On Saturday night, when Johny Hendricks battles Tyron Woodley in an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout, this much is certain: Victory will go to a former college wrestler.
In fact, this will be the first match between those two since the 2005 Big 12 wrestling championships, where Oklahoma States Hendricks upset Missouris Woodley for the 165-pound title.
Also on the main card of UFC 192 (Fox Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET and PPV, 10 p.m. ET), as Saturdays event is known, is a bout between former Michigan State wrestler Rashad Evans and former Arizona State wrestler Ryan Bader. The headliner brawl? It pits a former Swedish boxer against Daniel Cormier, a former Olympic and Oklahoma State wrestler.
To add that up, out of the six combatants in the final three mixed-martial-arts fights Saturday night, five are former wrestlers. This is good news for wrestling, a sport so embattled that the International Olympic Committee in early 2013 ejected it from the Olympic Games, before voting it back later that year.
The prevalence of former wrestlers on Saturday nights UFC card illustrates a new career opportunity for former wrestlers. Some college coaches have pointed to UFC as one factor behind rising numbers of youth wrestlers in America.
