Elite striker vs decent wrestler

[Deleted]

Who wins?
I agree with @hardcastle on striker vs wrestler, curious if anyone disagrees. The general consensus is that wrestler beats the striker most of the time.
Asking in this thread as it's analogous to a few animal matchups like gripping dog vs wolf.

[Hardcastle]

In striker vs wrestler there's always a risk the striker can win. The more decisive their "KO" the higher the risk. The better their striking skill obviously as well.
But as far as "laws of averages go" it's just a safer bet that the wrestler will probably get a hold of the striker and have him under control before the striker lands their finishing blow, and once the striker is under control his striking is nullified. Landing decisive strikes is just harder with lower odds than shooting for a take down, if skill levels are equal. There is more precision and accuracy required and more room for error with striking.

For example; you throw an awesome punch at a dude's head, but last moment his head moves an inch and you still hit it but now it's a glancing blow to the side of his cranium. It doesn't really do the desired damage, and now you're kind of close together and he has grabbed you around the waist or something and is dragging you down onto the ground.

This is probably the most common outcome when a pure striker fights a pure grappler. This is what used to happen a lot in the early days of UFC. When no one was a "mixed martial artist" and everyone was either a boxer, or a wrestler, or a kickboxer, or a jiu jitsu guy, or a karate guy, or a judo guy or kung fu etc etc etc.
As a kid naturally I wanted the cool kickboxer or whatever to punch the wrestler's block off, and it was so frustrating how rarely I got that satisfaction. Once in a while, but usually not. You'd feel like "are they fighting in a dream or what the hell? why can't they just punch the guy's stupid head off", but now I understand the dynamics of combat better. If everything goes right striking looks awesome. And you can certainly master it and also have natural god given ability (ko power) and these aspects can improve your chances, especially against a wrestler who is very very bad at striking and also not that great at wrestling.

Then in addition to that, and what they do now, is school themselves intensively in defending against wrestling. "Take down defense". Sprawling and preventing take downs to keep the fight at a distance and give yourself more opportunities and chances to have your striking skills pay off. Elite strikers master "keeping it standing" to have success in mixed martial arts. But elite wrestlers are USUALLY the antidote that beats that. Usually.

There are striking champions. Currently 2 of the 8 weight division champions in the UFC lean "striker" very strongly. Middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, and heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou. Both have beaten grapplers and wrestlers, but both have amazing take down defense. Francis actually last fought a superior striker Ciryl Gane, and beat him with superior wrestling. Israel Adesanya is arguably facing off with a superior striker tomorrow. That will be interesting if he uses jiu jitsu or wrestling to win, since he is more schooled in that than his opponent who has only freshly transitioned from kickboxing.

Most of the other champs, and most of the goats, have a strong foundation in either wrestling and/or jiu jitsu. Striking skills are, for the most part, just a nice thing to add to a wrestling base.

It's interesting this is EXACTLY the history of fighting dogs.

Humans had fighting dogs a long time ago, and they were just mean spitz breeds with long teeth and snapping bites and basic normal wrestling ability. Separately then there were also "bulldogs", designed to grapple with insanely powerful bulls and boars and just subjugate them and take the fight out of them (no "striking" or finishing necessary, pure grapplers). When they experimented with letting bulldogs fight the fighting dogs, it was no contest whatsoever. The bulldogs just easily controlled them with their vastly superior elite grappling. It didn't matter that the fighting dogs were fighting dogs and knew how to kill and do all that cool stuff, the superior grappling of the bulldogs just completely neutralised them.

From then on bulldogs were the fighting dogs. Like in the UFC how the best fighters early on were just pure grapplers. Later on, they learned to mix it up somewhat. Bring in the bull terrier. That is adding some "striking" to a wrestling foundation. Adding killing ability and killer instinct, killing damaging bites and versatility to re-direct bites for the sake of causing damage.
This was an improvement, but without the wrestling foundation it would be pointless to have those abilities, then the superior wrestler across from you will just control you and your cool killing abilities will never be put on display.

Mixed martial arts has largely followed suite. By and large the greatest fighters have a grappling foundation, to ensure they can take charge of the contest and control their opponent/prevent themselves from being controlled, and THEN sure they can add on some bells and whistles and striking ability to take them to another level.

Elite striker vs decent wrestler? If we presume the elite striker has NO wrestling whatsoever, zero knowledge or understanding or even talent for grappling, I think even the elite striker is probably in trouble against a decent wrestler. If they have SOME wrestling, some good take-down-defense especially, an ability to prolong the striking exchange by warding off the grapple, or some ability to handle the grapple, THEN their elite striking can start to be decisive.