Level of experience needed to make amateur MMA debut?

[JHL]

So some background on me. I'm 17 currently, a high school wrestler that does jiu jitsu as well. I'm about to earn my second stripe in jiu jitsu, which is definetly by far my strongest weapon. Should I wait until blue belt to make my debut? Or do it as soon as I turn 18? (I have a small amount of Muay Thai experience btw that I plan to turn up when I switch gyms)

[JHL]

Also want to add it took me a little while to get my first stripe because the wrestling season started right before I was about to earn it and I kinda had to reset when I came back to my gym

[Freddie]

I would take boxing as well as Muay Thai to help you keep your hand in a better positon. Wrestlers also have a habit of exposing their necks so youll have to break that if you have that habit. If you can punch like a boxer and have a good push kick and thai roundhouse I think your standup game is good. Id wait until I got another belt or two personally. There are other events you can enter to bring your game up in the meantime.

[JHL]

I would take boxing as well as Muay Thai to help you keep your hand in a better positon. Wrestlers also have a habit of exposing their necks so youll have to break that if you have that habit. If you can punch like a boxer and have a good push kick and thai roundhouse I think your standup game is good. Id wait until I got another belt or two personally. There are other events you can enter to bring your game up in the meantime.

I box in my spare time with my friends, I'm really powerful and accurate but my hands are quite slow right now. Also, with the exposed neck, I would say I'm a much bigger BJJ guy than I am a wrestler so that hasn't been a huge problem. Im an active BJJ competitor with multiple medals to my name in both the teens and men's divisions. My kicks are very good too but I think my footwork possibly needs work.

[Freddie]

Footwork is very important... try practicing as a southpaw also.. Its always good to have more than one angle.. a lot of standup fighters have trouble with southpaws. They are easy once you figure it out though. Most rotate to your right (right into your power side). Lead with a right and you can usually catch them with some solid shots. Really fucks em up

[GBK16]

You could ask Power Shark (Skull) about it, he started amateur MMA recently and has been updating us on his progress in this thread and this thread . I think he was a BJJ Blue Belt when he began but since he is either 2-0 or 3-0 since starting, he might be able to just give you an idea of what he did before starting in Amateur MMA.

 

Best of luck with your future however you decide to proceed with it in the sport in any case.

[Rambo]

If you're a fighter, go fight. Experience is the best experience. if you've been in fights, composed, competed before, should be easy transition for you.

 

 

If you're only 'trained', and not naturally a fighter, or haven't been in a bunch of fights.. keep training, practice/spar stand up, go get beat up and punched in the face boxing/striking higher level guys. Depending on how you feel after you get in there with high level guys, let that feeling in your gut and mind determine if you're ready or you need to keep working.

 

 

I would say prepare and fight as soon as possible if you feel ready. Film it. Study it, find holes in your game or technique, work on it.

 

 

You know if you're ready or not. If you get in there and disappoint yourself, at least you got in there, and you know what to work on. You're young, you can always bounce back or get better if you work hard enough.

[JHL]

You could ask Power Shark (Skull) about it, he started amateur MMA recently and has been updating us on his progress in this thread and this thread . I think he was a BJJ Blue Belt when he began but since he is either 2-0 or 3-0 since starting, he might be able to just give you an idea of what he did before starting in Amateur MMA.

 

Best of luck with your future however you decide to proceed with it in the sport in any case.

Awesome. I'll ask him about it on one of his threads, thanks for the advice.

[JHL]

If you're a fighter, go fight. Experience is the best experience. if you've been in fights, composed, competed before, should be easy transition for you.

 

 

If you're only 'trained', and not naturally a fighter, or haven't been in a bunch of fights.. keep training, practice/spar stand up, go get beat up and punched in the face boxing/striking higher level guys. Depending on how you feel after you get in there with high level guys, let that feeling in your gut and mind determine if you're ready or you need to keep working.

 

 

I would say prepare and fight as soon as possible if you feel ready. Film it. Study it, find holes in your game or technique, work on it.

 

 

You know if you're ready or not. If you get in there and disappoint yourself, at least you got in there, and you know what to work on. You're young, you can always bounce back or get better if you work hard enough.

Im a very active competitior in both jiu jitsu and wrestling, so I'm more than just trained to fight, i do have competitive experience. I do agree that I need to spar stand up more. The ground is my strength, and although I'd like to think I'm good on my feet I have yet to go up against anyone who would present me a real challenge.

[cmattos]

i think its better improve your boxing, cos its easyer to use your hands and dont expose yourself ,but also recommend to train muay thai defensive strike game

if you make your debut, its good to know how you dont waste energy in the fight, cos you will be very nervous and your heart beat will be increase, and it will cost a lot of energy, and stay in mind the whole time of the fight to dont look like kimbo vs dada 5000

a LOT of debut fights or amateurs are decided by cardio

so.. do what youre good, and do what you feel comfortable, dont try any jackie chan move

 

good luck! go catch your 1-0!

[skull]

I would wait until your a blue belt, but if you've been wrestling too then you may be ok. Biggest thing is to train the bad situations and know that your not gonna panic if you get hit hard, which is where the stand up sparring comes in. Train in the worst positions possible. Get the biggest and best guy to mount you, take your back, etc. Being able to work threw and keep composed after a bad situation is the difference between winning and losing sometimes

[Mannetosen]

Boxing with your friends isn't gonna cut it my man, find a real striking coach.

I did my first smoker two months after I started grappling and made my amateur debut after like 6 months (which was retarded in hindsight). I had a few years of striking experience (karate/mt/boxing) at that point so I was fairly safe standing at least.

It's hard to say if you should wait until blue belt or not because what level a blue belt is at usually varies wildly, getting the rank is usually dependent on time spent in the gi etc. An important point is that grappling without strikes is so different from mma grappling that it's really hard to tell unless you've done it a lot. For example i won my 2nd ammy fight against a really good purple belt even though I was garbage on the ground because he couldn't keep me down and I'd hit him 5000 times every time we ended up in any kind of entanglement.

Whatever you end up doing though, I recommend that you get some proper striking training and postpone fighting until you've finished high school. Fighting is potentially very dangerous and I wouldn't do it until I've got a very good idea of what comes next in life. I had my first fight as a college freshman and even that was idiotic but ymmv.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or shoot me a pm in game. I've had a few fights and been around fairly high level pro fighters and coaches for years so I have at least some experience with stuff like this.