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Dana White: Potential Olympic Wrestling Demise Could Be MMA's Gain

Dana White: Potential Olympic wrestling demise could be MMA's gain | News

http://www.mmajunkie.com/files/thumb/59262/0

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LONDON – Tuesday's news that the International Olympic Committee has plans to eliminate wrestling starting with the 2020 games sent shockwaves through the MMA community.

Dozens of fighters took to social media to rally the troops in support of the sport, which has led many amateur wrestlers ultimately to mixed martial arts – including many eventual champions.

And while UFC President Dana White is sympathetic and said he doesn't want the sport to go away at the Olympic level, he's also not very surprised.

White has been a supporter of amateur wrestling, and said he knows its importance in MMA.

"I've been battling this problem for years now," White on Wednesday told MMAjunkie.com (UFC blog for UFC news, UFC rumors, fighter interviews and event previews/recaps) after a news conference for UFC on FUEL TV 7 in London. "Colleges are dropping it. High schools are dropping wrestling. The problem with wrestling is, it's an awesome base for mixed martial arts, for everything – I mean, I've never wrestled, but what I hear it does to guys that wrestle, it changes peoples' lives. It's this grueling, hard work and dedication – all the things that go in with being a wrestler."

But ultimately, could the possible demise of the sport, at least post-high school level, wind up being a plus for MMA in terms of its potential at the Olympic level.

"The problem is nobody wants to watch it," White said. "Any sport, especially these days, it's about selling tickets and eyeballs and viewers and all these other things. And there's been a lot of people saying, 'You've got to f---ing do something,' but – and Garry (Cook) and I were talking about this yesterday –what this could be is the evolution of mixed martial arts becoming an Olympic sport."

White said MMA's status as one of the fastest growing sports in the world could help usher it into the Olympics.

But as for wrestling's fate? White believes that may be, unfortunately, sealed.

"We bring spectators, eyeballs – whether it's TV or whatever it is," he said. "This sport draws. Wrestling doesn't. I can't be the guy to run out and try and save wrestling. I've been doing it for years. You know how many wrestling programs I funded over the past five, six years? A lot. Yeah, I don't want to see wrestling go away either. It's such a big part of the sport. But, something's going to happen here. It's going to evolve into mixed martial arts or something. I don't know. I don't think wrestling is going to go anywhere, but competitive wrestling definitely is."

I some how hope he is wrong and right. I want wrestling to thrive, but I also wanna watch awesome wrestlers become mma fighters.

IOC is going to back track the shit storm is HUGE!!!

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Originally Posted by Qball1974 (Post 1007248)

IOC is going to back track the shit storm is HUGE!!!

I really hope you're right.

Honestly, even if wrestling doesn't win it's place back into the Olympics...even if most colleges & high schools through out the U.S.A. get rid of wrestling... it's not going away, EVER. At the very least, wrestling will be turned into "martial art" and practiced in dojo's/gyms across the world. Every wrestler & martial artist in the world realized the importance of wrestling. There will be plenty of people who were great, but just not good enough to hit that top level, or those who retired after hitting the top level, who will help to show the next generation wrestling. It will never go away, it will never die. There will still be wrestling tournaments, at the very least, just like there are Karate or other martial arts tournaments. It may take many years for wrestling to come back to the Olympics, but it eventually will happen, based on it's history, if nothing else.

This is fucking bullshit. Speedwalking is a fucking event but you take wrestling away?!

if wrestling being removed from the olympics leads to a cascade effect toppling college and high school programs it wont be enough to have wrestling aspects in mma and lessons in dojos, its not wrestling that succeeds in mma its olympic and division 1 level wrestling that succeeds in mma and without those programs churning out freaks who not only have wrestling credentials but a wrestling mentality and work ethic and the resume that comes with it then wrestling in mma will be diminished.

at the very least if wrestling has to be removed from the the summer olympics then why not insert it into the winter olympics, or better yet move pingpong or fencing over

no actually lets blame greed and the nbc deal, it already it impossible to watch everything on the nbc networks the olympic tv contract should be split up with more networks let abc nbc and cbs all share some of the content for people to watch

My only fear is that all these wrestlers move over to MMA and fight just like Ben Askren. Man I hope IOC changes their mind.

Maybe addinv a sumbission system to certain styles will make it more entertaining,

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Originally Posted by mmawolverine (Post 1007271)

One period. That entire block of text only had one period. It was honestly very difficult to read. I'm assuming you sent that from your phone?