Justin Gaethje: Folkstyle wrestling the key to beating Khabib Nurmagomedov
“In Folkstyle, I think the biggest factor is, you’re allowed to expose your back without giving up points, which means you scramble.”
Wrestling is widely understood to be the best base for mixed martial arts, because of the wrestler’s ability to control where the action takes place. But wrestling takes many forms, and Folkstyle wrestling, the form practiced uniquely in the USA at the collegiate level and below, has an outsized number of representatives, as a glance at the current men’s UFC champions will attest.
Heavyweight – Stipe Miocic – NCAA Div I nationals qualifier
Light Heavyweight – Jon Jones – JUCO national champion
Middleweight – Robert Whittaker – MMA background
Welterweight – Kamaru Usman – NCAA Div II national champion
Lightweight – Khabib Nurmagomedov – Combat Sambo, Judo, FS wrestling
Featherweight – Max Holloway – kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu
Bantamweight – Henry Cejudo – 4x state HS champ in California, FS wrestling Olympic gold medalist
Flyweight – Henry Cejudo -4x state HS champ in California, FS wrestling Olympic gold medalist
The dominance of Folkstyle is not surprising, as the effectiveness in wrestling comes from control, and Folkstyle rules favor control even more so than does Greco or FS. For example, a takedown in Folkstyle requires control, and back exposure is not an immediate score allowing for more scrambles, and points are given for escaping an opponent’s control.
During a recent appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Div I All American Justin Gaethje argued that Folkstyle wrestling key to beating Khabib Nurmagomedov.
The thing about Folkstyle wrestling, Folkstyle wrestling doesn’t happen anywhere else other than the United States,” said Gaethje, as transcribed by the amazing Farah Hannoun, for MMA Junkie. “I only wrestle folkstyle. I very rarely wrestle Freestyle. In Folkstyle, I think the biggest factor is, you’re allowed to expose your back without giving up points, which means you scramble. So whenever he goes to take me down, I’m going to be flipping and rolling in ways that he’s never felt in his life. That’s Folkstyle wrestling, being able to expose your back.
What he’s done his whole life, these guys could never expose their backs to get out of a takedown because they were giving up points, and that’s the first thing you learn in Freestyle is don’t expose your back. So you go straight to your stomach, and you give up a takedown. They also never have to get up. They just lay there for 15 seconds, then they stand them up automatically. In Folkstyle wrestling, you get rewarded for getting up and escaping.
Nothing will happen on the cage. We will fight in the center of the octagon. As much as he’s going to want to fight on the edge of the Octagon, we’re going to fight in the center. I’m going to throw massive shots, most of them are going to come right through the middle, and I’m going to take chances, throw knees, and if he takes me down that’s fine.
You cannot hold me down. I will get up, and I will scramble in a different way than he’s ever known. I think I have more power than anybody ever has consistently had in the lightweight division.
The only way to stop a takedown is to meet force with force. You don’t try to sprawl away. Whenever you do a sprawl, you don’t throw your hips away; you drive your hips into the mat. That’s how you stop a takedown, so I’ve wrestled my whole life and hit so hard. I guarantee he’s going to be in trouble. Dustin [Poirier] had him in trouble, and Dustin was on the fence the whole time.