I used to think it was a blessing. Wrestling is stressed as a fundamental part of MMA you have to learn to compete, and with MMA's growing popularity, you'd think that it would lead to wrestling also getting more popular. But then I started thinking about how people who have never wrestled before but are athletic suddenly stopping, countering, and in some cases beating accomplished wrestlers at their own game. Seriously...WTF?!?! It would be like some guy who's never thrown a punch going toe to toe w/ a champion boxer and doing well. So, is MMA helping wrestling gain appreciation by the masses? Or is it taking away some of its shine?
Well its incredibly boring to watch in MMA but it does get the job done if you're good enough. So people probably appreciate it for being effective but don't like it as alot of guys just lay on top of their opponent half the time, which is crap.
I dont like when people refer to this as "at their own game." I've done it myself but its a misconception. No one is gonna beat wrestler at wrestling just like no one is gonna beat a boxer at boxing. This is MMA and you must be well rounded. The main thing is to be able to transition very well between stand up and wrestling. There aren't many people who are good at it and those who are you will see them at the top of p4p list. Fedor, GSP, Rampage just to name a few. It is 100% helping wrestling. Thats where a lot of young athletes will start if they are going for MMA. In fact, one of my teammates from high school was telling me that MMA is the only reason he joined wrestling.
Its a been a huge blessing, mostly because USAwrestling has been smart enough to embrace it with no reservations. USA wrestling actually sponsers the IFL and I think some other orgs, is sending representatives to the North American MMA trade show, and is definatly seeing positive results in terms of interest and enrollement. People are beggining to realize that alot of wrestilng and some jiu jitsu is as good or quite often a better mix of training than alot of jiu jitsu and some wrestling. The reason is two fold, the first is that the wrestler will almost always dictate where the fight takes place and more importantly, the culture. The atmosphere that wrestlers train in, entirely based on competitive results, well organized and cheap tournaments, tought either entirely for free, or for very reasonable prices, and without the general system being based around making a quick buck. You can train with the Sunkist Kids, the absolute best wrestling club in the country, basically a breeding ground for world class (in the true meaning of the word, people who can compete and win at an international level) athletes, for $75 dollars a month or $550 for 9 months ($61 a month), and you are training with people who are 100% committed to winning, nothing but winning matters, and you are not surronded by 40 year old divorcee hobbiests. These guys had 7 olympians in 2004 and charge about half of most BJJ gyms when you consider alot of gyms require a year long commitment. BJJ is great, but its culture is ****, especially compared to wrestling's and even boxing's.
I think its a blessing for the U.S. However, I believe Sambo is superior, as far as abilities that can be converted to MMA. Great Sambo practitioners seem to have greater balance by default. I really wonder why we don't see more Russian prospects. Seems like there should be handfuls of them.
As good as Sambo may be, which is incredibly good, its an incredibly small sport, without the infrastructure to really be much of a force anywhere outside of Russia, and even there it pales in size to Judo and Wrestling.
MMA is helping wrestling is helping boxing is helping MMA is helping all of the above. They are all good for each other for building a wide spread appreciation of the fighting sports.
