Is the D1 wrestling-to-UFC pipeline nearly closed?

[peanut]

After looking up the UFC top 16 rankings, the the only D1 wrestlers I can identify offhand are Michael Chandler and Colby Covington. That's... not a lot.

Has MMA evolved to the point where it's nearly impossible for D1 wrestlers to make it to the top of MMA?

Edited Tuesday at 12:39 AM by peanut

[okokzach]

I think the 'American wrestling is the best MMA base' argument is can no longer hold up to scrutiny, but I think there are plenty of great athletes that will come from American wrestling and have good MMA careers. But to do that, they'll have to shed the notion that their wrestling is going to carry them to the top.

Bo didn't even do well in wrestling positions. That should be a wakeup call to him. 

[wrestle87]

28 minutes ago, peanut said:

After looking up the UFC top 16 rankings, the the only D1 wrestlers I can identify offhand are Michael Chandler and Colby Covington. That's... not a lot.

Has MMA evolved to the point where it's nearly impossible for D1 wrestlers to make it to the top of MMA?

You need to look beyond the UFC for information on this.  You should include smaller promotions who pay their athletes far better, and you should also include juco and d2, maybe even d3 guys.

I would say the pipeline to mma has not closed, but to the UFC yes, most likely.  When the UFC was getting going and the first era of wrestlers were coming through, these were guys who went through college on rice and ketchup and who couldn't believe that they could get paid to use their skills in any way.  This meant they were willing to accept sh*tty terms and crap treatment from UFC management.  The first cohorts also got their start in an era before the UFC reebok deal, which wholesale killed the largest source of income for athletes.

Dana white is a good businessman, but he is 100% the daniel plainview of MMA.  He has shown time and again that he is happy to burn the livelihoods of 1,000 of people to further his own means by .5%.  Like all truly obsessed people, he is sociopathic in his pursuit of his goals.  No different from Jordan or Tiger.

This means, quite simply, you don't want to work for the guy, and wrestlers have tended to look towards more competitive pastures for their entries into MMA.  Bellator has a ton of US wrestlers.  Dana also cares about markets, and he gets all his grapplers from Dagestan because that keeps Eastern European interest in the UFC alive.  

Also, now, with NIL, wrestlers are able to actually benefit from wrestling in college, and they aren't assuming they have to wholesale destroy their bodies in order to have any sort of livelihood.  The expectations of the collective of competitors has evolved greatly, and that is awesome for everyone involved.  

The UFC is not a good thing to be involved in, both from a health and career perspective.

[BruceyB]

I agree with most of @wrestle87's sentiment. I don't think many wrestlers 10-15 years ago necessarily wanted to do MMA, but after spending their lives committed to honing their skills, it was really the only avenue post college to make use of those skills. Very few wrestlers make world teams, and far fewer were winning medals during that time. You basically had to fundraise to gather enough money to pay your bills, let alone support a family. Very few guys would wrestle more than the rest of the quad that they graduated into. It seems like now with RTC's, RTC coaching staffs, the emergence of elite club programs being ran by former D1 wrestlers, there are just a lot more avenues to make a career with a wrestling background then there were before. I know Ben Askren is on record saying that if he could have made enough money to support his family that he likely would have at least stayed in the sport of wrestling for another quad before making the transition. Getting punched, kicked, and choked isn't fun. I doubt many would choose MMA if they could make a comfortable living while staying in the wrestling world.

 

[ryrose511]

Totally agree with @ brain lines , wrestlers now have more legit options to stay in the sport without taking damage. With NIL and RTCs, MMA isn’t the only path anymore, and honestly, it makes sense why fewer top D1 guys are chasing UFC spots.

[1032004]

Aren’t there a lot of Dagestanis that I presume have wrestling backgrounds in the rankings? To me that would still suggest that wrestling as a whole is a good base.  

Wasn’t Gaethje D1?  I think we should also be able to count Jon Jones (NJCAA), Cejudo (American freestyle), and Sterling (D3)

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 hour ago, 1032004 said:

Aren’t there a lot of Dagestanis that I presume have wrestling backgrounds in the rankings? To me that would still suggest that wrestling as a whole is a good base.  

Wasn’t Gaethje D1?  I think we should also be able to count Jon Jones (NJCAA), Cejudo (American freestyle), and Sterling (D3)

Yes Gaethje, UNC.  Also Kamaru, Blaydes  from lower divisions.  Lots of guys from other countries with wrestling, and Americans who wrestled in high school (Kattar etc).

But not as many D1 guys as there once was.

[Rassling2]

12 hours ago, wrestle87 said:

You need to look beyond the UFC for information on this.  You should include smaller promotions who pay their athletes far better, and you should also include juco and d2, maybe even d3 guys.

I would say the pipeline to mma has not closed, but to the UFC yes, most likely.  When the UFC was getting going and the first era of wrestlers were coming through, these were guys who went through college on rice and ketchup and who couldn't believe that they could get paid to use their skills in any way.  This meant they were willing to accept sh*tty terms and crap treatment from UFC management.  The first cohorts also got their start in an era before the UFC reebok deal, which wholesale killed the largest source of income for athletes.

Dana white is a good businessman, but he is 100% the daniel plainview of MMA.  He has shown time and again that he is happy to burn the livelihoods of 1,000 of people to further his own means by .5%.  Like all truly obsessed people, he is sociopathic in his pursuit of his goals.  No different from Jordan or Tiger.

This means, quite simply, you don't want to work for the guy, and wrestlers have tended to look towards more competitive pastures for their entries into MMA.  Bellator has a ton of US wrestlers.  Dana also cares about markets, and he gets all his grapplers from Dagestan because that keeps Eastern European interest in the UFC alive.  

Also, now, with NIL, wrestlers are able to actually benefit from wrestling in college, and they aren't assuming they have to wholesale destroy their bodies in order to have any sort of livelihood.  The expectations of the collective of competitors has evolved greatly, and that is awesome for everyone involved.  

The UFC is not a good thing to be involved in, both from a health and career perspective.

Interesting eye opening perspective. Great post wrestle87

[BarSeries]

I would say yes. This isn't the wild west anymore like the early days of the UFC where wrestlers dominated because all of the world class strikers were boxers. Now that there is more specialized MMA training with BJJ, striking, boxing, etc. all emphasized.........it becomes much harder for a guy who wrestled his whole life with no striking or BJJ experience to go in and have a lot of success. 

[JoeyLee]

Storley, ed ruth and phil davis have been in other  mma promotions. ruth is done now. also ryan bader was d1 i believe 

[11986]

2 hours ago, JoeyLee said:

Storley, ed ruth and phil davis have been in other  mma promotions. ruth is done now. also ryan bader was d1 i believe 

yep Bader was a D1 AA for Arizona St. ASU has had a decent # of guys over the years do well in MMA: Bader, Valesquez, Simpson, Dolloway, Bubba Jenkins.... 

Edited Tuesday at 06:12 PM by 11986

[billyhoyle]

I think the amount of doping needed to succeed in UFC negates a lot of the advantage of being a D1 wrestler.  You can easily dope strength and conditioning (2 of the main advantages D1 wrestlers had).  Then if you train kickboxing technique during the years that an athlete is a D1 wrestler and learn how to sprawl, you're going to be at an advantage against a guy who learns striking after wrestling in college until age 24. 

So the best base for MMA at this point is probably just any type of striking (muay thai, kickboxing, boxing). Add on doping, and you have a winning combo. 

Edited Tuesday at 08:09 PM by billyhoyle

[peanut]

On 5/5/2025 at 9:18 PM, wrestle87 said:

You need to look beyond the UFC for information on this.  You should include smaller promotions who pay their athletes far better, and you should also include juco and d2, maybe even d3 guys.

I would say the pipeline to mma has not closed, but to the UFC yes, most likely.  When the UFC was getting going and the first era of wrestlers were coming through, these were guys who went through college on rice and ketchup and who couldn't believe that they could get paid to use their skills in any way.  This meant they were willing to accept sh*tty terms and crap treatment from UFC management.  The first cohorts also got their start in an era before the UFC reebok deal, which wholesale killed the largest source of income for athletes.

Dana white is a good businessman, but he is 100% the daniel plainview of MMA.  He has shown time and again that he is happy to burn the livelihoods of 1,000 of people to further his own means by .5%.  Like all truly obsessed people, he is sociopathic in his pursuit of his goals.  No different from Jordan or Tiger.

This means, quite simply, you don't want to work for the guy, and wrestlers have tended to look towards more competitive pastures for their entries into MMA.  Bellator has a ton of US wrestlers.  Dana also cares about markets, and he gets all his grapplers from Dagestan because that keeps Eastern European interest in the UFC alive.  

Also, now, with NIL, wrestlers are able to actually benefit from wrestling in college, and they aren't assuming they have to wholesale destroy their bodies in order to have any sort of livelihood.  The expectations of the collective of competitors has evolved greatly, and that is awesome for everyone involved.  

The UFC is not a good thing to be involved in, both from a health and career perspective.

I’m specifically curious about D1 to UFC, so that’s why my question was phrased the way it was.  

[wrestle87]

Just now, peanut said:

I’m specifically curious about D1 to UFC, so that’s why my question was phrased the way it was.  

I gotcha.  It used to be extremely common, but happens very rarely anymore, RTC’s, clubs, NIL, low pay with restrictive contracts, and the “entertainment” driven nature of the UFC, storylines over straight competition, has collectively put a pretty big cap on the amount of wrestlers going to that organization anymore.  The growth of BJJ as an independent entity has started to draw wrestlers straight from college as well.

Lastly, in the current era of UFC, you have to be a clown to get fights.  The UFC only understands the mcgregor model or the khabib mountain samurai model of storytelling, so if a fighter doesn’t fit into one of those two categories, they don’t get any traction within the promotion.  Hence everyone dying their hair and giving ridiculous interviews after their fights. 

[Tripnsweep]

I don't think being a good to great D1 wrestler is a guarantee of success anymore. A lot of the guys mentioned, Bader, Dollaway, Velasquez, etc they started fighting 15+ years ago. Back then if you could get a high level wrestler to learn some good basic kickboxing and BJJ, they would be pretty good based on being a slightly better athlete and having a grinder mentality. Now things have changed. There's more money at stake now, and the guys fighting now and coming up are better athletes, more well rounded and have developed good enough wrestling for MMA or good enough for the way they fight. And wrestling for MMA is very different from college wrestling. So the advantages that good D1 guys have are more evident at the lower levels, but once you get into the top 10-15 at each weight, you're getting guys who train full time and have the knowledge, skills and mentality to counter those advantages. 

[HawkAlum2002]

I think age is also a factor.  The top D1 guys tend to stick around freestyle longer, maybe a year or two longer then they should because they hold on to that Olympic/World dream.  By the time they jump into MMA, it would naturally be more difficult because you missed out on the training while still focused on your other goal.  I saw Chael Sonnen even talking about Gable Steveson's MMA chatter and recognizing at 24, he's actually near the end where he need to either start training now or it isn't going to happen successfully if the clock keeps ticking.  A lot of the wrestlers that are doing well, D2, D3 guys, etc, didn't stick around freestyle after college, they jumped into the next venture.  So it's the younger wrestlers without the college accolades doing well, and the older guys, who were actually better on the mat, often not living up to the hype.  If the top guys jumped right in after college, I think they'd do the as well or better than the D2, D3, but they just have other goals at that age. 

Edited Wednesday at 09:53 PM by HawkAlum2002

[CHROMEBIRD]

I noticed that the UWW will be hosting its first World Amateur MMA Championships this October. I have my doubts that it'll have much of an impact on our post-collegiate wrestlers or FS/GR teams, but it's another option to take towards going pro in MMA.

https://uww.org/article/first-ever-world-amateur-mma-championships-be-held-novi-sad