I Reviewed 10 Viral Wrestling Technique Videos

From time to time I see some wrestling technique videos go across my feed that make my head scratch a little, and I want to say something and comment on their post, but I don’t. So, let’s do something different instead. Here are 10 different technique videos and my critique on them.

Video #1:

So, when you do a cross wrist tilt, you actually want the arm to go as far across the body as possible. What he’s doing here is actually helping the top guy wrap the arm around his body more which gives him a better angle on starting this roll through tilt. So, the bottom guy is helping the top guy. The top guy has a baseball grip or monkey grip, with his thumb on that wrist, and in my experience it’s much easier to hold onto a wrist like this using a claw grip while holding it tight to the body, because you can use the pressure of pulling the wrist to the body to secure the wrist.

Putting the elbow in that gap isn’t going to do much to a good wrestler’s grip. Number one, college wrestlers are strong enough, they have a good enough grip that pushing with the elbow isn’t going to do anything, it won’t budge. So, you’ll be tying up your right arm as well. Number two, if the arm is wrapped around the body and you’re heading out in front to roll through, there is no gap there. The top guy’s right arm will be tight to the back of your opponent, so there’s nothing to put your elbow into.

I’ve had people teach putting the elbow into the pressure point between the thumb and the pointer finger and trying to push there, using the pressure point to hurt the hand and making the top wrestler decide to let go. And that doesn’t seem to do anything to a good college wrestler as well.

The easiest way to defend this is to keep your wrists away from the grip so it doesn’t become an issue in the first place, which is easier said than done. Or by using your right arm, go under the wrist, then snake your arm over top of your own forearm, then using your own arm as a crow-bar to pop that wrist off. While you do that you have to quickly gain wrist control or your opponent will re-grab your other wrist and have your other arm tied up.

Video #2:

So, making your opponent step by stepping back like this is a good idea, but wow, look how far forward that left foot is, so incredibly ripe for an ankle pick. If you’re going to do this, it would be better if you did kind of a hop step so both of your feet are away from your opponent and you don’t unknowingly help them out and pull them into a shot.

Video #3:

So, a leg cradle is cool and all, but doing it like this is unlikely to work against anyone who’s competent. There’s two situations where a leg cradle is possible, say your opponent gets a low leg single on your right ankle, you step to the left to a crack down position, get a crotch lock, put pressure to the head, feed your outside hand to your foot, push them to their side and then lock up the leg cradle, though keeping your hand on your foot is probably going to secure it better . Or two, you get a hammerlock while on top, when you have the bottom guy’s wrist across the back, put pressure, lock up the near leg, pull the head as to pull them into a cradle, and then you step over the head and lock it up. A normal cradle is going to be more effective here anyways, as it will be in general because it’s pretty easy to break the lock of a leg cradle, you push one foot forward. A regular cradle grip is infinitely stronger and more difficult to break. I’d say anytime north of top 10 in the state, or anyone in high school or college, you’re in a ton of trouble if they get the grip secured, as you’re not going to break it unless they do something silly.

The girl on bottom is literally allowing this to happen, she’s doing nothing to improve her situation, this looks scripted to me.

Video #4:

Left knee slides a little bit, well that’s not going to do too much, they’re going to circle away to immediately match that angle. Picking up that leg, not really going to help anything, they’re going to use that leg you lifted to push against you and then again, match the angle. Grabbing the elbow, pinching the knee, is nice to control a leg, but again I don’t see how this is really going to help you accomplish this tilt. If you’re able to keep all of this controlled, sure you can hop to the far side I guess.

The thing is, you don’t need to do all of this. You should pull the arm as far across the body as you can, get your elbow nice and tight against your opponent, go to a hand-stand of sorts and fall to the left towards the shoulder. If the guy is going to go over, he’ll go over, otherwise, if they’re solid in this position, you need to transition to something else, like start digging an arm bar with your left hand so you have a reinforced bar, which would be infinitely easier to pull someone to their back with, or you can transition to just using the arm bar, or you can transition to like, a one-on-one or blair ride and start using that because the bottom guy is already on his stomach, you already have good position to use that one on one or transition to a hammerlock or something. You can also transition to leg riding pretty easily if the bottom guy is flat on his stomach. Put your knee on one side, step your foot on the other side, and dig that heel down into the hips and under the stomach, easy legs.

Video #5:

Moving the chest over the hand is absolutely what you want to do, I always said to keep your elbow bent at all times with a half, hand like a karate chop so there’s less surface area per square inch and you can apply more pressure, but he’s sinking the half way too early. You want to get a good grip of something on the far side, a wrist or an underhook. Keep that same grip, and start circling over the head. When you go to straighten your arm out to sink the half and your opponent is not on his back yet he still stands a fighting chance to chop that arm. Anyone in college will, anyone good in high school wil. I’d go so far as to say that a half nelson you shouldn’t sink unless 1 you’re doing a power half and you have full control of the guy’s hips with your legs and he’s already past 90 degrees going to his back or 2 you already have back points and you want to go for the pin. Otherwise, keep your elbow bent so you can keep pressure. And oh my lord get off of your knees. Most of your pressure with this half comes from the position, your body weight, your legs putting pressure forward, and the leverage that goes along with this. You should not be on your knees when you do this, your opponent will chop it so easily.

Video #6:

I like the downward pressure and the fake to the shot. Fakes work really well against good opponents who you know are going to react to your initial shot because well, they’re good at the sport, but why would you instruct kids to fall to their hip? Falling to your hip will only put you at risk and make it more difficult to get back to your base when you try to finish the upcoming scramble. You can easily pop your right knee under your body and over to the mat and land on that as you shoot your low leg single. That way if you don’t land it for whatever reason you can pop back to your stance easier or deal with the front headlock you’re handing someone. Instructing kids to land on their hip with things is dangerous.

Video #7:

The knee block is kind of cool, though when you get stuck in a fireman’s because your opponent sprawls and starts snapping you down you’re not going to have this position for long enough to do a knee block like this, and also it’s very likely that your opponent’s legs will be straighter and so you’ll be whiffing at air with your arm, not able to do anything, this is all while you’re getting snapped into a front headlock. Using the arm spin to get out of it is a good idea, but I would follow it up with an arm drag to a near single instead. Keeping the arm controlled like this and circling over the head to put him to his back would be a dream and honestly is never going to happen. Once you arm spin out your opponent is going to get control of his arm again, circle to face you, you’re not going to have this much control over his arm to do anything of this sort. And then the last one, well, that’s what you should do at the start of the shot, if you couldn’t do it then, it’s going to be super difficult to do it after.

Video #8:

I don’t know if I’ve ever had someone on his stomach like this without controlling much at all. No tight waist or one on one or anything substantial, a good wrestler will be back to their base pretty quickly here, this video must be geared towards the heavier weights. And then pulling the head up without them being able to do anything and without your other arm keeping control of anything but blocking the elbow, there’s no control of the hips unless you call your body weight controlling the hips, which at a high level I seriously doubt. I think you’re asking for a lot. Otherwise this is really good, blocking that far leg, scooting the knee up, starts to stretch the leg out and then the old adage with never take the leg to the head, always take the head to the leg with a cross-face cradle. And then when you start scooping the leg forward near the ankle it makes it super easy to get your cradle grip, the bottom guy gets really stretched out and there’s not much that they can do.

Video #9:

So, I like this arm drag, I’ve used it before, but it tends to be super sketchy if your opponent has a good grip on your wrist, you end up getting your arms crossed and it gives your opponent a decent time to react. Not to mention, when you reach for that far arm and let go of his wrist to shoot, he has control of both of your arms for a split second and can attack that right side if he times it properly. So, why give them that chance? What I’d rather do, and what he may have shown before this video started because it begins with him saying “the third option”, is just pulling the whole situation to the left with your left arm and then attacking that right side. If you grab the wrist with a cross hand and he grabs yours then there are 2 arms being controlled by just one of yours. So, it’s a much safer shot in general.

Video #10:

Wrapping that far leg and putting pressure to that side is a really good idea when you’re going out the back door here, but you want to attack the heel and pull it down to straighten the leg out. This position is not going to be as easy as he makes it seem. Your ultimate goal is to get to a turk. What’s more likely to happen against someone who knows how to defend here, is they’re going to clamp their knees tight and so you won’t be able to just throw their leg off of your head. You need to straighten that leg out, step over, and pull the turk nice and tight. Then you can grab the foot of the leg that’s wrapped around your head, with both hands, push it forward to straighten it out and pop your head out. Or you pull the top ankle to your chest and push the knee to pop your head out. Then when the leg is gone you swim your bottom arm out and go to a cross-face. You need to do this all while protecting your top arm. He was close with the win-dixie comment, but it can happen much easier than he suspects. If the defensive guy gets a piece of that top arm in this position and pulls it to the mat he has you stuck on your back in a win-dixie. He will get a takedown and backs. He can also get a leg cradle if his ankles get close together while doing this. That is, unless the offensive guy lets go of the turk and rolls through, but that’s counter intuitive and a lot of wrestlers will hold onto the turk here, which would keep them stuck in that position. So, this is a super common position in college, less common nowadays because of the danger swipes, but still. You need to know how to navigate through this effectively or you will get scored on. Out the back door defense is the strongest defensive scrambling position in my opinion, you have to do everything by the book.

Was this a good idea? There are a ton more technique videos like this that I could run through. Let me know in the comments if you think that’s a good idea.