I’m 18 years old, fighting professionally has been my dream for my whole life, I have much experience in karate and tae kwon do, along with jujitsu. My step father has five black belts and kick boxed professionally on ESPN for 2 years and had a fight record of 13-3-0. He is currently training me in kickboxing. I know there are an abundance of fighters out there now days, but martial arts in general has always been my life long passion. I hope to one day be the lightweight champ of the ufc. To do that thought i need more grappling experience, Im not sure what to do, I have the opportunity to take submission wrestling and brazillian ju jitsu, is there any better one out of the two? and also would jeet kune do or jun fan gung fu, help with my stand up game? I just would like to know which combination of those martial arts would help develop my skills the best to be able to compete at the elite level. Thank you for your time!
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✅ Answers
As the others say, you need to be well-rounded.
Forget jeet kune do or jun fan gung fu…whatever the heck that is.
Sounds like your step father has some real skill. Great. Learn kickboxing from him.
You also need wrestling and Brazilian jiu jitsu. It’s not an either-or. You need both. You’ll also need grappling, once you’ve got the BJJ techniques down. And then you’ll need some MMA lessons to learn how to incorporate those different skills all together. Example: You can do a great takedown in wrestling, but unless you modify it slightly your opponent is going to catch your head and choke you out.
Spend 3 hours a day, 5 days a week learning technique: wrestling, kickboxing, BJJ, grappling. Spend several additional hours a day working out at the gym, particularly on your cardio. Next summer, go to several week-long wrestling camps. After that, start competing as an amateur. Get 4 or 5 fights under your belt. The summer after that, spend a month at Greg Jackson’s in Albuquerque (or one of the other top level camps) and get the heck beaten out of you. Then you’ll have a sense of whether you might make it in the UFC.
Hope that helps.
I really think you should forget that dream of getting into the UFC. Even if you are as experienced as you say, karate and tkd are completely worthless in the ring. But getting into the UFC is about who you know and who you blow. You can have a record of a 1 wins and no losses in your amateur fights. But it won’t matter unless someone important is there to see it. The next generation of UFC fighters are basically already decided. They train with the right people all day, every day. You are 18 years old still living at home most likely. In a year or two you’re going to move out, maybe get a job. You’ll be lucky to fit in 2 hours training every day. Simply put it’s not enough.
There are different styles that are effective in MMA. But I don’t understand why you should divide it up. Join an MMA gym.
First off you never see Taekwondo in MMA. The reason people use Muay Thai, Boxing, BJJ and Wrestling its because they work. You rarely see these other arts such as Kung Fu, Karate, Taekwondo and Aikido because they simply don’t work against some who knows who to fight in other arts such as Muay Thai. I don’t care that you think you can kill a person with one strike and all this crap. Every time a Kung Fu practioner hopped into the ring with a Muay Thai guy the man gets destroyed. Kung Fu existed for over 10 years, Muay Thai is pretty old as well and the roots of BJJ go back to the Samurai, Boxing is probably the oldest ever same with wrestling and now theres MMA to prove which ones work and that has been proven.
If you want to be an MMA fighter you have to train at an MMA gym. That is the only way you will get a well rounded game and learn how to apply specific skills in an MMA fight.
The 5 most utilized martial arts in MMA are: Boxing, Muay Thai, BJJ, Wrestling & Judo.