Daley went the same way as Hardy pretty much. Bisping's grappling is improving. We don't have a wrestling program like the yanks do in college etc so that puts us at a huge disadvantage. We've got loads of Judo classes but it's always be looked upon as a weaker combat sport, which is wrong. We've got Roger Gracie's London Academy. However it's not as accessible as boxing and kickboxing here. Our youth need to start embracing the Judo and BJJ on offer here so we can produce better MMA in the future. Judo teaches awesome stand up grappling and BJJ teaches you great grappling should you be put on your back. At the moment we are producing good strikers who are average grapplers - Daley, Hardy and Bisping (though he seems to really be improving). Even the guys who come to Wolfslair like Rampage and Jackson are not there to concentrate on their grappling.
Yeah we just don't have the interest or infrastructure I suppose in this country. We seem to prefer striking to the ground game (me included). The top guys seem to be improving though. Daley and Hardy both displayed some decent ground defence in their last fights, with Hardy surviving a couple of deep subs from a guy of GSP's calibre and Daley doing well to not get subbed off his back twice and largely keeping Koscheck in half guard.
Brits are gonna get taken down, that's the way it is, we don't wrestle and against the very best wrestlers with explosive takedowns like GSP and Kos there's not a lot they can do. Learning BJJ is so important because even if you can't stop a takedown you can get yourself into a dominant position, get it back to standing or end fights on the ground with it, people won't want to take them down, that's where the uk guys need to make big improvements.
