prime boxers say like Bivol coming across to MMA. Clearly a boxer probably needs to add more skills to their kitbag to compete but that for me would be incredibly intriguing. It's not as easy to "drill TDD for a full year" I don't think but I hope it happens one day.
 

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Norm Smith Medallist
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I'd love one day to have prime boxers say like Bivol coming across to MMA. Clearly a boxer probably needs to add more skills to their kitbag to compete but that for me would be incredibly intriguing. It's not as easy to "drill TDD for a full year" I don't think but I hope it happens one day.
The question is - is it harder to learn high level grappling/wrestling defence or high level striking offence in your adult years? Volk and Adesanya's recent success seems to suggest it's more difficult for a grappler/wrestling to learn high level striking offence than it is for a striker to learn high level grappling/wrestling defence.

It doesn't really matter if your grappling skills are average as long as you're able to defend the takedown well and you can scramble. We've seen that with Adesanya and the only guy that was able to make him look average in the octagon to date was Blachowicz which was mainly due to the weight advantage IMO. No middleweight has actually made Adesanya look bad and I feel you can say the same about Volkanovski at featherweight.

Too much money in boxing for a high level boxing to make that switch but I feel we're going to see many more kickboxers making the switch to MMA due to there being very little money in kickboxing compared to MMA.
 
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Norm Smith Medallist
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Probably a good time to revisit this. Our very own Alex Volkanovski proved last weekend that the high level Dagestani wrestling style can be beaten, even if you're giving up a weight/height advantage. This is a really significant moment in the history of MMA because for a while there it looked like no one would be able to touch these guys if they got anywhere near their respective division's title. Volk is obviously a generational talent but at least now we know it's possible (particularly for a striker) so that's very exciting for fighters from our part of the world. I've always thought that if fighters from our region could just find a way to neutralise wrestling/grappling then their superior striking will shine through and Volk seems to be the first one to do that at a really high level. I really hope this is the start of Australian wrestling upgrading to a much higher level (at least defensively).

Think like Volk. Train like Volk. In Volk we trust.
 

RobbyRoy

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Probably a good time to revisit this. Our very own Alex Volkanovski proved last weekend that the high level Dagestani wrestling style can be beaten, even if you're giving up a weight/height advantage. This is a really significant moment in the history of MMA because for a while there it looked like no one would be able to touch these guys if they got anywhere near their respective division's title. Volk is obviously a generational talent but at least now we know it's possible (particularly for a striker) so that's very exciting for fighters from our part of the world. I've always thought that if fighters from our region could just find a way to neutralise wrestling/grappling then their superior striking will shine through and Volk seems to be the first one to do that at a really high level. I really hope this is the start of Australian wrestling upgrading to a much higher level (at least defensively).

Think like Volk. Train like Volk. In Volk we trust.
You're definitely right in that Volk showed it can be beaten (well, the actual wrestling side of it anyway), but just training like Volk isn't going to be enough. Volk has the naturally low base, strength beyond most LWs let alone BWs, and some of the best stamina the fight game has ever seen. Whether those latter two attributes are down to his history of playing high-level sport at a much higher weight I'll leave for now.

More generally though, there has always been a dominant force in the MMA in terms of style. And there has always been an antidote, even if it takes a decade to come along. Aussie MMA will continue to improve for the same reason the likes of England, China, Mexico etc will; increased participation from a young age.
 
Probably a good time to revisit this. Our very own Alex Volkanovski proved last weekend that the high level Dagestani wrestling style can be beaten, even if you're giving up a weight/height advantage. This is a really significant moment in the history of MMA because for a while there it looked like no one would be able to touch these guys if they got anywhere near their respective division's title. Volk is obviously a generational talent but at least now we know it's possible (particularly for a striker) so that's very exciting for fighters from our part of the world. I've always thought that if fighters from our region could just find a way to neutralise wrestling/grappling then their superior striking will shine through and Volk seems to be the first one to do that at a really high level. I really hope this is the start of Australian wrestling upgrading to a much higher level (at least defensively).

Think like Volk. Train like Volk. In Volk we trust.

Volk actually has a wrestling pedigree - he was Australian freestyle champ (or something like that) as a teen. Great decision on his part to include Craig Jones in his camp too as he's probably the highest level Aussie grappler of any discipline.
 
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