Why do people think grappling arts always beat striking arts?

[Kickboxer101]

agree to an extent. rousey's striking may not be at the level of a holly holms. but it's good enough to beat the crap out of pretty much anyone on this forum.

Maybe against pure grapplers with 0 striking but her striking isn't good at all

 

[Ironbear24]

agree to an extent. rousey's striking may not be at the level of a holly holms. but it's good enough to beat the crap out of pretty much anyone on this forum.

That's not much of an argument because she took other things besides Judo and bjj. Everyone in that fighting circuit covers all aspects now.

 

[Ironbear24]

Maybe against pure grapplers with 0 striking but her striking isn't good at all

That was pretty bad. Then again she may have just warming up? Either way I kept expecting the pizza delivery man or plumber to come in and well, finish the film.

With that music and the other women in a bathing suit that's the hilarious vibe I got from the video.

 

[Kickboxer101]

That's not much of an argument because she took other things besides Judo and bjj. Everyone in that fighting circuit covers all aspects now.

Nope I don't think she does. Read her book she trains at a boxing gym with a coach that tells her off for throwing kicks. Her coach is a joke she got the crap kicked out of her in her last fight and in between rounds the coach said she did amazing and to keep doing what she's doing. That coach has also lost his corner man license yet she still trains with him

 

[Kickboxer101]

That was pretty bad. Then again she may have just warming up? Either way I kept expecting the pizza delivery man or plumber to come in and well, finish the film.

With that music and the other women in a bathing suit that's the hilarious vibe I got from the video.

Nope that's pretty much her boxing take a look at this fight. Yes she got the finish but only because the other girl was awful. She relies on her strength and intimidation more than anything

 

[Flying Crane]

I see this a lot lately and most of it does come from the mixed martial arts, UFC fan base and to be honest. (Not referring to this forum) I am getting very tired of it, yeah I get the gracie's have their videos of them beating people from multiple styles. Then they use that as some form of crucible that bjj is the best thing ever and everything sucks in comparison.

When in reality what the videos prove is that, hey this family is very talented at what they do. Good for them, in fact that is a very great thing for them, but even they lose sometimes.

I will admit when I had to just wrestle with friends, meaning no striking. I did terrible, then they would say oh what happened to your kenpo? My response was ok want to spar then? They immediately said no which of course was because they don't want to get hit.

People are more prone to wanting to try wrestling arts compared to something where you strike eachother for this reason it seems. Then I got into higher belts in kenpo and they started showing us Judo, and my hate for grappling, or rather dislike for being in such close contact (hugging and rolling) with others went away.

I then realized that I like both, in fact I love them both, I have my preferences sure. I prefer to punch lock and elbow but that moment I tossed someone to the ground for the first time I thought to myself "whoa! I did that!?" Then the Sihing smacked me for standing there dumbfounded and ordered me to do the rest of the technique.

Anyway I had a little too much of my medication so thats why this is long winded. My point is I guess the grappler does not have some rock paper scissors advantage, just because he or she is a grappler. In fact they might be at a disadvantage vs a very talented striker becuase after all, you have to close that gap to grab them and be quick enough to grab a limb.

It is also risky as you can take a mean hit to the face, ribs ect when you are trying to land that grab or takedown. So because of this inherit disadvantage of reach, and after all, it can only take a few or even one good hit to the head and you are done. Why all this attitude of grappling art is better than a striking art?

It is a case of ignorance?

I can't speak to other people's perceptions on this. I'm not going to justify my own. But when I see questions such as this one, upon which this thread is based, I can't help but feel like someone is trying to justify doing what they do, and looking for validation.

You don't need validation. Do what you like, do what interests you, and the debate over it won't change anyone's mind so it might not be worth engaging in.

Sometimes ya just gotta say "meh."

 

[Juany118]

If you want to see a female UTC fighter who can strike...

 

[Ironbear24]

Nope that's pretty much her boxing take a look at this fight. Yes she got the finish but only because the other girl was awful. She relies on her strength and intimidation more than anything

So if she has a dedicated boxing coach why is she so bad at it? Ideally this would be a good idea. Her grappling is great so she would need striking.

 

[Kickboxer101]

So if she has a dedicated boxing coach why is she so bad at it? Ideally this would be a good idea. Her grappling is great so she would need striking.

Because he's an awful boxing coach even rouseys mother says he's awful and she's the only high level mma fighter who trains with him he seems to just be a yes man tells her what she wants to hear so he can get his cut of the fight purse. In rouseys book she said he completely ignored her when she first went in the gym and she asked him to hold mitts for her and he refused and he only started paying her proper attention when she got famous

 

[drop bear]

So if she has a dedicated boxing coach why is she so bad at it? Ideally this would be a good idea. Her grappling is great so she would need striking.

It is relative. Bad at it by ufc terms.

Holly holms is trained by greg Jackson. Who is about the best coach.

 

[Steve]

I think there are some delusions of grandeur up in this thread. . It's easy to kibitz from the sidelines, but there are degrees of skill. Compared to other elite level fighters, rousey is t a great striker.

 

[Steve]

That's not much of an argument because she took other things besides Judo and bjj. Everyone in that fighting circuit covers all aspects now.

It isn't much of an argument, because it's not an argument. It's an observation. An argument is something else.

 

[Steve]

If you want to see a female UTC fighter who can strike...

Technically, a strikeforce fighter. Carano has never fought in the UFC. She was a heck of a striker, though,

 

[Juany118]

Technically, a strikeforce fighter. Carano has never fought in the UFC. She was a heck of a striker, though,

Okay, I'll give ya the first bit . What impressed me most about her was that she did something a lot of fighters don't against grapplers. She was really good, when she saw it coming, of getting her back against the cage. That forced a 2 leg take down and when they would go to lift they would lift her into the cage. They she either just pummeled em or reversed the take down. I love watching fighter who clearly have "a plan" versus those who play it by ear.

 

[Skullpunch]

Because of ufc fanboys who don't understand anything else. Yes jiu jitsu was very effective against every style in 1993 but look at Gracie vs Hughes same weight and Hughes style was wrestling so it should be easy for Gracie to sub him but he never tried 1 submission. Basically the sport passed him by. All the old ufc and those videos of Gracie were against people who'd never heard of jiu jitsu these days people know the style even if you never trained you know what an arm bar is or a triangle. All the talk about striking being useless is nonsense look at the ufc stipe miocic is a former boxer, Jon jones was originally a wrestler but most of his success is due to his striking now, robbie lawlor a straight up brawler, connor mcgreggor a striker with awful wrestling and jiu jitsu, Dominic cruz former wrestler but mainly strikes these days. All ufc champions where striking is their base

Also plenty of former champs as strikers bas rutten, chuck liddel, rampage Jackson, forest griffin, shogun, lyoto machida, Anderson silva, anthony pettis all people who have had great success with striking backgrounds

This is about as biased of a post as one can possibly make here, the number of “inconvenient-to-your-narrative” factors that you’ve conveniently omitted is staggering.

First of all Gracie vs. Hughes. Hughes has stated multiple times that during his title run he trained no gi jiujitsu with Jeremy Horn - who was mostly a no gi jiujitsu guy. Hell, in the very post fight interview of the fight when asked if he was afraid of Gracie’s submissions, Hughes said “not really, I train with Jeremy Horn everyday and he’s one of the best submission guys out there”. Additionally, Hughes is a lot stronger, faster, and better conditioned than Royce was in his PRIME. In this fight Royce was 40 years old and hadn’t had a high level fight in about 6 years.

Second, who the hell is saying striking is useless? The closest I’ve heard to any legit MMA fighter saying that is “striking is useless against a grappler if the striker isn’t a good grappler himself”, which is entirely true. But that’s a far cry from saying “striking is useless”. Unless you’re specifically criticizing the .001% of the dumbest mma fans out there, this is a horrible strawman argument.

Every single one of your examples are seriously biased. You conveniently left out that Stipe Miocic was a Div 1 wrestler, which is a WAY higher wrestling achievement than anything he achieved in boxing. Jon Jones succeeds in striking because his wrestling is good enough to keep/take the fight wherever he wants. Without his grappling he would be getting taken down and choked out in the first 30 seconds against every single opponent he faced, this is very basic knowledge about MMA btw. For an example of this check out Stefan Leko’s success (or lack thereof) in MMA, he is a far superior striker compared to Jones, yet he kept getting taken down and submitted by little japanese pro wrestlers because of his lack of wrestling/jiujitsu. Lawler is not a straight up brawler, he was a straight up brawler in 2002-2004 when he was getting beat up by every well rounded guy he faced, now that he’s a well rounded guy himself he’s a bamf. Tank Abbot is a straight up brawler, and the differences between he and Lawler are obvious. Conor McGregor does not have awful jiujitsu, he’s a brown belt under John Kavanaugh. No, he isn’t world class but he isn’t “awful” either. And of course the same logic that applies to Jones also applies to Cruz. Without their grappling ability they would be nothing, they would fare no better than the TMA guys with no ground game from back in UFC 1-7 ish

On your former champs…two of the guys you say have a “striking” background actually have a wrestling background and refined their striking as they went, 4 of them are bjj black belts (one more on top of that is a brown). Then you have Bas Rutten, who does have a striking background, this is true. However, it’s also true that the man himself will tell you (as he has stated multiple times) that all of his early career failures were due to a lack of grappling, and after getting taken down and submitted in 30 seconds against Ken Shamrock he began obsessively training his grappling. And after his grappling became on par with his striking…he became a world champion.

And this is all without even taking into account all of the rules that the athletic commission had to add in order to make it so that the grapplers weren’t just killing everyone so that the strikers actually had a chance in order to make it more entertaining and draw larger crowds (mandatory gloves, referee standups, referee clinch breaking, mandatory rounds which = free reset every 5 minutes, 3-point ground striking rule which completely fukks the old school vale tudo open guard, etc all greatly benefit the striker).

 

[Ironbear24]

Nope that's pretty much her boxing take a look at this fight. Yes she got the finish but only because the other girl was awful. She relies on her strength and intimidation more than anything

Sounds like her boxing coach is a charlatan.

 

[Juany118]

This is about as biased of a post as one can possibly make here, the number of “inconvenient-to-your-narrative” factors that you’ve conveniently omitted is staggering.

I think you are both on the same page, I just think verbage is creating a wall. That said Plenty of grapplers, not the Gracies of course (well maybe Royler had some striker issues), got beat in early MMA. The Gracies dominance imo only showed the following to be true; "Well trained and knowledgeable grapplers beat naive strikers." The Gracie's had skill AND patience. One of the reasons they loved no time limit fights is that strikers would get impatient, even say "screw it" and take the bait if a Gracie was trying to get them to "come down" to them, regardless of their preparation (or lack there of) for the ground game. That said, eventually Strikers started to prepare but a striker doesn't have to train to actually engage full on in a ground game to end their naivete', they can train to avoid/neutralize a ground game so they can keep the fight to their strengths.

It is this transition, where strikers basically "caught on" and started to prep that the Gracies finally stepped away. The family is almost all about BJJ, and understandably so and when the fighters started to become more well versed in dealing with the ground game, they stepped away.

I think we also have to differentiate between the ring/octagon and the street when it comes to grappling though.

The above "well rounded" bit is why I study not just Wing Chun but FMA (Kali in my case). Kali while not focusing on a ground game like wrestling or BJJ definitely has it in the system, and both have Chin Na (locking techniques) but the main reason I am glad for a ground game in Kali is to use that knowledge to avoid, or get out of, the ground game if possible because. Ground fighting certainly works in the ring, I find it risky as hell on the street in real life.

If I am fighting a guy his friends may well move to intervene, if I am ground fighting I am vulnerable to them, if I disengage I am, at least temporarily, vulnerable to all of them. Also there is a difference between doing many of the take downs some grappling arts have on the surface inside of the ring vs on concrete, a tile floor etc.

I also have some occupational specific issues. If I go to a ground game I may not be able to get to certain tools, hand cuffs most importantly because if I am fighting someone, somebody is going to freaking jail . It can also leave me vulnerable to someone trying to get my taser, gun, OC, or baton etc.

If people tell me "I am learning BJJ for self defense" I say

cool, but make sure you are training to try and deal with the guy in a 'stand up' way as well because if you are in a bar and he is with his buddies, it's not going to be like the movies where the buddies stand back so ya'll can have a 'fair' fight. If they see their friend is getting his *** handed to him, they will be incoming and if you are already on the ground you are S.O.L

 

[drop bear]

I also have some occupational specific issues. If I go to a ground game I may not be able to get to certain tools, hand cuffs most importantly because if I am fighting someone is going to freaking jail . It can also leave me vulnerable to someone trying to get my taser, gun, OC, or baton etc.

It is very rare that you will see a guy fight handcuffs on to another guy standing. It is most of the time too akward.

 

[Skullpunch]

What does all of this say? Plenty of grapplers, not the Gracies of course, got beat in early MMA.

They got beat by OTHER GRAPPLERS, that does absolutely nothing to vindicate any of the claims in the post I quoted above.

That said, eventually Strikers started to prepare but a striker doesn't have to train to actually engage full on in a ground game to end their naivete', they can train to avoid/neutralize a ground game so they can keep the fight to their strengths.

It is this transition, where strikers basically "caught on" and started to prep that the Gracies finally stepped away. The family is almost all about BJJ, and understandably so and when the fighters started to become more well versed in dealing with the ground game, they stepped away.

But the only way they could even do this was by extensively training wrestling and jiujitsu, everything else they tried didn't work. So what this leaves us with is "boxing + muay thai + wrestling + jiujitsu > jiujitsu", but the question in the OP is just "grappling vs. striking". The scenario you're describing is "well rounded fighter vs. grappler".

I think we also have to differentiate between the ring/octagon and the street.

In the context of the post I was quoting? Not really…but I'll point one thing out below.

Ground fighting certainly works in the ring, I find it risky as hell on the street in real life.

There certainly is risk in going to the ground in a street fight, that actually INCREASES the need for grappling. The best way to prevent a fight from going to the ground is to be a better wrestler than your attacker. The second best way (other than being able to outrun your attacker or have a gun on you) is so far behind this that it's not even worth mentioning. The best way to get off the ground if you end up there incidentally or for whatever reason is to be a better ground grappler than your opponent. Again, the second best way beyond this is so far behind that it's not even worth mentioning.

 

[Juany118]

They got beat by OTHER GRAPPLERS, that does absolutely nothing to vindicate the absurd claims in the post I quoted above.

Not really because, as an example, even other members of the Gracie family confessed that Royler had issues with kick boxers. Doesn't mean he lost to them consistently but fighting is a lot more than style vs style.

But the only way they could even do this was by extensively training wrestling and jiujitsu, everything else they tried didn't work. So what this leaves us with is "boxing + muay thai + wrestling + jiujitsu > jiujitsu", but the question in the OP is just "grappling vs. striking". The scenario you're describing is "well rounded fighter vs. grappler".

But I am confused because when we take the above and add it to...

There certainly is risk in going to the ground in a street fight, that actually INCREASES the need for grappling. The best way to prevent a fight from going to the ground is to be a better wrestler than your attacker. The second best way (other than being able to outrun your attacker or have a gun on you) is so far behind this that it's not even worth mentioning. The best way to get off the ground if you end up there incidentally or for whatever reason is to be a better ground grappler than your opponent. Again, the second best way beyond this is so far behind that it's not even worth mentioning.

First remember I specifically stated one of the arts I study does have a ground game. That said...

I see an issue. The Gracie's if not THE best grapplers of their time were among them. They trained almost exclusively in BJJ (though Royce did cross train in Muay Thai for the Hughes fight as an example that it was not completely exclusive near the end). However when they started facing fighters who didn't train exclusively in grappling but also trained in striking they started to lose.

Now there are only so many training hours in the day. Who is likely to be the better grappler, the guy who spends the vast majority, if not all, of his training in grappling or the guy who split trains in grappling and striking? Yet the people who split trained started beating the Gracie's. How did Royler and Royce lose to Sakuraba? Sakuraba managed to avoid the ground game with his wrestling skills and turned the fights into striking fights. He, literally, kicked the junk out of them and then, in Roylers case, yes, went to a submission hold but only after MAJOR softening up with kicks, and the Referee called it. With Royce after rounds 5 and 6 were Royce getting kicked constantly the Gracie's literally "threw in the towel."

To deal with a skilled grappler you indeed need a knowledge of grappling, however a more skilled near exclusive grappler (al la the Gracies) can lose to a more "balanced" fighter if that fighter knows how to use both striking and grappling in combination. If this wasn't the case then in modern MMA we would still have pure grapplers and the Gracies wouldn't have left when MMA stopped being about Art X vs Art Y and they started training in both X and Y. The rules changes you noted really didnt come into play until after they had been gone for a bit.

Now you may disagree with my idea of the skill of elite athletes being based in large part on time spent training in what. If so the above will not make sense. That's cool but I do believe, within limits of course, a clearly better grappler can be beaten by a competent/simply good grappler if they know how to integrate their striking art into the scenario.