Yesterday’s news that wrestling will be dropped from the Olympic roster at the 2020 Games has sent shockwaves through the mixed martial arts community.
Adding to the sadness of the removal of one of the few remaining original Olympic sports, and the realisation that future generations will never get to hear Roy and HG commentate Greco Roman again, the MMA community could be left with a gaping hole in one of its biggest development pathways.
Ask any MMA trainer worth his paycheck what the most important skill in MMA is and nine times out of ten they will say it is wrestling.
So often strong wrestlers are able to dictate the terms of a fight and effectively render their opponents skills null and void by using the strength and grappling they originally developed on the wrestling mat.
As MMA has grown it has used the North American amateur wrestling setup as its major feeder system.
Fighters such as Dan Henderson, Randy Couture, Chael Sonnen and Daniel Cormier wrestled at an international and even Olympic level before turning their hand to MMA.
Countless other well-known MMA names and champions hit the mats throughout high school and college, building up the skill base they would eventually employ in the Octagon.
I literally cannot list them all here but trust me when I say it is a lot.
It just cannot be stressed enough how important the North American wrestling system is to mixed martial arts today.
The optimist may say that wrestling moving on is fine, because while it may have mattered in years gone by, MMA has gone mainstream so young athletes will want to train for it anyway and will develop their skills in dedicated MMA classes.
Guys like Rory MacDonald never trained in wrestling at school and they may say he picked it up fine.
They may even more blindly argue that if wrestling is being moved on for a ‘more exciting sport’, as seems to be the trend in the IOC at the moment, then MMA could naturally fit in the hole left over.
However it misses a key and extremely important point.
While the lack of wrestling won’t affect the current generation of fighters, as wrestling loses its IOC ranking so too it loses bucket loads of government and private funding which sustain those amazing school and college development pathways MMA currently relies on.
Remember all those debates about elite sport funding in Australia after the Olympics?
Imagine all that funding but on an American level (they do things bigger there, remember) being taken out of a sport.
Gone will be the dedicated coaches at school, gone will be many of the lucrative tournaments and gone could be many of the big college scholarships which over the years have enticed wrestlers into building up their skills.
And don’t expect them to start offering cage fighting as a sports alternative at school.
MMA will recover from this, don’t get me wrong, however the cancellation of wrestling as an IOC sport has the potential to derail and drastically alter the way the sport currently operates, particularly in its heartland of North America.
But over to you Roarers, how will MMA overcome the loss of ameture wrestling as its dominant development pathway?
Neuen
Roar Rookie
May I ask where did you get that statistic. I am not calling you a lier or do not say I "don't believe you" I just like to see some back up to statistics as a lot of them can be made up. And I quote Despite not having competed since 1988, the former Soviet Union still holds the record for both the most Gold Medals and total medals in wrestling. The United States needs only seven medals to tie the Soviet Union for most total medals and has to win a gold medal in all 18 weight classes this year to tie them for most Gold Medals. http://prowrestling.about.com/od/Olympic-Wrestling/a/History-Of-Wrestling-At-The-Olympics.htm "Some people say" and "I have read it somewhere" is toilet door journalism use by Fox in the American elections to discredit others they are not supporting that is why I made the toilet door comment.
nickoldschool
Roar Guru
Sunshine, I don't see that happening any time soon. MMA, and I love the sport, is as far from the 'Olympic spirit' as gambling or cheating in the mind of many (most?) people. It has gone a long way since it started to emerge a couple of decades ago but I don't think the masses,nao offence, are ready for that. It's still two savages who fight in a cage for many people. Am not a fan of Greco-roman wrestling but I still reckon it has it's place at the Olympics. Two men fighting, no 'tools', racket, ball etc is very noble in my mind. Sad really.
Ben
Guest
Good piece, hadn't thought of this angle.
Bob Anderson
Guest
Time to get rid of the Olympics. It was supposed to be the top amateur sports festival in the world. Once they starting allowing professionals it completely lost its raison d'etre. Its also become overbloated with such a ridiculous amount of sports crammed into a two week period. What do most of these sports have in common? Its like gorging on a bad sports buffet for two weeks. A new, smaller, streamlined, elite AMATEUR world sports festival should be created and this corrupt, overbloated monstronsity put out of its misery.
Johnno
Guest
To me taking wrestling out of the Olympic games is like taking out the marathon, unthinkable,. Both are 2 of if not the tour spiritual sports of the Olympic games along with modern Pentathlon. For all the commercialism, if wrestling is not there it will dull my enthusiasm for the other sports, at the games. And wake boarding over wrestling, seriously.
Johnno
Guest
Greco Roma outragous decison it was. Wrestling was at the 1st modern Olympics, 1896 in Athens. The IOC line is, "The IOC board acted after reviewing the 26 sports on the current Olympic program. ... It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with the 25 ..." -Fari point, but there is plenty right about wrestling too. Apparently it was a secret ballot to decide which pen went. Taekwondo survived,. Wrestling far more important than Tae-Kwon-Do. -Wrestling still might make it, just it probably wont be a core sport. A strong showing and standard at RIo 2016, may save it for 2020, I hope so. -"And inform and educate by BROADCASTING MORE and I guarantee you'll have a HUGE fan base for wrestling at the Olympics. -That's what wrestling should do.
GrecoRoman
Roar Guru
Outrageous decision to drop wrestling. I am currently writing an article on this issue - re the politics of it in relation to the IOC - nothing to do with MMA. As far as MMA being compromised - no way. Most of the US wrestlers come via the High School/Collegiate style, not the Olympic styles. Only a small fraction of the US wrestlers get involved in the Olympic programmes. However, it was an important post college pathway that will now be cut off.
Seriously, Who says Oi?
Guest
Actually, the USA has the most wrestling medals at 125. The soviets have 116. As for Greco-Roman medals, the USA has 14 of them. I suspect that you're massively projecting when you speak of these "toilet doors" as a source of information. You may use them for that(you sure seem to), but many of us others are willing to use more credible sources.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
No we are talking about Olympic sports.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
yes. Like with the boxing.
Ronnie Liddle
Roar Rookie
i'm not sure what you are saying - are you sayinjg only amateur fighters would be allowed to compete in MMA at a Games level? like say boxing... as opposed to Basketball?
Neuen
Roar Rookie
Want to race to that big tree over there? Done. Want to see who can sled down this mountain faster? Sure. Want to find out who can swim across the river faster? You're on. Basic concept of the Olympics.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
Roger Federer and company would prefer to win Wimbledon than a gold medal. Pro fighters have world titles to aim for and their side of the sport is completely different to the amateur set-up.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
You probably read that somewhere on a toilet door because the Soviet Union creamed the USA. Greco-Roman Wrestling the USA have won only 3 medals in um almost a hundred years
MMADoggzofwar
Roar Rookie
totally agree with you on that, tht the loss of wrestling from the olympics is huge, but to say that it would TKO MMA? come on! maybe in north America but MMA will still continue to grow, might take a shot but nothing so drastic. It will mean tht the future fighters may not be specifically wrestling based
langou
Roar Guru
I think it would be terrible to lose wrestling. To me the Olympics is all about those traditional sports; the sports that only get their chance once every four years. It has ties that go way back to the Ancient Olympics. A sad day for the Eastern countries where wrestling is big. Also I believe that 71 different nations wrestled at the last Olympics so no question of global spread.
langou
Roar Guru
I read somewhere the Americans have won more wrestling medals than any other nation
MMADoggzofwar
Roar Rookie
you touch on something there Ronnie, the UFC says its all about promoting the sport and given, it has done an immensely great job, but when another organisation becomes "threatening" by way of competition Eg PRIDE, SF, Affliction and now Bellator DW turns into the complete psycho he is and starts going off his rocker about how superior his product is etc etc then because of sheer size they buy it out say the usual BS about "continuing to operate as a standalone, then slowly syphen out the best and sell off the rest.. I would think that at this stage the UFC would be secure in being the top Dog MMA org and that promotions like Bellator, Invictus and markets in Asia (oneFC, which am proud to see is being used as another avenue for AUS/NZ fighters) will only be beneficial for the sport. DW talks about the good of MMA but truth be told its about the money ad the UFC. Hey, I dont mind, but dont come off saying its about the sport and trying to appeal when you turn ito a moron and start paying out HOF's because he starts playing you at your own game..
Ronnie Liddle
Roar Rookie
not sure what you mean? plenty of other pro sports are in the Games? basket ball, tennis, cycling. e.g. Aldo wins gold but is injuried for 6 months because he fought 6 times in two weeks and Dana didn't get one PPV bus. now run that across all the weight divisions... it wont work unless it's non contact and who wants to watch that?
MMADoggzofwar
Roar Rookie
you serious? we talking MMA and you talking about Polo. LMAO!