UFC Fight Night 22 Quote of the Day: Charles Oliveira: Jiu Jitsu Is Above Wrestling

There isn’t really much point in training to stop Escudero from taking him down on such short notice anyway. Might as well and try and accentuate what he’s already good at.

The thing that frustrates me as a wrestler and BJJ competitor alike is how bad takedowns must BJJ fighters tend to have. Of course a good BJJ guy can sweep or submit off his back but it’s becoming more and more of a rarity these days and even if it weren’t; the purpose of a sweep is to reverse into a dominant top position. Why not take your opponent down in the first place instead of having to go through the process of setting up a sweep? Of course wrestling and BJJ are two different sports but it’s folly to think that simply pulling guard or working the bottom game in BJJ is anywhere close as effective as it was in the old days, especially in MMA where being on one’s back is even less desirable than normal.

I Like the cut of his jib! +1

From the James Toney school of fight planning

that’s funny, I actually had a conspiracy theory earlier today that the reason why so many jj prospects are being signed (check the newcomers on the undercard for UFN 22) is because they are looking for someone to take out the wrestlers

At lower levels of competition, you don’t necessarily need wrestling, especially with a super-active guard like Oliveira’s. Efrain’s probably going to give him a wake up call, though.

Carry on.

But he better drill a sub set up off a takedown like a motherfather if he’s going to have that mindset about it.

If you lived in bizarro world where you could only study EITHER BJJ or wrestling, and the same was true for everyone else, BJJ is a much better choice.

But Charles here doesn’t live in that world, and all the BJJ isn’t going to help him against a dominant wrestler who knows enough not to leave an arm or a leg hanging out.

Escudero just wanted to hump me like a bitch. Wrestlers are ruining MMA.

This makes me like Charles even more!

You’d think that in a year in which “one-dimensional” fighters like Werdum and Sonnen put in some of the best performances of their careers that people would get over this fetish for “well-rounded” fighters.

The conventional wisdom is that there is going to be this great convergence of skills sets in MMA. There will be some. But not nearly as much as people think. There will still be “one-dimensional” fighters and, more importantly, “one-dimensional” champions, for years to come.

The top game in wrestling is totally different than in MMA, and for the majority of the technique isn’t really applicable at all. There are take-downs for jiu-jitsu that in overlap with wrestling take-downs, and depending on how liberally you cram things in under the jiu-jitsu umbrella/borrow from other areas, jiu-jitsu could cover a lot of ground. Most BJJ/JJ teachers will teach you how to shoot/defend shots. I think saying that BJJ ground game is better is not that crazy.

The point that would be crazy is ignoring reality. Because wrestlers spend much more time working take-downs and don’t have to worry about dividing their time with gi/no gi technique and practice, they are generally more elite at this area. And even if the technique is not applicable for top control there are mma trainers who can mold a top control gameplan that focuses on a wrestler’s trained advantage in positional control. Just because there is more technique in BJJ that is directly applicable to MMA’s ground game doesn’t mean a thing when faced with an opponent who is exceedingly good at a few specific areas and has trained themselves mentally and physically to be ready to carry out that game-plan not matter what. And not having a single person with wrestling expertise at your camp is just ridiculous at this stage in the game.