Judo in MMA

Mixed Martial Arts is what Donn Draeger and Jon Bluming were doing decades ago.
A friend sent me an article from which I've posted an excerpt below. The whole article may be read here.

Ronda Rousey and other MMA fighters widen their arsenals

The former Olympic bronze medalist and Strikeforce women's bantamweight champion incorporates judo into her effective attack.

August 07, 2012|By Lance Pugmire

At its birth, mixed martial arts were a competition of fighters from different disciplines — boxing, wrestling, karate, kickboxing, jiujitsu — battling to establish which version of combat was best.

Now, the sport of MMA can encompass all of those skills in one fight. In one fighter.

"Guys have trained now in MMA from a younger age. They weren't a high school wrestler like me who had to learn the other aspects one by one," said veteran MMA fighter Dan Henderson, 41.

One of the sport's latest advancements is personified by the new Strikeforce women's bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey of Venice. Rousey's judo-based stand-up clinches have produced a string of first-round victories, including her title win in March over then-champion Miesha Tate.

A 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in judo, Rousey used the discipline to bear-hug Tate and throw her down, setting up Rousey's preferred method of execution on the canvas: grabbing and twisting the foe's arm until the pain prompts a tap-out to surrender.

"Judo is an underutilized fighting style and very unorthodox," Rousey said. "The guys in MMA are working on it, but the girls are not equipped to deal with it. Judo requires good posture, so the girls

I've fought can't tell if I'm coming in to clinch or strike.… It's won me every single one of my fights."
So in watching the 2012 London Olympics, bear in mind the next generation of professional MMA fighters could be coming from the amateur wrestling mat, or taekwondo. And from judo.

"What these 'judo players,' as the fighters call them, are doing is one of the more effective martial arts," the Ultimate Fighting Championship Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta said.

"It's been quite interesting to watch this progression, with these fighters introducing a new technique or move that brings you to your feet. It's what makes this sport so intriguing — the athletes' ability to be creative and come up with moves that before were unknown."