Thursday, February 7, 2013

Olympic Champ Henry Cejudo to MMA - Videos

2008 Olympic Gold medalist Henry Cejudo has announced via that he is making the transition from freestyle wrestling to mixed martial arts. Cejudo has been getting amateur boxing experience, reportedly winning the "Copper Gloves" in Arizona.

While Olympic freestyle wrestling doesn't directly correlate to MMA, the single leg, double leg, high crotch and sprawl all translate. I don't think any fighters at 135 or 125 would be taking him down. More importantly it is about having body control, the ability to change levels, use of leverage to get and defend takedown attempts, sprawl and so forth.

Here is a look at Cejudo in his 55KG, 121 pounds, gold medal match against Tomohiro Matsunaga from Bejing.


Here is the Sunkist Freestyle 55kg Final featuring Henry Cejudo against Danny Felix, go to 5:30 for the end scramble.

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