Josh Barnett, former UFC champion and one of the most prominent voices in the catch wrestling community, recently explained why he believes the catch wrestling approach is more suited to MMA than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

While BJJ dominates much of the grappling conversation today, Barnett argues that modern MMA has evolved in a direction that better mirrors catch wrestling principles:

To be perfectly honest, in my opinion the catch wrestling approach is superior to BJJ in terms of your typical or your standard approaches to MMA.

Whether they know it or not, everyone in Mixed Martial Arts now does not play guard and they all wrestle like a catch wrestler.
Trying to constantly get back to their feet, wrestling up, giving up their back; which used to be a cardinal sin supposedly.

This strategy – giving up the back in order to stand up – is often discouraged in traditional BJJ academies, where the rulesets typically reward guard play more than stand-ups.
But Barnett pointed out that in wrestling-heavy formats like folkstyle or catch, this movement is central and encouraged:

I’ve heard so many guys from the BJJ side of things literally complain about some of my (competitors): “Oh they did really well but your guys, they can’t give their back up.”

Yes they can, you don’t wrestle.
You’ve never wrestled folkstyle so for you, it’s an area that you don’t really play in.

We’ll give our back because if you think you’re gonna get it, like, good luck.
We’re already in motion and we know how to wrestle from this position, that’s our defensive position.

Barnett also emphasized that as MMA has matured, even athletes with BJJ backgrounds are abandoning guard-based tactics in favor of wrestling up – mirroring what catch wrestlers have done for decades:

Then you saw as MMA, the game of MMA specifically within the UFC, has been evolving…
The BJJ-base fighters are giving up their back, going up the wall.

It’s just that BJJ in a standard way had been successful enough and with the IBJJF on top of it, and even ADCC, it’s like: “Oh, I can just lay on my back all day.”
It’s, like, no, you can’t anymore.

He added that unless there’s a massive skill gap or the opponent is already compromised, relying on guard alone is no longer effective in MMA:

Unless they’re hurt, beat up, just stupid…
You’re not getting them. Sorry, it’s not happening.

You’re not armbarring them in five minutes, you’re not choking them.

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