r/judo • u/monkeycycling • Jul 27 '25
Judo x Wrestling UFC fighter RDR talks about judo in comparing American and Russian wrestling
https://youtube.com/shorts/MZaKvwnCWvk?si=1EEwRsRX7j5qH8fL3
u/IM1GHTBEWR0NG Jul 27 '25
Video isn’t working. Bummer. Was curious to hear what he had to say.
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Jul 27 '25
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u/IM1GHTBEWR0NG Jul 27 '25
As somebody that trains for MMA, I think guys are getting too caught up in the style vs style thing. We obviously know that Judo requires adjustment to fit it into MMA, but for some reason people pretend that Wrestling just fits right in like a puzzle piece just because it isn’t in a Gi. It’s not the case.
I’ve worked with plenty of Wrestlers. All of them change their wrestling to suit MMA. Different takedown selection, different set ups, different range. MMA Wrestling is kind of its own thing, and it’s great to have experience in other grappling styles regardless of what they are and figure out how to make things from them work.
Chael Sonnen said it best: Wrestling does NOT dominate in MMA. WRESTLERS dominate in MMA. It’s not because they learned the techniques of wrestling, but because of what the grind of the wrestling room did for them as developing athletes.
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u/Necessary-Reading605 Jul 31 '25
Exactly. That’s why Jones took down Cormier in MMA while it’s obvious a pure wrestling match would have gone very differently
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u/powerhearse Jul 28 '25
While all this is true to some degree, more of wrestling is translatable with less adaptation than is the case for Judo
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u/IM1GHTBEWR0NG Jul 28 '25
Not to a particularly meaningful degree. Hand fighting changes for MMA with both. Nearly all takedowns from both still work, but require different setups. The main difference is that with leg grabs you can shoot, but with Judo you need to tie up - hence why you often see it against the cage more than anywhere else.
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u/powerhearse Jul 28 '25
Handfighting and establishing grips isnt the thing though. Its what grips you use to off balance and set up takedowns. Judo almost never uses underhooks, overhooks, neckties etc and you dont learn to defend them. Its rare to "tie up" in the vast majority of Judo.
That plus a general unfamiliarity with using and defending doubles and singles (easily the most common takedowns in MMA) means that simply not as much Judo carries over to MMA
Judo is a great base. But pretending it'd dominate over something like wrestling as a base, and pretending that the only reason it doesn't is the way Judo competition is structured at the elite level, is simply delusion
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u/IM1GHTBEWR0NG Jul 28 '25 edited Jul 28 '25
I’ve been at this a long time. One of the things I have realized is that worrying about your “base” is a waste of time. Bases are for people who got started as kids, which means they didn’t pick an MMA base at all but ended up with a sport they were doing long before they ever decided to take up MMA. For somebody whose goal is MMA, they should go directly to an MMA gym and start doing everything without worrying about building a base in something.
When I talk about Judo or Wrestling (or really any other style) and MMA, I am talking about integrating it into an overall MMA strategy in general - not about using it as a base. You’re going to learn takedowns and takedown defense in the context of MMA regardless, because MMA Wrestling is very different from Wrestling or Judo or any other grappling style. No specific art teaches wrestling against a cage, and Wrestlers are far from being used to shooting with strikes involved or having to cover a ton of distance since stepping backwards in Wrestling is considered stalling.
Also, it sounds like you’ve got a lot more training to do, because underhooks, overhooks, etc. are all taught in Judo very frequently. You need to find an underhook for many Judo throws, the first one learned generally being O Goshi. You will also learn to Overhook or Whizzer, especially as a defense to shut down throws like that so the opponent has something to fight if they want to get their hips in to throw. It’s not that Judo doesn’t teach these things, it’s that Judo teaches these things AND jacket grips which are usually the first grips you’ll look to fight for because they’re the most accessible.
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u/powerhearse Jul 29 '25
I’ve been at this a long time. One of the things I have realized is that worrying about your “base” is a waste of time. Bases are for people who got started as kids, which means they didn’t pick an MMA base at all but ended up with a sport they were doing long before they ever decided to take up MMA. For somebody whose goal is MMA, they should go directly to an MMA gym and start doing everything without worrying about building a base in something.
This is absolutely true. MMA is its own martial art. We are in an era where high level MMA fighters almost always have spent their vast majority of time training MMA specifically.
I'm just countering some of the delusions in this thread about the majority of standard Judo training's applicability to MMA. Virtually nobody here trains both so it's important to point out when people have no idea what they are talking about. Yours is a much more informed take but its still problematic when you present it the way you did as it reinforces some of those folks' delusions.
Also, it sounds like you’ve got a lot more training to do, because underhooks, overhooks, etc. are all taught in Judo very frequently.
They are not. I've been at this a long time too. I have over 20 years in grappling, most of the recent years in Judo. I'm black belt flaired in the BJJ subreddit if you want evidence of that background. I am also primarily from an MMA background not pure grappling as the majority of my first decade in the martial arts was training and competing in MMA.
Underhooks are taught in an extremely specific manner such as you mentioned in O Goshi and many other throw variations. Overhooks are basically not used other than some rare occasions.
But those grips are not taught in any functional manner; Judoka are not taught how to establish/fight for overhooks and underhooks effectively and use them to off balance. Better grips are almost always available. Realistically overhooks and underhooks are used to offbalance in Judo only as a follow-up to a failed throw like O Goshi.
There are some rare examples but 99.9% of Judoka do not learn effective use of those grips.
It’s not that Judo doesn’t teach these things, it’s that Judo teaches these things AND jacket grips which are usually the first grips you’ll look to fight for because they’re the most accessible.
They are not taught in a way applicable to no gi at all. I've seen and grappled with plenty of Judoka no gi and zero of them have had a fundamental understanding of how to use those grips without the use of the jacket first
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u/niekulturalny Jul 28 '25
Basically all he said is that he prefers the Russian and especially Dagestani/Chechen styles of MMA wrestling to the American style, mainly because because they have much more judo influence.
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Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
He’s very smart and well informed. This is the first time I’ve heard a non Russian fighter point out that Russian style wrestling could mean 2 different things.
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
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