Best Martial Arts Ranked By PRO MMA Fighter

I asked UFC fighter Natan Levy to rank the best martial arts for MMA and street fighting.

00:00 Intro
00:06 Ninjutsu
00:15 Capoeira
00:37 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
01:08 Aikido
01:27 Japanese Jiu Jitsu
01:44 Boxing
02:04 Kickboxing
02:19 Muay Thai
02:42 Jeet Kune Do
03:03 Taekwondo
03:20 Karate
03:46 Kyokushin Karate
04:00 Kudo
04:13 Shotokan Karate
04:23 Judo
04:44 Wrestling
04:53 Catch Wrestling
05:10 MMA
05:37 Systema
06:03 Filipino Martial Arts
06:22 Krav Maga
08:07 Wing Chun Kung Fu
08:20 Natan Levy changes his rankings
08:44 Will fake martial arts disappear?

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Welcome to the Martial Arts Journey YouTube channel!

My name is Rokas. I'm a Lithuanian guy who trained Aikido for 14 years, 7 of them running a professional Aikido Dojo until eventually I realized that Aikido does not live up to what it promises.

Lead by this realization I decided to make a daring step to close my Aikido Dojo and move to Portland, Oregon for six months to start training MMA at the famous Straight Blast Gym Headquarters under head coach Matt Thornton.

After six months intensive training I had my first amateur MMA fight after which I moved back to Lithuania. During all of this time I am documenting my experience through my YouTube channel called "Martial Arts Journey".

Now I am slowly setting up plans to continue training MMA under quality guidance and getting ready for my next MMA fight as I further document and share my journey and discoveries.

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Check the video "Aikido vs MMA" which started this whole Martial Arts Journey:

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[MartialArtsJourney]

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[Rysussybaka]

Taekwondo at B- and not F? Are we finally exiting the 20 year long era of internet critics relentlessly hating on Taekwondo without even critically analyzing it? Hope so.

[lastmanstanding]

I love to see people giving Catch Wrestling the respect it deserves.

[dktcs]

There's nothing like a professional fighter to tell us what works and what doesn't in a fight as long as there are no more than two individuals involved, and yet making it clear that other martial arts have their positive points in training the body in some aspects. I'm with him. BJJ for the win, but you have to learn some striking as well.

[Liam]

I think you should split the ranking videos for self-defense and MMA into separate videos

[bashlivingstonstampededojo]

I thought kudo should have been ranked higher in self-defense situations in Northern environments or people were heavy jackets you could still use those grips like in judo kudo is well rounded you're not going to be walking around in just shorts and with no shirt on all the time

[shevetlevi]

Glad Natan gave karate a fair shake. He's a sandan in Uechi ryu and does his kata beautifully.

[joec]

Ive been practicing Japanese jujitsu for for 20 years. 100% agree. In principle it is an S tier marital art. In jujitsu we spar, we grapple, we throw each other, and in randori, you dont stop until you submit or theres a clear stalemate. I will stand by S tier in principle. Thing is, there just isnt enough time to be in the elite level of what it practices. It is a great foundation if you want to move to more specialised training for conpeting as it covers a lot of bases. But the average jujitsu goer will not do amazing in specialised competitions. However, it is good, great in fact, for self defence. Seen it myself in real time. It all depends what youre training for

[kramalimedov]

For the question of "will there be one day only MMA?" I think the "sport" martial arts, like judo and taekwondo and other will stay.
The pratice of these are far safer (less risk of hurting yourself) thanks to their narrower set of autorized moves
Nowadays, they don't claim to be self-defense training, they are a relatively well internationnal federation that guarantee a certain stability in what is taught and an active competitive scene

[Ivuspp]

Why do most MMA fighters forget that (real) Judo is all about newaza (ground fighting) too? Maybe they don't know that BJJ is a subset of the original Judo (Kano Jujutsu).

[thebestcentaur]

Rokas, I'm surprised you didn't mention Sanda or Combat Sambo-would have loved to see how those stacked up

[definitlynotbenlente]

The best martial arts is the school that teaches what you want in a way you enjoy
If you enjoy ninjutsu and love it then do it

[jorkbartoschkozlowski]

Nobody talks about capoeira Angola. Our primary strikes are 12/6 elbows and headbutts. So quite difficult to apply in cage with rules. Regional and Contemporary is different ;)

[neotenylv]

The most important thing is going to a decent school/ Dojo no matter what you style is that you like, even a MMA academy can make you a bad fighter if the teachers and colleagues are bad. Also, I love the "what works and what doesn't" statement in martial arts, because even though there's useless techniques for self defense or sparring, the effective ones could also fail.

[miqvPL]

Probably the best tier video you have, short, to the point, no bias. Especially when karate was taken down to tkd level, that was very valid and fair. Kyokushin maybe more like a B tier since no face punches are a big flaw + some of their punches are as outdated and ridiculous like in shotokan and tkd. Ninjutsu probably more like D-. Catch wrestling is on point too. MMA on top since you really need to train how to mix striking with grappling to use all separate skills you have.

[bruhmoment]

Could you make videos where pro fighters pick the most valuable/effective technique from each martial art? this way we can see what is the best thing that each martial art can offer

[BrianWang-dggl]

The problem with BJJ and grappling in general is the it's totally useless if you're faced with multiple opponents. In this situation then you're f*cked.

[timidstein]

Finally, a Martial Arts Tier list that I think I can pretty much 100% agree with. Outstanding and very logical.

[gadimeydav]

Awesome to see natan on this channel, great video!

[mriegger]

Tier videos are so awesome and this was no exception.