Jordan Burroughs made a recent appearance on an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience and when the Olympic gold medalist met the UFC commentator, naturally the conversation turned towards MMA at one point. Burroughs has flirted with the sport before and he’s relatively close with a number of high-profile wrestlers that have moved over to MMA and had amazing success:
“I’ve been close. Mostly the lady outside, my wife Lauren, is the one that’s talked me out of it. When I graduated from college in 2011, University of Nebraska, wrestling was still in its infancy of marketing and branding and really making it a professional career. MMA was the new kid on the block and it was growing and expanding and we had a lot of our guys transitioning in — Henry Cejudo, Ben Askren, Daniel Cormier and so I really thought about it.”
He then went on to explain the exact point in his life that he seriously considered joining that list of names that made successful transitions from wrestling to MMA and it turns out that his wife Lauren was one of the key people involved in his eventual decision:
“OK, I’m going to wrestle in the Olympics in 2012, win the gold and then I’m going to make the transition to MMA. I’m going to be 25 years old, I’ll have plenty of time and then I met Lauren and she was like ‘you’re doing well in the sport, stay here, stay comfortable.’ It’s a different sport MMA in comparison to wrestling but it’s a good thing.”
Jordan Burroughs elaborated on his thoughts on the clear difference between MMA and wrestling and it turns out that he echoes the same thinking process as a number of famous wrestling figures, like Dan Gable:
“I think about going to MMA until I see a guy like ‘Platinum’ Mike Perry get his whole thing split, nose crooked and I’m like I’m good. In wrestling, you lose, you get taken down, pushed out, you get pinned. In fighting, you lose, you get something broken, choked out, tapped, unconscious. It’s a very, very different sport. Wrestling, you score as many points as possible doing the least damage as possible. In MMA, I feel like it’s different.”
