MMA is one of the newest and most popular combat sports on earth. And when people talk about MMA they usually come up with a question, which style of fighting is best for mixed martial arts?
So let’s go back to 1993 when the first UFC tournament was organized. The tournament featured fights with no weight classes, rounds, or judges. The three rules – are no biting, no eye-gouging, and no groin shots. Royce Gracie won the tournament by defeating Gerard Gordeau via submission due to a rear-naked choke.
The goal of this tournament was to find the most effective fighting style and the most skilled athlete in various disciplines of all martial arts.
So the question “which fighting styles are most effective for MMA” has been asked for years. And the following fighting styles that I will list are the most proven over the years.
Boxing
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouth guards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring.
Boxing is proven as an effective fighting style for mixed martial arts and there are a lot of great MMA fighters who have boxing as their background, such as Conor McGregor, Anderson Silva, Nick Diaz, and many others.
This fighting style will improve your punching techniques, such as attacking and defending from punches and it will improve your head movement and footwork like no other martial art. And it will bring you more confidence when you are on your feet, it will improve your cardio and punching power.
MMA fighters with boxing backgrounds usually have a stand-up fighting style with good takedown defense to keep their game standing, they usually have fast and powerful punches and their footwork is very good and also their ability to dodge and defend from punches is on point.
So if you want to get better in your striking game, boxing is a great way to do it.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Brazilian jiu-jitsu or just BJJ is a combat sport based on ground fighting and submission holds.
This grappling art is one of the most effective grappling styles out there. And it is proven by the statistics of UFC, which brings the most champions after wrestling.
BJJ will improve your grappling abilities like submitting people faster, controlling your opponents on the ground, taking them down to the ground, and also defending from your opponent’s submissions, which is a very important skill to have.
One of the best MMA fighters who know how to use BJJ very well in MMA is Charles Oliveira, Demian Maia, Georges St Pierre, Gilbert Burns, and the Diaz brothers.
MMA fighters with BJJ backgrounds usually want to bring the fight to the ground, to do that they need to have some striking knowledge, so that they close the distance with some punches and shoot for the takedown. On the ground these fighters are masters, they can control you there and usually finish the fight with a submission.
So if you want to improve your grappling you need to start some BJJ training.
Muay Thai
Muay Thai also known as Thai boxing or the “art of eight limbs” is a combat sport that focuses on the stand-up game. “Art of eight limbs” means the combined use of fists, elbows, knees, and shins. And also this fighting style has a big focus on clinching techniques, such as striking from the clinch or sweeping your opponent to the ground.
Muay Thai is proven to be an effective fighting style for MMA over the years, having some great fighters such as Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Valentina Shevchenko, and many others.
When we talk about MMA, Muay Thai fighters are the most dangerous strikers out there, because they have so many weapons and can use them pretty well. They can punch good, kick, and strike with their elbows and knees and they are masters in the clinch. Many fight experts think that Muay Thai is the best striking art for MMA.
So if you want to be a complete striker, Muay Thai is the right fighting style for you.
Wrestling
Wrestling is one of the oldest combat sports out there, and is about 20,000 years old. Wrestling is grappling art that focuses mostly on clinch fighting, throws, and takedowns. There are many styles of wrestling, even some are allowed to use submissions like choke holds and joint locks.
This fighting style is one of the most effective for MMA, some fight experts say it is the most effective and most dominant out there and no wonder, wrestling brings the most champions in the best MMA organization which is UFC. Many champions like Daniel Cormier, Henry Cejudo, Kamaru Usman, and Jon Jones have wrestling backgrounds.
Most wrestling classes focus on takedowns, there is no fighting style that will teach you to do takedowns and defend them better than wrestling. And wrestling also will build your physical and mental toughness. This combat sport is one of the hardest sports on earth if not the hardest, that’s why most of the wrestlers are so mentally tough and their will to win is so big. Wrestling will also teach you how to control your opponents on the ground and prevent them to stand up. And if you are a striker, wrestling will help you with takedown defense, which will help you stand on your feet and do your game plan.
So if you ever thought of doing MMA, amateur or professional, you must have wrestling knowledge.
Sambo
Sambo is a Russian martial art created in early 1920s by the Soviet NKVD and Red Army to improve their hand to hand combat skills.
There are multiple competitive sport variations of sambo. The two most popular variations sambo are combat and sport sambo.
Sport sambo is similar to old-time judo, but with some differences in rules and uniforms. It allows various types of joint locks and leg locks while not allowing chokeholds. It also focuses on takedowns and throws.
Combat sambo on the other hand is much more similar to modern mixed martial arts, including forms of striking and grappling. This style of sambo is developed for the military.
Great fighters like Khabib Nurmagomedov, Fedor Emelianenko and Islam Makhachev have sambo background.
Final Thoughts
So maybe you asked yourself, which of these martial arts is the best one?
The answer to this question is that there is no best martial art. The best martial art for MMA is a combination of the fighting styles we talked about above. This sport is called “Mixed Martial Arts” for a reason, in order to be successful you need to know how to combine these fighting styles.
And if you want to do it recreationally and you don’t have time to train in more martial arts then you can choose one of the above or another martial art you want. But all of the martial arts are great and if you put 100 percent into them you can get very far in a short period.
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