A Puncher’s Chance, A Choker’s Choice
The age old question of who is more deadly, the striker or the grappler, has been tested time and time again. In the old days of MMA, the early UFC’s, Vale Tudo’s and Pankrations we saw that the answer was nearly absolute. Nine times out of ten the grappler won. There are some striking purists, particularly boxers, who still pretend grapplers aren’t fighters or that they can beat any grappler with angles and precision. For the most part this is a fallacy. A puncher’s chance is slim compared to a choker’s choice. Now before I go any further I should note that I absolutely suck at striking, and my takedowns are ‘passable’ for my level; so I would probably be in the 10% that would get KTFO when paired against a decent striker-that being said let’s take a closer look at the realities of striker vs grappler!
We all know now that the best fighters are skilled in both disciplines, you have to be good at both to truly excel in MMA. While specialists still exist, they have enough knowledge of both sides of the coin to stay afloat. Why though, do grappling specialists pose such a danger to striking specialists? The answer is actually pretty complex. I have narrowed down the three things I feel are what makes grapplers so deadly.
The Human Head
Our domes can take a lot of damage, it is surprising honestly. In the glory days of bare knuckle boxing, it was very common for the fighter’s hands to give out before an opponent’s head. It’s one of the reasons you see old barroom brawlers who can’t make a fist anymore. The forehead absorbs most of the shots, and it is the hardest part of the human body, and it should be, it protects the most vital organ in your body (although let’s face it, if we used our brains more we probably wouldn’t do combat sports). Knockouts arising from head trauma come one of three ways: 1. the head gets hit so hard that the brain actually bounces off the skull and causes a shutdown 2. the overstimulation of nerve endings behind the jawline, or 3. temporary shutdown from pain (rare, but actually documented). Strikers have to continually impact someone with blunt force trauma or very accurately to cause one of these three knockouts. Grapplers however, have multitudes of ways to attack the head; from front standing position alone there are 15 different chokes and cranks that I can name off without thinking much, and I’m just starting my journey.Space
Strikers need space. Their strikes have to garner force by distance traveled. Scientifically speaking, force = ½ mass X velocity2 with velocity being calculated by distance over time. Simply put, to generate force, the striker needs to create velocity, which requires distance. The grappler however, does not need a force of impact to do damage. If the grappler removes space from the striker, the striker cannot attack effectively. Yet the nature of submission fighting makes this an opportune position. Even in the case of ground and pound specialists, they must remove space from their opponents by placing them on their back and then give themselves distance for attack while maintaining a lack of space for the opponent.
Volumes Of Attack
Yes the striker can attack from a thousand different angles with their hands, feet, elbows, knees and even heads (if we are talking thai boxing), yet even that pales in comparison from the sheer volume of submissions a grappler can pull from. This is what I am talking about when I say the choker’s choice. They literally have thousands of options for finishing an opponent. Even from a basic guard position there are literally hundreds of submissions available. Arm bar, Kimura, razor lock, wrist lock, wrist pop, double arm bar, pretzel choke, head and arm choke, triangle, omoplata, kickstart Americana , guillotine, cradle choke, jaw pop neck crank…and these are just the beginning of a huge list from one position, all performed in endless combinations ! If we look at the old UFC’s and Vale Tudo tournaments, we saw this repeatedly. Kickboxers getting taken down and choked out in seconds, karate masters having their ankles separated from their leg, boxers getting armlocked from standing position. Today pure grapplers are not seeing the same level of success in the octagon but that is because all Mixed Martial Artists are very skilled grapplers now- with striking skills to boot.
I know there will be strikers who disagree with this, hell I am from a striking school so I probably will get a lot of flak for it. Yet, the numbers don’t lie: World class strikers lose to world class grapplers most of the time.
See you on the mats!
“Polar Bear” Ken Dunbar
-SOTG Staff Writer
