Dave Meltzer talks to Muhammed “King Mo “Lawal. After covering his life-long enthusiasm for pro wrestling and long standing habit of obsessively watching tape on competitors they get to Lawal’s transition from amateur wrestling to MMA:
He didn’t quite get that gold, but he did win national titles in 2005 and 2008, as well as gold at the 2007 Pan American Games. Considered having medal potential in 2008, Lawal was matched against fellow American Andy Hrovat in a best-of-three series to determine who would make the Olympic team. Hrovat, who Lawal beat for the ’08 national title, won the third match by scoring with seven seconds left.
“I already knew that was my last year in amateur wrestling, “he said. And as soon as he lost at the trials, he knew he was MMA-bound.
Daniel Cormier talks to Ben Fowlkes and credits Lawal with leading him into the MMA world:
“Really, it was Mo, man. Mo was just on me all the time, saying, ‘You got to try this. You could be good at it.’ And once I started doing it I was like, I really like this. It’s fun. But honestly, I think Mo played the biggest part in it. He was always on me telling me how good it was.”
At first Cormier was reluctant to give up his dreams of an Olympic medal. You spend the bulk of your life wrestling, hearing stories of the heroes in singlets who came before you, it can be a little difficult to give up the dream just to get punched in the face for a living.
But after being forced out of the 2008 Olympics due to kidney failure, Cormier began to reconsider trying out MMA. A trip to the American Kickboxing Academy helped cement the decision, but then Cormier faced a new issue. After being one of the top dogs in wrestling, now he was nothing more than a rookie in MMA.
Our own Leland Roling detailed just how impressive Cormier’s amateur wrestling credentials are:
Cormier, of course, was a high school All-American, two-time JuCo national champion, NCAA runner-up, 2004 and 2008 Olympic wrestler, and 2007 World Championships bronze medalist. There aren’t too many other wrestlers in the sport with Cormier’s credentials on a world level, and he’s actually added a powerful punch to his arsenal to make him quite threatening.
So far Lawal is a few steps ahead of Cormier in his evolution in the sport, but both men are progressing nicely. The thing that continues to impress me about wrestling as a martial art and amateur wrestling as a pool of athletic talent.
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While both Lawal and Cormier are training MMA at a top camp and showing marked progress at adding new elements to their game — particularly Lawal — they are both essentially relying on their wrestling advantage to win in MMA.
Of the three phases of MMA — striking at a distance, the clinch and the ground game — freestyle wrestling prepares an athlete to contend in all three. At a distance the freestyler can shoot in for a double leg, in the clinch he’s got a plethora of trips, throws and take downs and on the ground he’s immediately prepared to control position and ride out a scramble.
Wrestlers like Lawal and Cormier who also bring the natural athleticism to their MMA training that allows them to hit hard and accurately have another quick step up. Not every wrestler who comes to MMA is a gifted ground and pounder or dirty boxer, but those who can naturally hit hard have a very easy time adapting to MMA.
Add to that the fact that of the major combat sports, wrestling probably takes the longest time to master. Some will argue that the striking arts take longer to learn and they may be right, but the reality of MMA is that a pure wrestler will tend to beat a pure striker. Add to that my impression that MMA wrestling is harder to master than MMA jiu jitsu and we might be looking at an insurmountable advantage.
I’m basing that on the fact that we’ve seen numerous wrestling-based fighters add slick submission games to their arsenal — Matt Hughes, Jake Shields, Phil Davis, etc etc — but we’ve seen very few BJJ fighters come in and add a dominating take down and top control game to their repertoire.
Is wrestling the best base art to bring to MMA? I have to say, yes.
via bloodyelbow
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