Steve Mocco, a two-time NCAA champion wrestler who represented the United States at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, is eyeing a move into mixed martial arts after helping Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva prepare for his fight with Cain Velasquez at UFC 146 last month.
Mocco, who won NCAA titles at Iowa in 2003 and Oklahoma State in 2005, is relocating from Pennsylvania to Florida to train for his MMA career. He had been working with the wrestling team at Lehigh University as a volunteer assistant coach. In Florida, Mocco will train at American Top Team, where he had been working with Silva before the fight with Velasquez. Mocco hopes to make his MMA debut by the end of the year.
Olympic wrestlers who make the move to MMA have a long track record of success as fighters, starting with three-time Olympic alternate Randy Couture, one of only two fighters to win UFC titles in two different weight classes, and Dan Henderson, a two-time Olympian who accomplished a similar feat in PRIDE. The latest success story, of course, is Daniel Cormier, who is being talked about as the UFC's next great heavyweight after his dominant win over Josh Barnett in the finals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix.
Cormier, however, was purely a wrestler when he made the move into MMA. Mocco, on the other hand, has a background in judo as a former junior national champion (his sister, Katie, is also a decorated judoka who just missed out on qualifying for the Olympics in 2008). The roots of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, one of the key disciplines in mixed martial arts, are in judo, meaning that Mocco should bring a formidable submission game to complement his world-class wrestling.
It's certainly far too early to predict how well Mocco will adjust to mixed martial arts, but with the background he brings to the cage, he'll definitely be a fighter to watch.
