I went down to the Orem Throwdown center for the Utah Champion Submission Challenge XI. First of all, what a blast! This was my first time down to Throwdown and it had a great atmosphere and all of the competitors were very cool. There were dozens of exciting matches, plenty of them taking advantage of the no time limit. Local MMA’er Steve “Razor” Sharp had a match that must have lasted 20 minutes.
I believe Ben Gardner snatched up the first place in the Absolute division, so congrats Ben. For all other division’s results, they should be posted on www.utahchampion.com soon.
Videos:
Bart vs Brandon (HQ) – 162 meg
Bart vs Nick (HQ) – 475 meg
Aaron vs Ben (HQ) – 534 meg
As I get more vids, I’ll get them posted up.
Also, if your looking for the March 28 competition, check out the last Throwdown CSC here.
Don’t you just hate it when you shoot in for a take down and your opponent sprawls nicely, flattening you out on to all fours with him on top of your back? Me too. From this sprawl position, the top grappler has plenty of options – anaconda, guillotine, taking the back, you name it. But what does the bottom grappler have? Not much. I think the best option is to try to escape into a better position. Here’s one idea:
It’s basically the high school wrestling “sit out”, and I think it works pretty well. I’ve been experimenting with a couple of other ideas for this situation, and when I refine them I’ll post. If you have any techniques you like from this position, let us in on them!
[Bill and Ted meet themselves] Ted: OK wait. If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of? Bill, Ted: 69, dudes. Bill, Ted: Whoa.
[quadruple air guitar solo]
- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
The north south position is a very dominant ground position, and in my opinion, is both very dangerous (for the bottom) and wildly under-utilized. Part of it comes from ignorance and part of it comes from people’s natural discomfort. The whole face-into-crotch thing makes for a weird experience when you’re grappling. However, you just got to get over it.
Waaaagh! Wrestlers. They’re a tricky sort, and as big names like Randy Couture, Matt Hughes, and Brock Lesnar have shown. The purpose of this article is to help fighters who have difficulties in dealing with wrestling based mixed martial artists. Certainly, I don’t know it all. Hopefully though, you’ll get some tips and ideas to take to the mat and gain an upper hand against wrestling MMA’ers.
In part 1, I discussed the basic wrestlers strategy, side control management, preventing the guard pass, and striking from the guard.
In part 2, I want to add some details about dominant positions, submissions from the ground and elaborate a bit about the standing striking game.
More and more guys are coming into the pro-am levels of MMA with strong wrestling backgrounds. A lot of wrestlers have been shooting for double leg take downs, asserting the single collar tie, and cradle-pinning opponents since 10 years old, some even starting even earlier. Possibly the womb.
It’s no mystery why wrestling for MMA is powerful, so I’ll omit going over that. The purpose of this article is to help those who have difficulties in dealing with wrestling based mixed martial artists.
