Western wrestling in the form of Freestyle or American Collegiate wrestling has leg attacks that Judo and BJJ generally tend to neglect. Because such attacks are very common, wrestlers also tend to have the best defense against leg tackles. Guys like Fedor Emelianenko or Hidehiko Yoshida were excellent at Judo, but were taken down pretty easily by leg tackles throughout their career, for example.

You also have to bear in mind that the "textbook" version of a lot of Judo throws relies on the opponent to wear a jacket of some sort, which is not worn in most MMA environments.

Judo also does not have as extensive a throw/takedown vocabulary as Sambo, because the rules of Judo restrict certain techniques. Judo also does not have the extensive leg lock vocabulary that Sambo does; even BJJ traditionally looks down on leg locks, though they're more common these days.

So in short, you and your friend are wrong. It's OK to be wrong. You can't possibly know everything about everything.

I'm not the expert, but I do have my opinion. I'll link to an expert on the subject, however.

Is wrestling important to MMA? Of course it is! However, how much of it is really important? I would say that overall the skills you learn from BJJ and Judo are more valuable than the skills from wrestling overall. Anderson Silva proved that you can be exceptional at everything BUT wrestling and still be an outstanding fighter. GSP proved that you can become one of the best wrestlers in MMA without actually being a wrestler. But to date, nobody has been a successful MMA fighter with ONLY wrestling and striking. You need to know the submission game whether you get it from BJJ, Judo, SAMBO, Catch, whatever.

What we see in MMA isn't really wrestling. It's stripped in comparison. It's all double legs. Read my linked article. Wrestling will help develop a good double and teach you to follow through with it and commit to your takedown, but you don't actually NEED wrestling experience to learn that skill because BJJ teaches plenty of variations on the double leg.

In short, I don't think Wrestling is quite as crucial to MMA as a good grappling art and a good striking art. It's the type of thing that you cross train in if you have the time. Again, read the article. Chael is a known wrestling expert and even he has some very enlightening things to say about the subject.

Just my opinion. Train however you want, there are a lot of different ways to build a great fighter.

I would agree with the point that wrestling is not needed because I have sparred against BJJ people and beaten them on the ground with "just Judo", but, that would not be entirely true. The Judo teacher I had who is "good on the ground" also has a wrestling background that he would work into his teachings. I also used to play around with and bum techniques from some friends who were wrestlers when I was in high school. One of my inlaws later showed me "wrist control" because he wrestled in college. And, lots of Judoka were wrestlers at one point.

My point is that it is all about learning. If you are going to be a "grappler" learn as much as you can about that, no matter what the "style" is. You don't need to get a black belt in every grappling art under the sun, but, if you have the opportunity to learn from a good wrestling coach, take it.

Now if you are just a hobbyist who wants to be well rounded for self defense or self development, then yes, you could get by with "just Judo".

I don't know what you or your friend are talking about, because wrestling is crucial in MMA. The rules were designed and geared towards wrestlers...Like training anything that's seen in MMA, you're only occasionally brushing on the subject, as opposed to the purist, in which that's all he's training. Occasionally wrestling is touched upon in MMA and BJJ and Judo. But like the Judoka occasionally doing ground work, it's not going to make him a better fighter, against the guy that only does ground work (BJJ) by only doing it so often. Also do you really believe your wrestling can hold up against a pure wrestler? That's like me assuming that I can fight a BJJ black belt and win, because I'm a judoka and occasionally work on the ground.

So don't dismiss it because your friend said so. I admit, you are cross-training in alot of arts, and that's not good. Are you learning some good wrestling skills, by doing all the arts your doing. Yeah, but don't think for one second you can go toe to toe with a pure wrestler. The quality of your wrestling, is no where near his.

I think the point about wrestling specialists in MMA is that they were wrestlers originally; they came into the sport of MMA with a wrestling background. So they use that as a base, and it can be very effective. Look at Weidman and Hendricks, for example. But to go into MMA without a wrestling background, I agree, might as well learn BJJ and Judo instead.

Whats the point of adding wrestling to your arsenal when most of wrestling skills are already available when doing bjj or judo? I don't think wrestling is very crucial to mma, same goes for sambo considering that japanese judo and bjj already covers what sambo does.

I wanted to add wrestling aspects such as greco roman, filipino dumog wrestling and native brazilian wrestling, but my friend told me that wrestling is really pointless if you spend a lot of time in judo, bjj or any ground fighting with submissions like catch wrestling