What is are dominant types of martial art used in Mixed Martial Arts today?

Answer 1

In response to buto, you are looking at the product instead of the source. For a fact, MMA fighters train jiu jitsu, as a class, with no striking, just grappling, a lot of the time. They also do the same with boxing or muay thai based on their speciality. This goes without saying, a UFC fighter trains at my gym. They actually do a lot less sparring freestyle than they do structured sparring because of the risk of injury with those tiny 4 oz. gloves. What you see is a guy who's holding someone down and beating on his face, but what you missed is the guy who spent the last 5 years in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes and in tournaments perfecting his skills.

If you don't know how to get out of a heel hook or a toe hold or a kimura or an americana or an armbar or a triangle choke or any of the other easily applied jiu jitsu moves you aren't gonna be able to hold someone down like you see and punch them. You just can't. They will sub you. You have to realize that while they are outwardly beating on some guy's face with their hand with a knee to belly mount pushing him against the fence, they have years of training in jiu jitsu and striking in most cases.

I will conceed to you though that it is not traditional martial arts. Most teachers of Jiu Jitsu will not even allow you to train in no Gi BJJ. But Nick Diaz won the U.S. Open in BJJ with his gi, and he also trains no Gi in stockton to keep his abilities sharp, though learning one helps you in the other according to him.

Just trying to let you knwo that traditional martial arts still exist, but after they master them they do hybridize them and use them in a new fighting form which is MMA.

Answer 2

The two most dominant or prevalent Martial Arts disciplines that many fighters use or train in are Muay Thai and Jujitsu, although many of the fighters have already had a Martial Arts or Fighting Arts background to begin with.

but this does not necessarily mean that they are the ONLY disciplines that're used in the Octagon or that they are the end all be all disciplines to study.

especially when ANYONE who has studied more than one Martial Art or Fighting Art discipline can be considered a "Mixed" Martial Artist.

the base idea in the beginning was to bring together anyone and everyone with Martial Arts experience into the octagon and prove their ideals based on what they know or had learned, but it basically has moved only to using Muay Thai and Jujitsu within the more recent years.

But in the end, it comes down to the fighter and what kind of strategy they have for winning the fight.

Answer 3

grappling/submissions/ brazilian jujistu are the most dominant types of martial arts used in mma today, however

i do believe that mma fighters do overlook the benefits of having a good, well-rounded stand-up game!

if you look back thru the ufc, you'll find that most fighters who had great stand-up, (like belfort, smith and even lidell) were dominant fighters with many wins and memorable fights!

most people don't value boxing as highly as ground work, but boxing can benefit you standing up and on the ground.

remember, a fight starts on the feet!!!

and kicking, you hear that a lot of mma guys nowadays train in muay Thai.. well, okay.. WHERE ARE THE KICKS??? a roundhouse kick to the knee or thigh is a great way to soften a fighter up, heck you hit that knee hard enough and you stop the fight.. after maurice smith, you just don't see that anymore.. so sad.. *shaking head*

as for bluto's comment, yeah if you're lucky enough to find a mma school in your area, you can learn a mma system, where a combination of boxing/muay Thai/bjj have been combined for you and streamlined into a system, but for most that's not the case, lots of fighters have to or tend to cross-train.. give it another 5-10 years and you'll find mma schools in every town, there's a huge growing market, and hopefully it won't just become a fad and fade away in a few years..

well, that's the truth no matter how much it might hurt..

~*winkz*~

Answer 4

Mixed Martial Arts are the dominant type of martial arts used in MMA today.

Isn't this like the question: What was the color of george washington's white horse?

Anyone with a well-rounded game of grappling and striking arts. That is why they call it "mixed".

Answer 5

I would have to say Muay Thai or any type of submission grappling. All fights are won either standing or on the ground. When you think of it though, it's not so much the type of martial art that portrays dominance. It is the fighter.

Answer 6

Many martial arts are represented in MMA. Below are a few of the more popular/publicized styles and some of their contributions to the fight game (note the overlap):

Muay Thai - punching, kicking, elbow strikes, knee strikes, fighting and throwing from the clinch
boxing - punching and combinations, footwork, slip, bob and weave
freestyle wrestling - takedowns, takedown defense, grappling, positioning
judo - throws, takedowns, submissions
Jiu Jitsu - takedowns, grappling, submissions

Checkout the following link regarding the effectiveness of various "styles" as recorded by Sherdog.com, one of the largest MMA Web sites:

http://www.sherdog.com/stats/fightstats.asp?stats_page=stylewinrecords_ratio.asp
http://www.sherdog.com/stats/fightstats.asp?stats_page=stylelossrecords_ratio.asp

While there are similarities, training for sport-fighting can be very different from self-defense and military-styled combat training. Sport-fighting, even MMA, has rules and the available techniques used by competitors is very limited. Training is geared towards one-on-one, non-lethal (though legal techniques can be lethal), "empty-handed" competitions. A great deal of emphasis is also placed on conditioning since many fights can "go the distance" in which case the competitor with the better conditioning has the advantage.

For self-defense and combat training, the emphasis is on lethality since you want to overcome your opponent as quickly as possible. In addition, improvising the use of and defending against weapons is taught, as well as facing multiple opponents.

Answer 7

There seem to be 3 dominant forms with some others showing up every now and then - muay thai, brazilian jiu jitsu, and freestyle/ greco-roman wrestling. Occasionally, you get substitutions - kenpo or american kickboxing instead of muay thai; judo instead of wrestling; sambo instead of brazilian jiu jitsu. Ground and pound is also part of the game, but that requires staying in a ground fighting situation while avoiding submissions, sweeps, etc. - which requires training in a ground fighting art such as wrestling or jiu jitsu. There are others, but in terms of the dominant forms, I believe that's the gig.

Answer 8

MMA doesn't appear to use any traditional martial arts. We can sit here and say they use Muay Thai for strikes and Jujutsu for throws, but if they do, it is cleverly disguised. Unless someone can tell me what traditional martial art teaches the 'ground and pound', I'd say they use the term 'mixed martial arts' to describe the use of both strikes and grappling combined and not the use of traditional martial arts.

Many fighters today call themselves 'freestyle' fighters, rather than martial artists.

Answer 9

Wow, some crazy answers here.

Most elite Mixed Martial Artists come from a competetive background in traditional Martial Arts.

Pretty much what it takes is a well rounded game, and what anyone who is in would tell you to do is to take some of the following martial arts and develop your own style.

Boxing- Pretty much at some point there is straight up boxing training going on, helps emphasis footwork and proper boxing and hand techniques/defenses.

Kickboxing- From Western kickboxing to Muay Thai (most Western kickboxing has Muay Thai Elements to it now) these techniques are the bread and butter of a stand up specialist. Leg kicks, knees from the clinch, elbows standing and on the mat, as well as the boxing element and kicks.

Wrestling- Greco, Freestyle, Folk, Catch, Submission, Judo, etc. This is specifically used in takedowns, take down defense, as well as how to control a person once it gets to the ground to be able to maintain dominant position. One of the reasons why straight BJJ submission artists have trouble with college level wrestlers is their ability to outwrestle them and keep a dominant position.

Submission/Ground work: Judo, Sambo, BJJ, Catchwrestling- This where the submissions come into play, chokes and joint locks from these arts. Most MMA fighters have a background in Judo or study straight BJJ, or No Gi submission wrestling as part of their skill set and training pattern.

It is all a blend really, and all based on mixing traditional martial arts, especially taking whatever you are already proficient in and adding to it, and usually what you have been proficient in for years becomes your bread and butter, whether you were TKD, or kickboxer, and spend time working on grappling, and specialized in stand up but can be competent on the ground, or vice versa.

Average MMA fighter is usually devoting his time (aside from a large portion of it working on conditioning) spending time in each of those areas.

Most all of them will spend a day or two boxing, no kicks etc.

Spend time working stand up in general, kicks, clinch, striking, etc, including defending take downs and drilling take downs.

And then spend some time straight up rolling doing exclusively matwork.


for the above poster,

Ground and pound isn't something you train, while MMA guys do in fact train it now as there are in fact techniques for it. It started as just an extension of being in dominant position, and something that came naturally.

So to answer your question as directly as possible.

Western Boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, Judo, Sambo, BJJ, Catchwrestling, Greco, and Freestyle Wrestling.

Nobody just works on everything all together, they focus on the traditional, learning what works for each individual from there, and then combine each aspect of range and fighting together with the techniques that work for them.

Answer 10

I see alot of Muay thai and Grappling. Both are pretty good if you can master both of them.

Muay thai is probably the best "striking" martial art and Grappling is good when your taking down to the ground.

I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones my friends try to master before they take MMA classes.