Grappling in MMA is any fighting technique that doesn’t involve punching or kicking. It covers throws, takedowns, clinch fighting, ground control, and submission holds. If two fighters are grabbing each other rather than striking from distance, they’re grappling. It draws from wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, sambo, and catch wrestling, and it accounts for a significant portion of how fights are won. About 20% of all UFC fights from 1993 to 2023 ended by submission, and many more were decided by fighters who used grappling to control where the fight took place.
The Three Phases of Grappling
Grappling in MMA happens in three distinct ranges, and each one requires different skills. The first is the clinch: two fighters locked together while still on their feet, fighting for control of each other’s head, arms, or hips. The second is the takedown itself, the transition from standing to the ground. The third is ground fighting, where one or both fighters work from the mat to either control, strike, or submit their opponent.
These phases flow into each other constantly. A fighter might pull an opponent into a clinch against the cage, work for a takedown, land in a dominant ground position, and then hunt for a submission or deliver strikes from the top. Understanding grappling means understanding all three layers, not just one.
Standing Grappling and the Clinch
The clinch is where grappling begins for most MMA exchanges. When two fighters close the distance and grab hold of each other, they enter a battle for positioning that borrows from several martial arts. A wrestler might use a body lock, wrapping both arms around an opponent’s torso to set up a trip or a lift. A judo-trained fighter might grab the collar and sleeve to set up a hip toss. A Muay Thai specialist uses a double collar tie (both hands clasped behind the opponent’s head) to pull their head down into knee strikes.
In MMA, the clinch is uniquely versatile because it blends offense from all these traditions. A fighter can strike with elbows and short hooks, work for a takedown, or simply hold an opponent against the cage to drain their energy. Control in the clinch often comes down to head position and underhooks, where you thread your arm under your opponent’s armpit to control their upper body.
Takedowns: Getting the Fight to the Ground
A takedown is any technique that puts an opponent on the mat. The most common takedowns in MMA come from wrestling. The double-leg takedown, where a fighter shoots in low and drives through both of an opponent’s legs, is probably the single most important offensive grappling technique in the sport. The single-leg, where a fighter grabs one leg and works to off-balance their opponent, is nearly as common.
Beyond those two staples, fighters use body locks, ankle picks (reaching down to snatch an ankle while pushing the opponent off balance), inside and outside trips from the clinch, hip tosses borrowed from judo, foot sweeps, and the fireman’s carry, where a fighter ducks under an opponent’s arm and lifts them across their shoulders. Each technique works best in specific situations depending on distance, the opponent’s stance, and what’s happening in the clinch.
Takedown defense is equally important. The sprawl is the fundamental counter: when an opponent shoots for your legs, you kick your legs back and drive your hips down into their shoulders, forcing them to carry your full weight. A good sprawl keeps your knees off the mat so you stay mobile and balanced. It’s not a passive move. Fighters use it as a launching point for counterattacks, snapping down on the opponent’s head or spinning to take their back.
Ground Positions and Why They Matter
Once a fight hits the mat, position determines everything. Grappling arts use a clear hierarchy of positions, ranked by how much control and how many attack options each one offers.
- Guard (bottom): You’re on your back with your opponent between your legs. This is the least dominant position, but it’s not helpless. A skilled fighter can attack with submissions and sweeps from here, especially in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
- Side control (top): You’re chest-to-chest with your opponent, perpendicular to their body, with your weight pinning them down. They have limited options to attack and must work hard to escape.
- Mount (top): You’re sitting on your opponent’s torso with their back flat on the mat. This gives you access to arm locks, chokes, and heavy strikes while making it exhausting for them to escape. In MMA, mount allows devastating ground-and-pound because of the striking angle.
- Back control (top): You’re behind your opponent with your legs hooked around their torso and your arms controlling their upper body. This is widely considered the most dominant position in both BJJ and MMA. Your opponent can’t effectively strike you, and the rear-naked choke, the highest-percentage submission in MMA, is available from here.
The game on the ground is a constant battle to improve or maintain position. The top fighter works to advance from guard to side control to mount or back control. The bottom fighter works to create space, reverse the position, get back to their feet, or catch a submission along the way.
Submissions: How Fights End on the Ground
Submissions are techniques that force an opponent to “tap out,” signaling they give up, or risk injury or unconsciousness. They fall into two broad categories: joint locks and chokes.
Joint locks work by using your body as a lever to rotate an opponent’s joint past its natural range of motion. The armbar is the classic example. The attacker traps the opponent’s arm against their chest, pushes upward on the bicep with their hips, and pulls down on the wrist. This creates a torque on the elbow that becomes harder and harder to resist as the arm straightens, because the attacker’s leverage increases while the defender’s decreases. Eventually, the ligaments connecting the bones of the elbow bear all the force. If the opponent doesn’t tap, those ligaments can tear. Fighters apply the same lever principle to shoulders (the kimura, the americana), knees (kneebars, heel hooks), and ankles.
Chokes cut off blood flow to the brain by compressing the arteries on both sides of the neck. The rear-naked choke, applied from back control, is the most successful submission in UFC history. Guillotine chokes, triangle chokes (using the legs to squeeze the neck), and various collar chokes round out the most common options. A properly applied blood choke can cause unconsciousness in roughly 8 to 10 seconds, which is why fighters tap quickly once one is locked in.
Ground and Pound: Where Grappling Meets Striking
One of the things that makes MMA grappling distinct from pure wrestling or jiu-jitsu is ground-and-pound. This is the strategy of using grappling to hold an opponent down and then striking them from a dominant position. It requires a constant balance between maintaining control and creating enough space to land damaging punches and elbows.
Effective ground-and-pound is more technical than it looks. A fighter pins their opponent’s wrists to the mat to neutralize their hands, then postures up to strike with the free hand. They keep their hips heavy and their weight driving through the opponent to prevent escapes. When the opponent opens their guard to block strikes, that creates space to pass the legs and advance to side control or mount, where the strikes become even more punishing. The threat of strikes also disguises transitions to submissions, and vice versa. This interplay between control, striking, and submission hunting is what makes high-level MMA grappling so layered.
Why Grappling Is So Physically Demanding
Grappling taxes the body differently than striking. Research on combat sport athletes has found that successful grapplers tend to excel at sustained high-intensity efforts, relying heavily on their anaerobic energy systems over longer bursts. Striking specialists, by contrast, tend to dominate in shorter explosive bursts. In practical terms, this means grappling burns through your energy reserves quickly. Holding someone down, fighting for position, and resisting an opponent’s weight all require constant muscular effort with limited opportunity to rest.
This is why cardio is so decisive in grappling-heavy fights. A fighter who can maintain their grip strength and hip pressure into the later rounds has an enormous advantage over an opponent who is physically spent. Many fights that go to the ground in the third, fourth, or fifth round end in submission simply because the losing fighter no longer has the energy to defend.
Grappling Styles You’ll See in MMA
Different fighters bring different grappling backgrounds into the cage, and each style has distinct strengths. Wrestlers tend to dominate in takedowns and top control, using relentless pressure to keep opponents on the mat. BJJ specialists are most dangerous off their backs, threatening submissions from guard and using sweeps to reverse position. Judo fighters favor explosive throws from the clinch, which can end up in dominant positions immediately. Sambo practitioners, common among fighters from Russia and the former Soviet states, blend wrestling-style takedowns with leg lock submissions that many other grapplers aren’t trained to defend.
The most complete MMA grapplers combine elements from multiple disciplines. They can take an opponent down, maintain top control, threaten submissions, and defend against all of it when the roles reverse. That versatility is what separates fighters who use grappling as a weapon from those who merely survive it.