📝 Why Strikers Need To Learn Wrestling

First Things First

The UFC is going to Saudi Arabia this Saturday afternoon. They’re bringing an uber intriguing prospect, Umar Nurmagomedov, and a hardcore fan favorite, Cory Sandhagen. Today we’re going to look at how Sandhagen rounded out his striking by adding wrestling to his game.

Cory Sandhagen’s Complete MMA Game

Cory Sandhagen has been a hardcore fan favorite since he stepped into the octagon. He fights long, throws strikes out of a variety of stances, and lights people up on the feet.

Cory is a bit of a fighting contradiction. He’s a tall man that can fight in tight. He’s super long for his weight class, but often chooses to beat people up on the inside much like the boxer Chico Corrales.

Although, solving Sandhagen’s game seemed to come too simply for the top of the division - wrestling.

Aljamain Sterling ran straight at Sandhagen to clinch and shut him down before he could start flowing. Sterling took a quick rear naked choke in 88 seconds.

TJ Dillashaw grinded to a decision win by clinching and controlling the pace.

Petr Yan won primarily with superior firepower. He battered Sandhagen around the cage. When Sandhagen would wrestle for reprieve he ended worse for wear.

To be fair, those are three of bantamweight’s former champions. Sandhagen only loses to the elite of the elite. He’s a “great-keeper”, a gatekeeper that separates the good fighters from the great, but he hasn’t stopped clawing to the belt in hopes of changing that fortune.

Since losing to those three named above Sandhagen dominated Song Yadong, Chito Vera, and Rob Font. How did he do it? By adding tricky wrestling to enable his dynamic striking. His shots became extensions of his shots.

Wrestling For Position, Not Takedowns

The sport of wrestling is about taking your opponent off of their feet and holding them to the floor. So, people hear wrestling and they assume that that’s its only utility. In mixed martial arts, wrestling needs to be understood as techniques to facilitate striking. That does not necessarily mean takedowns.

You can take someone down to ground and pound them. But you can also jockey for position in the clinch to elbow and knee them.

Shooting To Strike Song Yadong

After Sandhagen lost to Petr Yan for the interim belt he was matched against young prospect Song Yadong. Yadong is nothing short of a freak athlete.

Yadong debuted in the UFC at 19. By the time he fought Sandhagen he was only 24 but had already gone 9-1 in the UFC.

Yadong is everything Sandhagen is not. Where Sandhagen is smooth and tricky Yadong is powerful and direct.

In the early goings in their fight, Sandhagen was getting bullied. Then he found an opening for some subtle striking.

That would be Sandhagen’s avenue for scoring. He decided to start trying for takedowns. This would put Sandhagen closer to Yadong and keep Yadong guessssing.

This takedown might look unsuccessful but Sandhagen won the exchange. Here we see Sandhagen start to put it together and take over the fight.

The point of wrestling, jiu-jitsu, or any other grappling style is to get to a position where you can physically restrain someone with considerably less energy than they have to use to escape. That’s how you get them to quit, or submit. MMA adds a new variable to this equation where you are allowed to strike to force someone quit.

MMA grappling is really about how well you can use technical maneuvers to get to positions where you can restrain someone from hitting you, but you can hit them. That can look like throwing someone on their back and punching them. It can also look like shooting a takedown, climbing to a clinch, and getting inside position to slice your opponent with an elbow.

Sandhagen kept shooting to initiate clinches. While Yadong might have stopped the takedowns he couldn’t stop Sandhagen from getting to positions where Sandhagen could damage him.

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