Wrestling is better than BJJ

Q&A with the Coach

Why is the average collegiate wrestler so much more fluid at grappling than the average BJJ practitioner of the same age?

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Ramsey Dewey is a retired pro fighter, combat sports coach, referee, and fight commentator… and occasional musician based in Shanghai, China.

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Thanks to my channel sponsor:

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This video features original music by Ramsey Dewey

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I fought professionally in Mixed Martial arts, Sanda, Muay Thai, K1 and American kickboxing from 2004-2011 when I was forced to retire due to a broken skull and being blinded in one eye. I hold a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Black belts in multiple traditional martial arts, including Taekwondo and kyokushin karate. I also train in catch wrestling, sambo, taijiquan, judo, and boxing.

I currently coach at the Animal MMA gym, the Extreme Fight Lab, and the Mordor Fight Club, all in Shanghai, China.

[ThatJamesGuy]

Ramsey is 100% correct. But there’s one other thing—the average purple belt isn’t a competitive athlete. The average high school or college wrestler is working out most days a week on top of wrestling practices most days a week. An athlete will always move differently than a hobbyist.

[sonnic]

This reminds me of that basic idea of the better athlete being the better fighter. In most cases, Wrestlers are the superior athletes, and have the strongest fighting mindsets.

[bubblewhip]

A school wrestler is like if you had to kick out the bottom 30 percent of your gym every year.

[cej]

I only wrestled for about 2-3 years, but wrestling has been a HUGE cornerstone for me going through highschool an now prepping for the military, hell, it was the first sport I cared enough about to start working out for and I regret not putting even more of myself into it and staying longer

I definitely apply myself to my training now because of wrestling and wanting to pay respect to the values it taught me

If I ever have a kid, I would want them to go through combat sports, especially wrestling and im so excited to hear and see what they learn and put into practice because of it

[maxanderson]

This video is a perfect summary of why I will always kick myself for not taking part in high school wrestling when I had the chance, more free time, and way less responsibilities. Feels like I’ll always be a decade behind any wrestler in my MMA Gym

[lofidrone]

Very true. Started wrestling when I was five. When I was 22 I joined the army and combatives was nothing. Even the toughest guys were no problem.

[johnschmaingtheschoolofthe]

Ramsey, that is one of the best and most honest comparisons I've heard to date. I've never studied BJJ, however I wrestled my whole life and am a Judoka, along with other stuff. I've practiced for a little over 50 years and am considered one of the old farts. Today I teach my style of Gong Fu and Taiji Quan, and enjoy the health bennies. I don't always agree with you, however I do acknowledge the hard work you've done to get to where you're at today, congrats and thanks for being so candid. Keep up the good work. Peace and Balance, John

[GearlessJoe]

Their training is lot more physically demanding too, they don’t just practice their sport they also do very intense exercises during class too

[RadicalTrivia]

I'm pretty lucky that my coach ( The General - Mike Wilkins) has been wrestling since he could walk, and so has his coach (our head coach) and most of our black belts.

Learn to wrestle.

Great video, my friend!

[bryanfong]

I also feel that wrestling attracts better athletes and they actually train to compete. I mean, is an olympic sport and there are alot of scholarships for wrestling. On the other hand bjj, is mostly a rich kid sport where people pay for the fee and take classes. They dont necessarily train to competitive

[mxbblife_mu]

I love watching Wrestling vs BJJ matches on YouTube.... I would say 65% of the time the Wrestler dominates. The Wrestler may not have "Finishing moves" but the sheer strength, speed, and athleticism overwhelmes the BJJ guys

[dtibvgz]

Something which I hear very often is 'how long have you been training' and the answers comes in years (or months for new guys). For me it's mindboggling because I know the difference between a casual guy training 2-3 days a week and skipping few every now and then due to more important (for him) things and one who likes to go professional and does two trainings per day every workday with some extensive camps once or twice a year. The gap in their abilities is very big and grows every year - which is normal. Strange how most people do not understand this concept even if we talk about other forms of skill - the more time you put in it - the better you become.

[j_crust]

Thank you for stating it loudly for the people in the back that just can't grasp this logic. I'll also add that wrestling training is on average far more intense than bjj with coaches that are very strict and "old school" with their teaching and they push for a higher workload as well.

[raphaellopez]

BJJ & Wreslting should be done together like Muay Thai & Boxing

[SG-cvpf]

Mostly depends on the environment. In the rural US most people first start off as wrestlers and progress from there so there is a much higher talent pool for wrestling. If you go to Brazil I'm sure the Jiu Jitsu is much more brutal in the conditioning.

Even in the states you can see different places emphasize different styles of fighting. I grew up in and around major east coast cities my whole life and you'll see that boxing and striking conditioning here rival wrestling conditioning and exceed it in some cases. So it depends on which place emphasizes what.

Colleges of course are wrestling factories so you'll have much more insane conditioning for wrestling.

[themetal]

My former cohost on my talk show used to think I was foolishly of the opinion that wrestling was not a martial art and that it was a waste of time (which would be silly with how much time I spend on it when tutoring people). One day I had to take him aside and explain that I actually think that Freestyle (or even Folkstyle) Wrestling is one of the most valuable practices you can sink time into and that I was mostly just taking the piss out of him on-air like buddies do because he was a wrestler back in high school.

[EnricW]

I can't believe they give a purple belt to someone who trains only 2x a week in the US, that's like a participation trophy. Here in Brazil that wouldn't take less than 7-10 years. Taking that to the College wrestler vs average purple belt discussion, we have to remember that college wrestlers train every single day, even during school breaks they keep training, so from what I've seen even from high school wrestlers they are crazy athletic and focused on improving, of course they're going to be that much better.

[lorenzotuletta]

Gotta love how great he is at breaking things down simply

[sludgiebear]

I've always thought along these lines when comparing the likes of Muay Thai and UFC fighters: the former seem to be ready to fight like almost every week, whereas the latter seem to prefer many months inbetween. Whilst you could argue "health and safety" etc as a benefit, which is a decent argument, I still feel 3-6 months between fights is an amazingly long time.

I honestly feel that participating in more competitions more frequently will keep your game strong, whilst encouraging you to elevate. Two matches per year, on average, is probably more detrimental to the fighter and their team.

Imagine a writer who wants to write all the time, but is limited to writing just a couple of books per year. Now all focus is upon the couple books they write, rather than their overall performance across the year like they're able to do.

[RicoMnc]

I was at best a mediocre HS wrestler. I didn't have any earlier childhood experience or do any "off season" matches or training. This wrestling experience still prepared and helped me start training much later in life. My first no-gi rolling submission used an inverted cradle which I improvised and turned it into a head'n'arm choke.

The guys who were consistently in the state finals were different beasts entirely. Most of them had been training and competing since they were in elementary school, some earlier.
They trained off-season and did free-style and Greco Roman wrestling.

By the time they became a college wrestler they were already exceptional grapplers. College wrestlers, especially D1 often can challenge BJJ black-belts. Even Rickson Gracie spoke highly of Mark Shultz after rolling with him, and said he was the toughest grappler he ever rolled with. A few years ago (I don't remember the details) A D3 wrestler who dropped out of college after his first year competed in an ADCC tournament and handily one his division with little to no JJ training at all.

The Gracie's are a rare, exceptional example of BJJ, being the founders. Many of them have been doing serious training and competitions or fights since they were children.

BJJ is slowly catching up, at least in the US. There is now a new generation of BJJ competitors who have been training and competing since they were children, many of them cross-training and competing in wrestling. Some schools in our area are run by BJJ black belts who have complimentary wrestling training and competition experience.