I think though that something that I always want to emphasize when a notable wrestler declares for MMA, and that guy is big enough that there's a thread about him and some well intentioned wrestling fans will say things like "oh finally a good wrestler into MMA." I find that kinda dismissive. Many solid wrestlers, and also strikers and jiu jitsu artists, try for MMA. Simply not being the very best in the field doesn't make one worth dismissing. But more importantly, strength comes from numbers, it comes from volume, it comes from a pipeline. The probability that any exceptionally talented individual will succeed will never be higher than the probability that of many talented individuals, one will succeed. This is true of wrestlers, strikers, jiu jitsu artists, etc. An individual could be poorly coached, he could suffer injury, he could even just decide he doesn't enjoy the sport. But if enough competent individuals try their hand, one will succeed. If, when Davi Ramos came to the UFC you placed a bet on who would be the next jiu jitsu champ, Davi Ramos or the field, and you bet Ramos, you lost. Ramos is better at jiu jitsu than Oliveira, but Oliveira is the one with the title, Ramos isn't with the promotion anymore. And wrestling translates a lot better to MMA than jiu jitsu, but if you asked me "is Bo Nickal the next UFC wrestler champ at MW" or "is Gable the next UFC wrestler champ at HW", I'm taking the field for both, even though I personally like both guys and I believe in both guys.
Because the worst thing we can do is judge the effectiveness of a martial discipline based on a single sample. Kickboxing was not dead in MMA the day that Khalil Rountree knocked out Gokhan Saki. BJJ wasn't dead the day Rodolfo Vieira got choked out by Anthony Hernandez. Wrestling won't be dead if Gable struggles either. A verdict must come from many data points and sample sizes. The reason we conclude, for example, that BJJ is struggling, and striking arts are on the rise, is not because of a single data point but because there are a lot of data points and the filtering has generally favored striking over BJJ.
I'm a huge nerd. I have a google doc with what is the closest I can come to a comprehensive list of all the wrestling-based prospects in MMA right now, or who have declared for MMA in the future, over 150 names most either American or CIS. I would be super stoked at the prospect of Gable coming to MMA. But I'm also not going to make excuses if it doesn't happen, and say Alexander Romanov goes out and loses to Jared Vanderaa, I'm not going to say "well if only it was Gable..." I'll watch the fight, and if Romanov did something poorly on an individual basis, then it's a Romanov issue, if he did everything he was supposed to, and still loses, maybe the meta is shifting away from wrestling. It's just one data point so I wouldn't draw conclusions based solely off that, in fact I think the meta is shifting towards wrestling, but I dislike when people punctuate the losses of elite specialists with the excuse that "well this guy is actually the #2 in the world at striking/wrestling/bjj and if the #1 were here, man things would be different." That's not the way a meta works, a meta isn't a single athlete it's a representation of what works in martial arts as a whole in that time period. This takes into account fighters at all levels, not just the top. That's why the pipeline is important. It's a numbers game. Maybe of the 150+, even if 80% never become elite fighters. Then you still have over 30 guys running at high levels of the sport winning matchups.
For wrestling fans, this Friday Magomed Umalatov takes on Micah Terrill, Umalatov is a tremendous wrestler, I'm very excited to see him in action and I'd love for the UFC to give him a call. If he wins, who knows, maybe that will happen. If you're a UFC fan, a big fight to look forward to is on August 28th, Aliaskhab Khizriev takes on Alessio Di Chirico. Khizriev is a talented wrestler, I'd like for him to go far in the MW division, beating Di Chirico would be a good first step. Those guys don't have the name recognition, of course, of a Gable Steveson or an Abdulrashid Sadulaev, but they are guys who are fighting soon who could definitely have a place in this sport.
