We need wrestling in our schools

Wrestling is the sport of kings. Better to have wrestled and lost than played basket ball. Wrestlers come out top when looking at an Olympic sport that touches all bases, speed, strength agility, flexability, strength and power. That is why these guys and now girls complete special forces selection. As a Sports Scientist and Physiotherapist you would hard pushed to find a sport for your kid that will provided all the above skills mentioned. Bone and muscular strength is developed when young. Wrestlers don't get bullied. They sort the bullies out. As for Rugby all the codes now use wrestling in there training for conditioning and injury prevention. I noticed Team England doing some wrestling drills in Japan. at the World Cup. That is why they will beat NZ. The Wallabies were doing heavy weights during the tournament, that is why they lost to England. Unfortunately we are years behind the American and Canadian school and collage sports system. In many sports not just wrestling. That is why our wrestlers study in Canada, America or Asia. Also it is great that all the combat sports are doing cross over training. We are all learning from each other. We are all from the same combat community. kind regards, Martin Doyle Sydney University Judo & Wrestling

What kids wrestling classes can anyone recommend in Brisbane of East Brisbane please.

my name is lachlan and i do kickboxing. one day i want to fight in the ufc. but i want a ground game and learn how to grapple. i think it would be the best idea to have wrestling in high schools

Agree 100%, Australia should have more facilities instead of this Rugby League (Men running around a patch of grass with short pants) obsession. Funny how all the top level Aussie guys like Noke, Sotiropoulos, Hunt are relocating to USA to train: Kyle Noke: Greg Jacksons Academy George Sotiropoulos: American Top Team Mark Hunt: American Top Team

This is a pathetic "article".

There's good wrestling here. You just have to find it. Dunno about wrestling with the panthers mate, all my wrestling for the past five years have been under Freestyle Olympian Igor Praporschikov. Where did your story come from?

Kyokushin karate is what he started with. Then he began training in BJJ, muay thai and wrestling. Used a variety of coaches, some Brazilian, some US and some European. More than anything else, his natural athleticism is what made him great, combined with his incredible work ethic and discipline. He absorbed the stuff he was taught, particularly his wrestling. It's incredible that a guy who didn't start wrestling until his twenties has become the best wrestler in the welterwight division.

Wrestling is a fundamental part of MMA, but not the be all and end all. Tell Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo or Dos Santos that wrestling is the most important way to win. None have strong wrestling backgrounds. Dos Santos and Aldo have excellent take down defence (a basic wrestling fundamental) but they learnt this years into their MMA careers by working with US wrestling coaches. Their strengths remain their striking though, combined with strong BJJ. Anderson Silva doesn't even have very good take down defence. He relies almost entirley on his striking and BJJ. Yes it would be great if we had a bunch of Austrlian wrestlers coming through high school systems (or more realistically through state and national sports institues - which is the Australian way of producing elite athletes, and very different from the US collegiate system). But how realisitic is that? Where would the funding come from? Realistically we will produce fighter similar to the Europeans and Brazilians, with strong BJJ and striking backgrounds and only the basic findamentals of wrestling. This can work too.

James, I am American, I'm from Boston. I live in Aus now, but I would bet that I know alot more about the US than yourself. As I said, wrestling is reasonably popular in schools in the US (though not all schools) and the better high school wrestlers then go on to very proffesional wrestling competitions in college. However, to suggest wrestling is anywhere near as popular or recognised as a sport as baseball, US football, basketball, hockey or even soccer is absurd. These sports (really the first four with soccer a distant fifth) dominate all sporting programs in the US, in almost every school. They receieve the bulk of the funding, interest, popularity and participants. Wrestling is completely ametuer. Before the UFC, wrestlers simply stopped after college, or at best became wrestling coaches at a high school or college. The point I was making is that you don't need to be a scholastic wrestler to succeed in MMA. You must have at least a solid wrestling base in order to prevent takedowns and maybe sneak the odd one yourself (like Overeem for example - a kickboxer who has learnt wrestling fundamentals), but this can be learnt as an adult. In fact, with the very occaisonal exception, virtually the only wrestlers are US fighters. Brazil is highly succesful without any scholastic wrestling. So are many European and Japanese fighters. The point isn't that Australia is fine, just that introducing wrestling into schools (while not a terrible idea) is not the only way we could produce champions. Perhaps the Brazilian focus on BJJ and kick boxing combined (which has been highly succesful - think Anderson Silva, the Nogeuira brothers, Jose Aldo, Overeem, Bsiping etc) or combining traditional boxing with BJJ (the Diaz brothers, Dos Santos, BJ Penn) would be a better route. It would be alot easier to go the Brazilian way, since we already have many succesful kickboxers and boxers, and good coaches for both, as well as a growing and reasonably strong BJJ community, with a number of top black belts and coaches. It would be alot easier to work with what Aus already has and simply try to merge wrestling into that, then to reinvent the wheel by introducing an entire sport into our school systems (one which is not popular, well known or funded in Australia).

The americans have an edge because they are brought up on wrestling why can't we have it in our schools. all the good kiwi fighters are all based in Extreme Couture if the aussie fighters want to compete they need to get with the program and embrass the wrestling if you put any fighter up against the likes of Rashad Evans or Jones and doesn't have wrestling skills they will be eaten alive.You can't compare GSP to anyone else because he is a freak the reality is wrestling is a huge advantage to any fighter, even jones and Randy said it on Sunday at the Rashad evans fight. Good Article mate keep them coming!!

gsps striking game sux he rely's on his wrestling thats what saves him most of the time he's not a genuine striker noway gsp maybe one in a million. he uses his wrestling to tire guy's out like pitbull if GSP had no wrestling pitbull would of destroyed him

Bugger UFC, Imagine how much our rugby league teams would benefit!

I dont even know where to start.... 1. "all the way throw junior college " 2. "Chris Kroschek " James, seriously, get your fact correct before submitting "articles"... 1. GSP didnt grow up wrestling... His original discipline is a form of karate I believe.. so he comes from a striking background eventually.. 2. Sots fought Siver 2 fights ago...

It is not as simple as this article makes out. Yes, the US kids often benefit from training in wrestling but that is inly the begining of Mixed Martial Arts. Want an example? Look no further than recently retired Brock Lesnar. There could be no more pure a wrestler but when it came to it a takedown and ground n pound couldn't keep him at the top. Great think piece though. It has got me thinking about combat sports place in Australia. I think there are a lot of rugby league, union and afl players who would have made great MMA fighters had MMA been top of the sporting pile in Australia instead of out footy obsession.

Actually, you're completely wrong about GSP Luke. He only started wrestling when he took up MMA, he definatly did not grow up with it (wrestling is not particularly popular in Canada, certainly not in French Canada). He was in his twenties before he started serious wrestling training. And he credits a huge part of his success at wrestling to extensive work with Eastern European Olympic wrestlers. Obviously his time with Greg Jackson would also have helped, but he personally credits European grapplers with developing his game. He said basically that he worked with the best European wrestlers, and suggested that more fighters should work with wrestlers from Europe, and not exclusivly with American wrestlers. And in the US wrestling is reasonably popular in high school and college, but it not a major sport. It is well behind other sports like football, hockey, basketball and baseball. Further, Brazilians don't wrestle in high school or college, they focus on BJJ (which most Aussie fighters also focus on). Really only the US fighters and a few of the Europeans have a real strong wrestling background. Most Brazilians have a BJJ background, or a striking background, either orthodox boxing or muay thai, combined with BJJ. You don't HAVE to be a great wrestler to compete at the top level - ie Anderson Silva, Junior Dos Santos, Jose Aldo are all champions and none have a wrestling background. What they do have is good or great takedown defence (an apsect of wrestling, but really in a way it's anti-wrestling, just knowing enough to nulify take downs, and little more), and great BJJ, so they are in little danger if they do get taken down, and can attack with submissions from the bottom. They all train in wrestling now, in fact any MMA fighter has to, and they will usually look to guys from the US (though GSP chose European wrestlers) to coach them. GSP is kind of an anomoly, because while he doesn't have a scholastic background in wrestling, he has been able to train enough, combined with his natural athleticism, that he is now one of the best wrestlers in the UFC, and it is his greatest strength. This is a credit to him as an athlete, remarkable considering he started training wrestling so late. Almost all the really succesful US fighters DO have a strong wrestling background. Jon Jones, Frankie Edgar, Dominick Cruz and many challengers like Sonnen, Dan Henderson and Faber are all decorated collegiate wrestlers, some Olympic level. But there are many exceptions to the wrestling prototype who are succesful, both from the US (Nick and Nate Diaz are BJJ and boxing specialists, BJ Penn is a BJJ prodigy, with strong but unorthodox striking) and outside the US (Europeans like Overeem, Bisping and Siver are primarily kickboxers, virtually every Brazilian is a BJJ fighter purley like Maia or Dos Anjos, or a striker with strong BJJ like Silva or Dos Santos, and there's even Okami, who has a Judo background from Japan). So it's not nearly as simple as the atricle makes out. Yes, US fighter do benefit from their strong wrestling backgrounds. But plenty of fighter from other parts of the world are very succesful without the same wrestling pedigree. They make up for it by being world class in other disciplines, whether that's boxing, muay thai or dutch style kickboxing, BJJ or even Judo, they make it work. Ask every single Brazilian champion.

yeah mate you don't know what your on about GSP grew up on wrestling he surrounded himself with guy's like Greg Jackson thats where he got his wrestling european wrestlers have been doing it for year. the writer is right on the money we need to grow up on wrestling if we can ever compete with the likes of Jon Jones. there's a lot of kiwi's trainining with Extreme Couture. Thats what guy's like Te huna need to do I donn't know what Te huna will learn training at the panthers.

(1) Georges St. Pierre didn't grow up on wrestling. He also never wrestled in high school or college. He only took up when he started training for MMA. In fact, he says that he learned his wrestling from training with national champions of eastern European countries. (2) Sotiropoulos' last fight wasn't against Siver. It was against Dos Anjos. He was knocked out with one punch early on in the first round.