Breeding your own future UFC champion. Whats your plan?

[username19853]

This is a silly thing my friends and I used to talk about when we first discovered UFC in middle school. Don’t take it too seriously, just play along!

You just had a child and your plan is to prepare them to be an MMA champion (or any kind of fighting machine) when they grow up. You get 2 martial arts for their childhood training, and 2 martial arts they can pick up in their teenage years. “MMA” isn’t an option.

Here we go:

Kyokushin Karate and Olympic Wrestling for their childhood training

Muay Thai and BJJ for their teenage years.

I figure Kyokushin will toughen them up, and give them a solid striking foundation.

Wrestling is brutal, it teaches strong takedowns and a strong ground game. I’m very big on muscle memory and reactive skills, so I think wrestling is a solid thing to grow up with.

Kyokushin would transfer to Muay Thai greatly, and get more into the clinch game - something I feel to be very useful.

Wrestling to BJJ covers everything there is to know (minus some throws from judo) and it wouldn’t be that hard to transfer. Many wrestlers I’ve met in BJJ transferred easily, and have more fun since making the switch.

Clearly, this quarantine has me bored!!

[RW]

This is a silly thing my friends and I used to talk about when we first discovered UFC in middle school. Don’t take it too seriously, just play along!

You just had a child and your plan is to prepare them to be an MMA champion (or any kind of fighting machine) when they grow up. You get 2 martial arts for their childhood training, and 2 martial arts they can pick up in their teenage years. “MMA” isn’t an option.

Here we go:

Kyokushin Karate and Olympic Wrestling for their childhood training

Muay Thai and BJJ for their teenage years.

I figure Kyokushin will toughen them up, and give them a solid striking foundation.

Wrestling is brutal, it teaches strong takedowns and a strong ground game. I’m very big on muscle memory and reactive skills, so I think wrestling is a solid thing to grow up with.

Kyokushin would transfer to Muay Thai greatly, and get more into the clinch game - something I feel to be very useful.

Wrestling to BJJ covers everything there is to know (minus some throws from judo) and it wouldn’t be that hard to transfer. Many wrestlers I’ve met in BJJ transferred easily, and have more fun since making the switch.

Clearly, this quarantine has me bored!!

Why start with kyokushin and then transition to muay thai? Both are striking arts, but since we're talking MMA here, the kata, punches with hikite, movements like age uke or nukite won't really transition to MT or MMA.

Other than that, I agree, sort of.

I think someone going into MMA who can't train MMA from the start in this hypothetical could go for Muay Thai (striking), wrestling (ground control, takedowns) and BJJ (submissions). Once they have a very solid base in those they can dab into Karate to add unpredictability and what the **** factor to their striking, and Judo to add more variety to their takedowns with Judo throws.

[Himokiri Karate]

Boxing and Sambo.

I train in both and its an amazing base to have for striking and grappling. They would have sufficient hand skills and quick footwork from boxing and many types of standing and ground grappling techniques.

Later on they can add karate or kung fu techniques. But if you have any sense of mercy and compassion for the well being of your opponents, you would want to avoid the most powerful technique of Himokiri style Karate!

[RW]

boxing and sambo? wouldn't the lack of kicks be a hole in the fighter's game?

[Nevinyrral]

boxing and sambo? wouldn't the lack of kicks be a hole in the fighter's game?

Depends on what sambo he trained.

If I could pick anything I would pick shidokan or daido juku for childhood since those are a lot like mma. And then add boxing and wrestling.

But reslistically in my area it could only be kiokushin and judo if it couldn't be mma class.

[bushido_man96]

This is a fun thought experiment.

Well, I'm biased. I have my kids wrestle for a reason. Not because I'm going to make them into some super-fighters in the future, but because I think it provides valuable skills to learn. Strong takedowns, an aggressive, top-based ground game, toughness, tenacity, conditioning, and learning early-on how to stand toe-to-toe with another competitor.

I would probably add in a striking art. TKD is readily available here (through me, and our school), but if other styles were available, I'd consider them. I'd be concerned about them getting a good technical base early on in the training.

In their teenage years, I'd probably have them continue to wrestle, and pick up something like Muay Thai if available. If they had to stop wrestling, I'd move them to BJJ.

[Wado Heretic]

I would propose one of the Olympic Combat Sports for childhood and seeing what stuck:

Boxing

Free-Style Wrestling

Judo

Roman-Greco Wrestling

Tae Kwon Do

These are huge sports, and you will likely find a dojo, gym, or school program that provides at least one. Judo or Free-Style Wrestling would be optimum based on the history of most of Mixed Martial Arts most capable fighters. The advantage of any of them though is they pave a road to high-level international competition saturated with huge amounts of competitors and talent. If they compete, and do well, in any of those sports they have a good athletic grounding for the future.

After peaking in any of those sports, it is time to begin building the weapons for the future. I would argue the number one priority is Brazillian Jujutsu or Submission Wrestling. A strong striker needs to learn how to move on the ground, and survive against a grapplers offence. A strong wrestler needs to learn the nuances of submission fighting and positioning when ground striking is involved. Dan Severn taught us a lot with his early, high profile losses. For many, it can take a couple of years to get comfortable with the idea of trying to finish a fight on the ground. Thus, getting started early is important.

After that, I would advise a Wrestler or Judoka add boxing to their toolbox. Learn how to use the hands, because they are the primary tool in striking, and the footwork and head-movement to deal with striking.

A boxer or Tae Kwon Do player would benefit more transitioning to Muay Thai or Lethwei. Adding the rest of the tools to their striking regime that they need: the elbows, knees, leg kicks, and fighting in the clinch.

Then it is getting the mat/ring/cage experience. The obvious path is Amateur MMA competition, but, there are alternatives for getting more experience:

Combudo

Combat Jui Jitsu

Combat SOMBO

Daido Juku Kudo

Shoot-Fighting

To name a few. All are formats which can be competed in as tournaments, and thus provide an opportunity for the most fighting experience. They all have different rule-sets, which accommodate different strengths, and have elements of MMA. It would allow a person to begin the transition to free-fighting under Unified Rules, without diving in recklessly and losing time to injury. Plus, these can be competed in during training to be ready to transition to MMA proper.

The key thing is doing something big to get noticed, and doing it with a degree of swiftness. The general rule of thumb is a person needs to be aspiring to a professional debut before 24 if they want a meaningful career.

Following the rules though:

Childhood: Judo and Free-Style Wrestling.

Teen-Age Years: Boxing and SOMBO.

[Himokiri Karate]

boxing and sambo? wouldn't the lack of kicks be a hole in the fighter's game?

Combat sambo allows kicks. That and the footwork of boxing comes handy when you are trying to evade and counter punch. They are good combination.

[sensei8]

Wrestling and boxing.

Striking art and a grappling art.

Switch accordingly to age and temperament of child/teen. Nonetheless, my child would have to have a want to do, over what I want for them to do.

[DarthPenguin]

boxing and sambo? wouldn't the lack of kicks be a hole in the fighter's game?

Combat sambo allows kicks. That and the footwork of boxing comes handy when you are trying to evade and counter punch. They are good combination.

This would be my thought too :

As a kid start in Sambo to learn throws, some submissions and leg locks early plus start boxing so they have a long time to build natural good boxing technique.

Once an adult move to bjj to refine/add submissions to their sambo and muay thai to add kicking, knees and elbows (plus toughness).

Should then have a fighter who has good throws/takedowns, good submissions and good striking.

Then you find out they are chinny and it all goes out the window!!