Look at it this way, over 700 men registered to enter this year's world tournament, and only 80 went home from Nur-Sultan with medals. I have always admired those wrestlers who remain committed to the sport despite their placings, and as a huge MMA fan I can tell you that these wrestlers often find success in other endeavors. In fact, medal-less world-team wrestlers have been making moves in MMA for most of the sport's history.
Here, we will look into 10 under-the-radar world team members in wrestling who found their way to MMA significance.
Maximo Blanco (Photo/Getty Images)Maximo Blanco
Though best known for his MMA career that began with him as a highly touted, super-aggressive, ultra-violent prospect in Japan, and ended with an underwhelming nine-fight UFC stint, Venezuela's Maximo Blanco was at first a pretty fantastic wrestler.
Recruited by Japanese wrestling Coach Hideaki Akutsu to wrestle for a boarding high school in Sendai, Japan, the move to the land of the rising sun was a fruitful one for Blanco. His high school results netted him a wrestling scholarship to Nihon University, and there he won Collegiate Freestyle Nationals and earned the Outstanding Wrestler award.
After college he remained in Japan, training with Japan's national team and interestingly, the judo-centric Yoshida Dojo. He competed for Venezuela as he pursued the Beijing Olympics. Along the way he won bronze at the 2007 Pan American Championships and made world championships appearances in 2006 and 2007. He even managed to score a point on Russian legend Buvaisar Saitiev in 2006!
Daniel Malvino
From 2008 to 2015, all-time great MMA featherweight Jose Aldo reigned over his division with an iron fist. Knocking off fantastic wrestler after fantastic wrestler, Aldo's unique brand of "anti-wrestling" became the topic of many a discussion. Prime Aldo was nearly impossible to take down, a juggernaut in the clinch, and you could forget about controlling or advancing position on him should you actually get him to the mat.
The man largely responsible for Aldo's uncanny ability to defeat strong wrestlers was Brazilian wrestler and coachv Daniel Malvino. Brazil may not be typically associated with wrestling prestige, but guys like Malvino have been working hard to change that. As a competitor, Malvino, aka Pirata, spent years at the top of Brazil's 74-kilogram class, and he gave it a real go internationally. Traveling to wrestle in Argentina, Poland, Spain, and then Istanbul, Turkey for the 2011 World Championships, he was a wrestler through and through, undeterred by less-than-stellar placings. And although he lost his lone MMA fight, his impact in both sports is indisputable.
Since failing to qualify for the 2012 Olympics, Malvino has shifted focus to coaching Brazil's national teams, coaching fighters like Aldo, and furthering wrestling in Brazil. He was also instrumental in attracting Kazakh, Uzbek, and Armenian wrestlers to move to Brazil.
Talgat Ilyasov (Photo/Gabor Martin, United World Wrestling)Talgat Ilyasov
When recent UFC 185-pound champ Robert Whittaker caught fire in 2014 and began racking up impressive wins, he was aided greatly by some very slick defensive wrestling and in-fighting tactics. When he kept using these skills to win, even against very good wrestlers, people took notice. How could an Aussie with no wrestling background hang with Yoel Romero in wrestling situations?
Well, over the past 20 or so years, wrestlers from Iran, Azerbaijan, India, Ukraine, Romania (world medalist Sahit Prizreni specifically), and Uzbekistan had relocated to the land down under. Interestingly, most of them also got involved in MMA. Turned out that Whittaker had been training with such wrestlers since 2014, and he even won a 97-kilogram national freestyle title in 2017. Most significant among this influx of strong wrestlers, in terms of this discussion, is Uzbekistan expat Talgat Ilyasov.
A rising star in Uzbekistan with four age-group world teams and a cadet world bronze to his credit, Ilyasov came to Australia in 2001, made his first senior world team in 2003, and finished sixth after going 2-1. In 2004, after earning a spot in Athens, a spinal injury spoiled his plans, and seemingly, his career.
In the following years, Talgat coached top wrestlers, fighters, and submission grapplers, he won the 75-kilogram expert class of a grappling event in Abu Dhabi, and in 2014, won a pro MMA fight by first round submission. Convinced his spine could withstand the rigors of competing, he returned to the mat.
Talgat made another world team in 2015 before winning the Canada Cup, Olympic Trials, and the Africa/Oceania Qualifier a year later. Finally an Olympian, his first match in Rio ended disastrously when he dislocated his elbow mid-match.
The 38-year old continues to train and coach wrestlers, grapplers, and fighters. His influence has certainly raised Aussie wrestling within MMA. Maybe in the coming years we could even see an Aussie wrestler on the podium at the World Championships and/or Olympic Games.
Darrell Gholar
One of the most underappreciated fighters and coaches in MMA history, Gholar sowed seeds of wrestling ability that flourished over multiple generations of Brazil's top fighters.
After a successful wrestling career that included four years at the University of Minnesota (he was a two-time national qualifier) and a successful senior level Greco-Roman run, the three-time Greco-Roman nationals champ and 1986 world team member got into MMA in the late 90's after coaching at Drake University and his alma mater, Minnesota.
Gholar started fighting in 1998 and over three years and 11 fights, fought some of the toughest guys out there. And while it would certainly be appropriate to refer to Darrell Gholar the fighter as an MMA/wrestling pioneer, it was as a coach that he truly found his niche.
In 2001, after winning a Brazilian Vale Tudo tournament, Gholar was propositioned by Murillo Bustamante of the legendary MMA gym, Brazilian Top Team. Already one of the world's best gyms for fighting and BJJ, "BTT" fighters saw the value in upping their wrestling. Gholar accepted, and completely invigorated the abilities of several legendary Brazilians who came to be known for their unstoppable takedowns and clinch work. Gholar's influence on the contemporary grappling meta in Brazil was readily apparent in the phenomenal wrestling of guys like Vitor Belfort, Ricardo Arona, Paulo Filho, The Nogueira Brothers, Rousimar Palhares, and others.
Martin Lazarov
The hardest of hard-core MMA fans may recall him giving debuting legend Fedor Emelienenko a tough fight back in 2000, but Martin Lazarov had already made a name for himself on the international freestyle circuit by the time he entered what was then known as "NHB" fighting.
As one of Bulgaria's top 97-kilogram wrestlers from the turn of the millennium, Lazarov achieved a respectable resume in a very competitive part of the world. A resume anchored by a silver medal at the 1997 Junior European Championships, and a fifth-place finish at the super-stacked 1999 version of the very same event. After making it to the 1999 Senior World Championships, he was an Olympic hopeful for the 2000 Sydney Games, though he failed to qualify.
Lazarov was last seen in 2001 getting tech falled by Stephen Neal on the mat and losing his second and final MMA fight to Russian pioneer Mikhail Ilyukhin in the ring. Sadly, he passed away after a 2010 car accident in Bulgaria. R.I.P.
Yoshihiro Nakao
It's a bit of a shame that Japanese heavyweight Yoshihiro Nakao will forever be known for a single whacky moment despite being a fully capable fighter and a very strong wrestler. Type in the name Yoshihiro Nakao in any search engine and without fail, you will undoubtedly learn that he was once KO'd during the pre-fight face off of a fight in front of 53,000 live fans. That's right, at Japanese Mega-promotion, K-1's 2005 New Year's Eve show, Nakao met his opponent Heath Herring in the center of the cage for pre-fight instructions, proceeded to kiss Herring on the lips, and was promptly knocked into a twilight state by the American.
Antics aside, the 96/97-kilogram Japanese wrestler enjoyed a very respectable MMA career and defeated some very good fighters with his size, strength, wrestling, and (fighting) discipline. Before that, Nakao had designs on representing Japan at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, plans fueled by some stellar results domestically.
On multiple occasions Nakao won Japanese Nationals and the annual Japanese Invitational, which often functions as part of their world and/or continental championships team selection process. He may have fallen short of his Olympic aspirations but made it to the World Championships in 2002 and wrestled at both the World and Asian Championships in 2003.
Random afterthought, anyone have any idea how Nakao came to be wearing a Lehigh wrestling sweatshirt in the training footage for his Don Frye rematch? The Sergei Beloglazov connection perhaps?
Mu Bae Choi
Another in a long line of big, durable, gritty, talented Asian heavyweight wrestlers-turned fighters from the late 90's/early 2000's Japanese MMA scene, South Korea's Mu Bae Choi succeeded in both MMA and Greco-Roman wrestling.
Extremely strong, tough as nails, with a ton of heart, and a seemingly uncrackable chin, Choi joined Kazuyuki Fujita, the aforementioned Nakao, and a bunch of others as Japanese MMA's loveable, indestructible, fighting heroes. And despite losing to both Fujita and Nakao, he was as good a fighter as either of them. He defeated fellow wrestlers in Dave Herman (NCAA Division I), Soa Palelei (a national level in Australia), and Yusuke Imamura (wrestled internationally for Japan) and even once signed to fight the legendary Fedor Emelienenko, though the fight fell through.
Choi built most of his formidable fighting skill while wrestling on the world stage, and was on the cusp of breaking through to become a legitimate world medal threat at least once in his career. He earned bronze at the 1991 Asian Championships and made it to the World Championships in 1994 and 1995.
Sidney Guzman
Peruvian wrestler Sidney Guzman is one of the biggest "what-ifs" in terms of unrealized combative potential. Being from one of the poorer areas of a generally poor country, Guzman is a study in doing the best you can with what you've got. Leading up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, The LA Times did a piece about Sidney and other Olympic hopefuls from such places.
Undeterred and committed to becoming an Olympian, Guzman trained under terrible conditions in extremely sub-par facilities, and somehow managed to sustain an Olympic caliber regimen on a diet consisting mostly of bread and tea, with the occasional piece of chicken if lucky. This was the norm until he began receiving weekly stipends of pasta, facilitated by the IOC, which he usually sold or traded to help his family.
Uphill battles aside, the Greco-Roman specialist made it to three senior world championships (four if you consider he wrestled both styles in 2001) and the Olympic Games in 2004. And though he didn't win any world/Olympic medals, he did manage a bronze and a silver at the 1999 and 2004 Pan American Championships respectively, also defeating future world and Olympic champ Davor Stefanek at the Athens Games.
In 2013, at 37 years old and almost 10 years removed from high-level competition, we still got to see the massive potential and immense physical abilities of Sidney. The less restrictive rule set of MMA seemed to really jive with his style, and his combination of extremely fast, powerful wrestling attacks, aggression, nasty ground and pound, and definite mean streak produced a 3-1 mark and was formidable to say the least. He also competed in submission grappling to compliment his wrestling and signed with the only big(ish) MMA show in Peru. Interesting side note, Guzman was booked to fight American wrestler Rollie Peterkin in 2014, but the bout fell through.
Sidney last fought in mid-2015 and has been entirely absent from the MMA scene since.
Melchor Manibusan
Guamanian martial arts legend Melchor Manibusan is one of these unshakeable guys who has worked most of his life competing in and furthering the sport of wrestling despite not achieving the best results on the world stage. He spent many years as the top wrestler on the small, western Pacific Island, regardless of weight or style, and has been an important figure in the Oceania scene since the late 90's.
Melchor made five senior world teams, two in Greco (his preferred style) and three in freestyle. Despite usually finishing in the lower end of the final placings, he was a tough, scrappy, aggressive, powerful wrestler with a ton of heart. His considerable contributions to the combat sports world are not limited to wrestling either, as he has made Guam an important part of the MMA/BJJ/Wrestling triangle between Hawaii, Australia, and Japan.
As a coach, competitor, and gym owner (he owns highly regarded Spike22 Gym), Melchor's successes outside of wrestling include winning bronze at the 1999 ADCC Submission Grappling World Championships relying almost entirely on his wrestling, while also being a key part of superstars BJ Penn and Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto's, training camps. He also went 2-4 against tough competition as a fighter. Melchor is still in Guam, still pushing the sport of wrestling, and helps organize most Oceania Championships and Oceania/African Olympic qualifiers.
Brandon Escobar
One thing that you have to give to Long Island's Brandon Escobar: The guy is a doer. Details and circumstances be damned, when he sets his mind toward doing something, he does it. He figures out a way.
Wrestling out of the same small group of towns on the eastern third of Long Island that produced world-class wrestlers like Jesse Jantzen, Corey Jantzen and Kerry McCoy, Brandon managed a respectable three All-County and two All-State (third and fourth in 2007 and 2008 respectively) honors in the very tough wrestling state of New York. An uninspired foray into collegiate wrestling yielded little, but his passion for wrestling peaked after the 2009 UWW Junior Nationals where he became a double finalist (first in freestyle, second in Greco-Roman). This was a tournament packed full of eventual Division I All-Americans, national champs, world teamers, and even world champs.
A subsequent run in with Henry Cejudo inspired Brandon further. He wanted to be an Olympian, but didn't have the pedigree to reasonably expect to take USA's No. 1 55-kilogram spot. And so it began, Escobar's quest to represent his parent's home nation of Honduras at the London Olympics.
By way of earning a silver medal at the Olympic Qualifier held in Florida, the north shore L.I. resident made his Olympic team. He also made a world team in 2013 and has wrestled internationally ever since, taking 2015 off to start MMA. Despite working as head wrestling coach for the UFC Gym in Sunnyvale California, the world-level wrestler has struggled to find quality trainers.
Never one to be deterred by circumstance, Escobar jumped head-first into the wild-west, amateur MMA scene, going 6-6 as he learned on the job, fighting nine times in 2015 alone. Escobar continues to position himself in the thick of the wrestling, MMA, and grappling circuits as coach and competitor, and has not ruled out another Olympic shot in 2020 or another fight in the cage.
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