What Is The Best Base For MMA?
As its name suggests, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a combat sport that is a mix of various grappling and striking martial arts put into one system. It is a mix of only the most practical techniques from arts like wrestling, BJJ, boxing, Muay Thai, and even traditional ones like Karate. It is the most versatile and complex sport where being one-dimensional doesn’t work, and you need to have all-around skills.
Most MMA fighters come into the sport with a strong background in one particular martial art, which represents their “MMA base”. Through hard training, they add more skills on top of their base to cover all the aspects of the sport and fill all the holes in their game.
But over time, it became obvious that some martial arts represent a better base than others. Or in other words, are more efficient and allow you to pick up the fundamentals of MMA much faster. In this article, we are going to determine which martial art base is the best for MMA, and give you an explanation of why.
Wrestling
According to stats, wrestling has produced the most UFC champions in history, which shows you that this Ancient art is one of the best base for MMA. Yes, wrestling won’t teach you how to strike, defend against strikes, use chokes and joint locks, or FIGHT. Wrestlers train to compete under the rules, score points, and overall, the entire concept doesn’t have much to do with the brutality of MMA fighting at first sight. That’s the weirdest part about it, to be honest. But why is wrestling so dominant in MMA?
First of all, wrestlers are strong, explosive, and have an amazing balance, coordination, and ability to take people down. It’s very hard to stop a skilled wrestler from what they know best, even if you have a decent grappling defense. In MMA, they are the ones who choose where the fight takes place. If you match two fighters with one having a strong base in wrestling and the other one in boxing, a wrestler would score a takedown 9/10 times, if not in all attempts. No matter how strong or physically bigger you are, the power won’t help you much in grappling. But why?
Well, wrestling is all about leverage, technique, weight distribution, and putting the sequences together. To learn how to stop the takedown, you must spend many years training with wrestlers to develop average skills. It is much easier for a wrestler to learn how to block punches and check kicks and counter these attacks with a takedown than it is for a striker to learn how to grapple. They can do this in 6 months while strikers need to spend years learning how to wrestle.
Even if they are missing other aspects of the game, wrestlers can always neutralize the opponent with relentless takedowns and strong top control. They literally do not have to do anything else to win matches in MMA.
BJJ
BJJ is one of the most effective combat systems that also represents the best base for cage fighting. Yes, wrestling has produced the most UFC champions in history, but BJJ is equally important if not even more. You can’t expect to be an MMA fighter without, at least, basic knowledge of how to fight on the ground. Sooner or later you will end up in huge pain with someone trying to break your arm or strangle you to unconsciousness.
To understand the importance of BJJ, you need to go back to the early 90s and the beginnings of MMA. Back in the day, fighters used to be experts in just one martial art and the world saw many “style vs style” matchups. Thanks to Royce Gracie, BJJ emerged as the most effective one as Royce went on to beat fighters from all other styles, including wrestlers. For many years, BJJ ruled the MMA scene and people used to believe that no one would stop this domination.
Though the game has changed a lot, BJJ remained the most important aspect of MMA. Even if you have Olympic-level wrestling, once the fight hits the ground, you are entering a world of BJJ fighters who don’t mind being on the bottom. From their ability to scramble, and secure a position, to sneaky chokes and joint locks, it is very hard to defend against these types of attacks. Like in wrestling, you can’t rely on your strength, power, or size to escape. No, you must know all the procedures and small tricks, which take up to 10 years to develop.
The learning curve is probably the longest in BJJ out of all other martial arts on this list. A skilled striker who wants to learn BJJ has to spend at least 5 years of training to develop average skills, and up to 10 or even 15 to become a black belt. On the other side, BJJ fighters would need 6 months to 1 year to develop striking skills needed to defend or set up their grappling attacks on the feet. This means that they can transition to MMA much quicker and enjoy more success in the long run.
Muay Thai
In MMA circles, Muay Thai is often seen as a total package when it comes to standup and striking. In fact, it is fair to say that fighters who come into MMA from Muay Thai have the entire standup aspect covered. But why is Muay Thai so important in MMA?
To better understand this, let’s focus on the striking aspect of the sport. MMA is a game where fighters are allowed to use all limbs as weapons to fight at all ranges and in all places. They can use punches and kicks from the distance, as well as knee and elbow strikes to fight in the clinch for as much as they want. Muay Thai is the only striking martial art that covers all of these aspects, and this is the main reason why its fighters have so much success in MMA. Not a single other martial art is versatile or advanced enough when it comes to techniques to come even close to Thai boxing.
What Muay Thai brings to the table are vicious kicks that, when thrown the right way, can generate the power equal to hitting a person with a baseball bat. Other fighters who do not know how to check kicks or are not used to absorbing those would be in serious trouble against a Thai boxer. But the even more important aspect, is the clinch, where they shine with strong positions and brutal knee and elbow strikes. Just a single well place knee to the stomach can hurt your liver or break ribs while an elbow can slice through your skin like a knife and cause deep cuts and severe bleeding.
For last, Thai boxers are among the toughest people on the planet and also have very good cardio. You will never see an MMA fighter trained in Muay Thai gassing out in a fight, and they all have the ability to absorb huge punishment.
Boxing
At first sight, boxing might not look like an ideal martial art base for MMA simply because it is limited in many areas. In the end, boxing is all about mixing hand strikes with footwork and upper body movement. Fighters are allowed only to strike the upper body area above the waist, and there is no clinch fighting. What makes boxing good for MMA then?
First of all, all boxers have amazing endurance and are very durable, and can take a lot of punishment. Next, not a single martial art out there or a combat system would teach you better punching combos, footwork, head movement, and angles. Boxers are masters in keeping their range, timing their attacks, dodging/slipping/blocking strikes, and delivering fast and precise counters.
Boxing on its own is the least effective in MMA on this list, BUT, it is one of those martial arts that goes well with all others. With a bit of strong wrestling defense and a solid BJJ game, fighters with a boxing base are unstoppable. Or it can go the other way around, a wrestler with good boxing skills is a dangerous, dangerous fighter.
Just look at Stipe Miocic or Kamaru Usman and how dominant these two are if you need any proof. Both of these fighters have a strong wrestling background and phenomenal boxing skills. The same stands for other top fighters like Colby Covington, Max Holloway, and many others.
