“Hey, James this is an article I found about a very interesting MMA fight between Rampage Jackson vs wrestler Matt Hamill where Jackson used some basic but shitty but effective boxing to pressure and beat the wrestler by beating him to the punch so to speak. It seems most successful takedowns in MMA come from setting them up off your or your opponent's punches. So what do you think of the strategy of just laying into a wrestler? Thanks.”

-Ronald

You are keeping me on my toes, Ronald.

I saw the fight live. The thing to remember in MMA takedowns and in other aspects of other combat arts, is the concept of nullification.

The reason why most MMA takedowns have to be setup with strikes is because these guys are all so dammed good at standup wrestling. This is nullification in a nutshell. In the early days of MMA top grapplers would just go out there and shoot and enjoy success more often than not. Now, just going out and shooting is an amateurish thing to do.

When you came out to see us stick fight, you may have noticed Charles flitting round the three muscle men like an evil Peter Pan, making them look like they were standing still most of the time, even though they move much better than a normal person.

Then, when I fought Charles, we both basically hit each other at will because, I move as well as he does. I just can’t take the punishment anymore. I nullified Charles movement advantage just as he nullified mine. Whether we were moving or it was that time when I said the hell with it I can’t stay away from him so I might as well conserve energy and throw back harder, neither one of us held a functional movement advantage so it was decided on who could give and take the most. To watch either one of us fight the other three guys it becomes an asymmetrical movement versus strength fight. With he and I, neither one of us having a takedown advantage, and our movement nullified, it just became a whacking and checking contest.

In MMA the striking versus grappling question is grappling dependent, because every scored or missed strike puts you in grappling range. Yes, Hamill was a standout wrestler, but Jackson was a beastly wrestler. Wresting was all he had in Pride. Recall his early Pride fights where he finished people with power bombs. He could afford to lay into Hamill because he would be a factor in a clinch and could expect to ward off most takedown attempts. Jackson—like Chuck Lidell, also an excellent wrestler who was not big on submissions—had great hips and knew that he could punch and therefore carried an unseen advantage into every fight, to the point where it became a monotonous crutch. This advantage is passive wrestling ability or counter wrestling. Hendo was another grappler that knew he could punch. What these three guys did was decide to use their grappling only to deny the takedown, thereby vastly improving their chances of winning by a KO and getting that bonus and of winning fight of the night and getting that bonus too.

Just laying into a wrestler is a great idea if you have takedown defense that has as good a chance of succeeding against his shoot as your boxing has of dropping him. There are boxing methods for minimizing the clinch and discouraging the shoot. However, nothing in boxing denies the shoot unless you KO him by hitting him on the top of the head, which I actually did once, a long painful time ago. I stopped him, but my hand has never been the same. To deny the shoot you need to be able to sprawl, and to deny a quality wrestler the takedown you need wrestling or judo hips, and having a massively muscled buttocks like Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and a reputation for throwing people around has got to be a huge factor.

Thanks for the link. The points made are valid. We just want to make sure not to forget about the presence of grappling nullification in a fight between two men who both have a significant grappling background and enormous ass and tendon strength.