I get what he’s saying about ground and pound. Thing is, ground and pound can be something to behold. If done effectively it can even provide for exciting finishes. Hell, just look at what Lesnar’s done with ground and pound. Those are some exciting finishes.

What encourages wrestlers to ground and pound? Simple: it’s effective for them, not so much for “martial artists.” Why is that the case? Because they cut weight.

It really is as simple as that. Ground and pound is effective for guys that are going to be stronger and bigger than their opposition and/or have an opportunity to overpower them. One could could argue that top-ranked overseas fighters don’t fare as well in North America because of a lack of competition, but they’d only be partially correct. The real reason is that they don’t cut weight. Wrestlers are trained from their relative infancy to cut weight to fight lower than their walking weight. It makes all the difference in the world; not just in terms of power, but also for reach when the fight is standing. The Nick Diaz/Marius Zaromskis fight from the last CBS special is the perfect example of that. Marius was a monster on his feet in Japan with Cro Cop style KO kicks; in the US, he can’t even get a sniff at Diaz, who had a ridiculous reach advantage on him.

So it’s possible the real culprit for the elements Schiavello seems to take umbrage with isn’t wrestling so much as weight cutting, he just doesn’t realize it. Though wrestlers, while the most successful, are far from the only fighters who cut to make weight.

He’s really criticizing ground-and-pound. Which he blames on Americans participating in the sport. Which he blames on Americans knowing wrestling first and the Asian-style martial arts second.

Obviously ground-and-pound isn’t allowed in the rules of wrestling. But is there something about the wrestling approach, compared to the other martial arts, that encourages people to think ground-and-pound once they’re allowed to do it?