Top 25 by style

[MMA_scientist]

I am basically trying to determine what is the most common approach to mma and from what base style most successful mmaists come from.

For the "base style", I am considering which style they had when they began the MMA journey. They are all mixed now, but the question is really whether being dominant in a style is an advantage. For a wrestler to be a wrestler, they need to have some sort of post HS wrestling experience.

I am calling boxing, kickboxing, muy thai, etc- strikers.

It turns out a lot of guys don't really have a base. Guys like Mir, Rothwell and Overeem really started training everything at the same time and just happened to get better at one part of it. I am just calling these guys MMA guys. This is mostly from memory, so don't kill me if I did not realize someone has a different base.



HW

1 Cain Velasquez wr
2 Brock Lesnar wr
3 Fedor Emelianenko sambo/judo
4 Fabricio Werdum bjj
5 Junior Dos Santos kb
6 Shane Carwin wr
7 Alistair Overeem mma
8 Frank Mir MMA
9 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira bjj
10 Antonio Silva bjj
11 Josh Barnett catch
12 Brett Rogers- kb
13 Brendan Schaub kb
14 Roy Nelson bjj
15 Cheick Kongo kb
16 Ben Rothwell MMA
17 Andrei Arlovski sambo
18 Pedro Rizzo MMA
19 Cole Konrad wr
20 Mirko Filipovi kb
21 Gabriel Gonzaga bjj
22 Tim Sylvia MMA
23 Mike Russow wr
24 Stefan Struve MMA
25 Jon Madsen wr

6 guys from a pure wrestling base
6 guys from a mixed base
5 guys from a pure bjj base
5 guys from a striking base
2 guys from a sambo base
1 guys from catch wrestling base

Pretty even between starting from scratch, coming out of wrestling, bjj and striking.

[MMA_scientist]

1 Mauricio Rua MMA (he started doing both BJJ and MT as teenager, but only competed in BJJ)
2 Rashad Evans wr
3 Quinton Jackson wr
4 Lyoto Machida kb
5 Ryan Bader wr
6 Forrest Griffin MMA
7 Jon Jones wr
8 Thiago Silva MMA
9 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira bjj
10 Gegard Mousasi kb
11 Rich Franklin MMA
11 Rafael Cavalcante MMA
13 Muhammed Lawal wr
14 Dan Henderson wr
15 Randy Couture wr
16 Phil Davis wr
17 Matt Hamill wr
18 Anderson Silva MMA
19 Renato Sobral wr
20 Alexander Gustafsson MMA
21 Jason Brilz wr
22 Trevor Prangley wr
23 Cyrille Diabate kb
24 Stephan Bonnar kb
25 Vladimir Matyushenko wr

LHW is dominated by wrestlers, but many of them are old guard guys (Henderson, Sobral, Couture, Vlad, Prangley). And a lot of the MMA guys at LHW have very little wrestling as most of them are brazilians that came from muy thai/bjj (shogun, Silva, Feijao).

13 guys from a wrestling base
7 guys from an MMA base
4 guys from a striking base
1 guy from a bjj base

It is really hard to categorize a lot of these guys.

[MMA_scientist]

1 Anderson Silva mma
2 Yushin Okami judo
3 Chael Sonnen wr
4 Nate Marquardt mma
5 Demian Maia bjj
6 Vitor Belfort mma
7 Jorge Santiago mma
8 Ronaldo Souza bjj
9 Michael Bisping kb
10 Dan Henderson wr
11 Robbie Lawler mma
12 Wanderlei Silva mma
13 Hector Lombard judo
14 Alan Belcher mma
15 Jake Shields wr
16 Chris Leben mma
17 Brian Stann mma
18 Mamed Khalidov mma
19 Yoshihiro Akiyama judo
20 Alessio Sakara kb
21 Thales Leites bjj
22 Rousimar Palhares bjj
23 Tim Kennedy mma
24 Maiquel Jose Falcao Goncalves mma
25 Jorge Rivera mma
25 Matt Horwich mma

MW is the opposite of LHW, there are very few wrestlers and bjj + striking tends to the dominant style

13 guys with MMA base
4 guys with bjj base
3 guys with wrestling base
3 guys with judo base
2 guys with kickboxing base

[MMA_scientist]

1 Georges St. Pierre mma
2 Jon Fitch wr
3 Jake Shields wr
4 Josh Koscheck wr
5 Thiago Alves MMA
6 Carlos Condit MMA
7 Martin Kampmann kb
7 Nick Diaz bjj
9 B.J. Penn bjj
10 Paul Daley kb
11 Dan Hardy kb
12 Matt Hughes wr
13 Diego Sanchez mma
14 Chris Lytle mma
15 Paulo Thiago bjj
16 Mike Pyle mma
17 Jay Hieron wr
18 Ben Askren wr
19 Mike Swick mma
20 John Hathaway mma
21 Dong Hyun Kim judo
22 Matt Serra bjj
23 Jake Ellenberger wr
24 Rick Story wr
25 Anthony Johnson wr

9 guys with wrestling base
8 guys with MMA base
4 guys with bjj base
3 guys with striking base
1 judoka

It seems like a lot of the guys that are not wrestlers in their young lives are training multiple things from an early age. Like Thiago Silva, he is generally thought of as having a MT base, but he started fighting mma at 14 or 15.

[edman5555]

I've got another idea. Is it possible to create another forum with sub forums for different fighters? It could be a place where we all post information/links about fighters we are researching. Right now if I spend all day researching someone, you all don't get the full benefit of the info that I have found. You only hear what I end up telling you. And Vice versa. Maybe this could be a good idea, it would be more like a database. I don't know if that would work with the software here.

[MMA_scientist]

1 Frankie Edgar wr
2 Gray Maynard wr
3 Gilbert Melendez mma
4 Eddie Alvarez mma
5 Shinya Aoki judo
6 Kenny Florian bjj
7 George Sotiropoulos bjj
8 Tatsuya Kawajiri wr
9 Jim Miller wr
10 Sean Sherk wr
11 B.J. Penn bjj
12 Melvin Guillard mma
13 Anthony Pettis mma
14 Clay Guida wr
15 Evan Dunham mma
16 Takanori Gomi wr
17 Ben Henderson wr
18 Josh Thomson mma
19 Kurt Pellegrino wr
20 Mizuto Hirota judo
21 Mac Danizg mma
22 Gesias Cavalcante mma
23 Joe Stevenson mma
24 Matt Wiman mma
25 Satoru Kitaoka mma

11 guys from mma base - alot of them are grapplers though, like Stevenson who began wrestling and judo and jj around the same time.
9 wrestlers
3 bjj
2 judo

LW is almost all grapplers.

[MMA_scientist]

I've got another idea. Is it possible to create another forum with sub forums for different fighters? It could be a place where we all post information/links about fighters we are researching. Right now if I spend all day researching someone, you all don't get the full benefit of the info that I have found. You only hear what I end up telling you. And Vice versa. Maybe this could be a good idea, it would be more like a database. I don't know if that would work with the software here.

that's a good idea. Like have a Frankie Edgar thread, with all info on Edgar. That would be a nice resource.

[MMA_scientist]

1 Jose Aldo MMA
2 Hatsu Hioki bjj
3 Manny Gamburyan judo
4 Michihiro Omigawa wr
5 Marlon Sandro bjj
6 Diego Nunes mma
7 Hiroyuki Takaya
8 Bibiano Fernandes bjj
9 Mark Hominick kb
10 Dustin Poirier mma
11 Joe Warren wr
12 Chad Mendes wr
13 Josh Grispi mma
14 Mike Brown wr
15 Masanori Kanehara
16 Rafael Assuncao bjj
17 Rani Yahya bjj
18 Kazuyuki Miyata
19 L.C. Davis wr
20 Yoshiro Maeda
21 Yuji Hoshino
22 Joachim Hansen mma
23 Urijah Faber wr
24 Deividas Taurosevicius
25 Leonard Garcia mma


I don't know alot of these guys, and I am too lazy to look them all up.

6 mma guys
6 wrestlers
5 bjj guys

I am assuming a lot of the japanese guys come from a judo base, though Hioki is japanese and is a bjj bb.

[MMA_scientist]

I started to look at the BW's but I only know about 12 of them...

I think it is somewhat interesting. I have always thought that coming from a specific discipline was better than just being well rounded... but it really doesn't seem to play out that way. It looks like it just depends who you are fighting...

You would think that getting to "decide where the fight takes place" would be a huge advantage. But I guess that someone has that ability in every fight, depending on the other guy's skills. And then in a large number of fights, it is not going to make a difference (you lose both places). And then there will be fights where the transitions get you... MMA is just more complicated than "takedowns win", there are just so many things that can happen. I really think any style can be effective if the practitioner is good enough at adapting it.

[edman5555]

I was reading your other thread about torres today and thats kinda interesting. It makes me want to place a bet on him.

[edman5555]

I started to look at the BW's but I only know about 12 of them...

I think it is somewhat interesting. I have always thought that coming from a specific discipline was better than just being well rounded... but it really doesn't seem to play out that way. It looks like it just depends who you are fighting...

You would think that getting to "decide where the fight takes place" would be a huge advantage. But I guess that someone has that ability in every fight, depending on the other guy's skills. And then in a large number of fights, it is not going to make a difference (you lose both places). And then there will be fights where the transitions get you... MMA is just more complicated than "takedowns win", there are just so many things that can happen. I really think any style can be effective if the practitioner is good enough at adapting it.

Yeah I hear what your saying. Remember Jake Rosholt? He was all american every year. He got his ass kicked, granted he jumped into the UFC after a handful of fights. Come to think of it, thats a bad example because you can't learn the other elements that fast. A lot of wrestlers do come in and get their ass kicked but wrestling still gets the most attention. It is hard to do well without any wrestling ability because eventually you will fight a wrestler that will just keep taking you down.

[SPX]

Interesting thread and info here. Thanks for putting it together.

I think being well-rounded is key these days. If you can have one awesome skill then all the better, but even Maia figured out that he needed to learn some striking after getting punched in the face my Marquardt.

GSP is the great fighter that he is not only because he is well-rounded, but also because he is pretty much excellent at everything, whether it's grappling or striking. If he had been only a great wrestler but had had mediocre striking skills then Kos would've beat him, because Kos negated the one thing GSP was great at. As it stands, though, he was able to adjust, roll with it as a kickboxing match, and win dominantly either way.

Dominic Cruz is another good example. He'll wrestle the fuck out of you if he wants, but he can keep it on the feet and outstrike you, too.

Even Forrest, who is merely good at everything, was able to become champion, albeit briefly.

Personally, I like betting on strikers with GREAT TDD. I'm trying to think who among the current generation falls into that category, but when wrestlers and BJJ guys run up against a good striker who they can't take down, they always end up with this deer in the headlights look that quickly turns into an I'm Fucked look, and it's always amusing.

[edman5555]

Interesting thread and info here. Thanks for putting it together.

I think being well-rounded is key these days. If you can have one awesome skill then all the better, but even Maia figured out that he needed to learn some striking after getting punched in the face my Marquardt.

GSP is the great fighter that he is not only because he is well-rounded, but also because he is pretty much excellent at everything, whether it's grappling or striking. If he had been only a great wrestler but had had mediocre striking skills then Kos would've beat him, because Kos negated the one thing GSP was great at. As it stands, though, he was able to adjust, roll with it as a kickboxing match, and win dominantly either way.

Dominic Cruz is another good example. He'll wrestle the fuck out of you if he wants, but he can keep it on the feet and outstrike you, too.

Even Forrest, who is merely good at everything, was able to become champion, albeit briefly.

Personally, I like betting on strikers with GREAT TDD. I'm trying to think who among the current generation falls into that category, but when wrestlers and BJJ guys run up against a good striker who they can't take down, they always end up with this deer in the headlights look that quickly turns into an I'm Fucked look, and it's always amusing.

As they say in the hood, "We be fucked"

That is from a movie, I can't remember the name.

[Luke]

As they say in the hood, "We be fucked"

That is from a movie, I can't remember the name.

LOL thats from Con Air , I've seen that movie 100 times

[MMA_scientist]

In "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" the guy says Con Air is the greatest film ever made. Is it? Yes.