Who in your opinion is the best grappler in the world MMA or non MMA
Yeah I forgot to mention that good post. Theres an old saying I love to use. He who sets the rules wins the game.Ybot said:It depends on what grappling rules you are referring to. BJJ rules, I'd say Jacare, Roger Gracie, Xande Ribiero, and Marcelo Garcia are the best right now.
Sub-Grappling would be Jacare, Roger, Marcelo Garcia, Xande, Lister, and Arona.
MMA grappling would be Mach Sakurai, BJ Penn, Arona, Lister, both Nogieras, and Busta. Actually there are alot of good judo grapplers entering MMA lately too. Nakumura, Yoshida, etc.
I don't keep up with the judo world, but you could look up the latest Judo world champions, and Olympians.
Also, don't forget Freestyle, and Greco Roman Wresling.
No, but he's beaten a few on the ground (Randy Couture and Dan Severn). That's why he comes up. It's more of his principled application of wrestling and catch. If you want to talk college wrestlers in MMA then I would say Randleman, but actual wrestling ability in an octagon or ring, right now it's Barnett.ozz525 said:Was Barnett a ncaa national champion for wrestling
I'm not sure about this list. After all, Xande's record is sporadic some of the time. He won the last ADCC in his weight class, but obviously Braulio went on to win the whole thing in the absolute division. I think he and Braulio are a terrific matchup in terms of competitive skills, and I don't know that Xande is a head and shoulders about Braulio at all.If we're talking established, open weight, gi or no-gi, I think it has to look like this:
Roger Gracie
Alexander Ribeiro
They're simply leagues ahead of their competition recently.
I don't even know about Shields. Werdum is definitely a lock, though. He's a world class grappler, multiple time Abu Dhabi winner and world champion. He is a total machine in no-gi.If we're talking MMA fighters, taken out of the cage and put on a grappling mat, then it gets even easier to decide IMO:
Fabricio Werdum
Jake Shields
So, Kron is 22 and just got his blackbelt. Kron is well considered the next Rickson. I think that's right. I just don't know that he'll be a dominant blackbelt. Winning all the way through purplebelt and brownbelt is fine, though it is a huge leg up to be able to train full time, especially since many of the guys in those weightclasses can't.And if we're talking potential prodigies... Kron Gracie, period. 5 pan american championships, 2 world championships, 51 straight submissions from purple to brown belt, and I don't actually think he's lost a match yet. The kicker? The kid is like 21-22 years old.
Yeah, I don't know. Out of the current MMA guys, I have to admit I don't think there are really any guys who have great "jiu-jitsu for MMA" in the same way that a young Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira did, or Jeff Monson did.As for MMA-applicable BJJ... that's a tough call I think. I'm sure Iron Man would be better at deciding that list.
Do you mean historically? Or among active competitors? I think you're wrong either way, but for different reasons depending on which you mean.Rickson Gracie, do not think many people could argue with that. He is just out of the limelight at the moment!
I'm not sure if this is supposed to be in contrast with what I said or an endorsement of it. I think that its great how many of the top tier jiu-jitsu guys are very respectful of each other, and how much they learn from each other.You have to remember though that guys like Maia looked great against modern day MMA fighters who are blackbelts in BJJ. Nogueira looked great mostly against strikers and wrestlers.
Plus the Nogs themselves said Maia has much better BJJ, Maia refers to their jitz as "pretty good."
I'm assuming that you are basing this strictly on MMA performances. I suppose that's fine, but there are a lot of guys that are around the same level as these guys in terms of applying BJJ in MMA competition. Seems fine, to me, to compare a guy like Maia to a guy like Nogueira in terms of MMA performances, but for me style plays a major role, as does technical ability.I don't follow non-MMA grappling so in that area I don't really know.
But in MMA I have look at who's got the credentials, and who's applied their grappling the best in MMA. The two that come to mind are Damien Maia and Jacare Souza. Shields comes to mind as well, I'd rank him up with those two if he'd completed a takedown on GSP, but since he failed I can't give him that much of nod. BJ Penn also comes to mind as an elite grappler in MMA.
I'm curious about where you're getting that statistic, because I'm fairly sure they've competed more than three times, between gi and no-gi competition.I would give the edge to Maia in that in BJJ competitions he's beaten Souza 2-1 and he's shown better MMA grappling in his career overall. BJ Penn would be a close third though.
Did you watch the Melendez fight?For me it's clearly Shinya Aoki by far!
I have never seen anything which makes me believe that he is not the best pure grappler out there.
Really? There are plenty of other guys who have dominant records on the mat. Monson, Werdum and Arona have all beaten world class grapplers multiple times, something which can't be said for Aoki.His resume speaks for himself too! No other grappler in the MMA world has a more impressive record than he does.
He hasn't beaten any of the champs in his weightclass. He beat Joachim Hansen twice and Eddie Alvarez. Those guys are not slouches, at all, but they were not running the weightclass at the time. The #1 spot at lightweight has never definitively belonged to Aoki, and that conversation can't even be worth having until Aoki beats one of the UFC champions (either at 145 or 155, depending on whether he can make the cut to featherweight at all) and beats Melendez. Both seem unlikely.He's beaten every Champ there is, with just one exception and all this with his amazing abilitys on the ground only.