Sumo in Mixed Martial Arts
A number of former sumo wrestlers have competed in mixed martial arts, with limited achievement; perhaps the most successful sumo wrestler to have competed in MMA is Tadao Yasuda who holds a record of two wins and four losses. Sumo wrestlers are ineffective in MMA because the sports are vastly different from one another in achieving victory; striking techniques and submissions are required for MMA and neither are taught in sumo wrestling. A Sumo wrestler would need to train in MMA techniques which has not been the case in the past, as the few sumo wrestlers of distinction to compete in MMA did so for financial reasons and not a career change. A few key sumo techniques which require grabbing the belt or pants of the opponent also become ineffective, as this is illegal in MMA.
Other sumo wrestlers to have fought in mixed martial arts include Alan Karaev, Kōji Kitao, Henry Armstrong Miller, Akebono Tarō, Teila Tuli and Wakashoyo. Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida also has a sumo background but his main style is Shotokan Karate.
Read more about this topic: Sumo Wrestlers
Famous quotes containing the words mixed, martial and/or arts:
“But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward, the voices of Duty call—
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.”
—Sidney Lanier (1842–1881)
“What, then, does a chaste girl do?
She does not offer, yet she does not say “No.””
—Marcus Valerius Martial (c. 40–104)
“These arts open great gates of a future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life out of its beggary to a god- like ease and power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)