Gabriel Gonzaga: Heavyweights “do not have good ground skills.”

Fans might consider Gabriel Gonzaga a heavy handed striker, but if you ask Gonzaga where his bread is buttered he will tell you its on the floor in an MMA fight. Gonzaga  has piled multiple wins at the ADCC Submission Wrestling Championships, won the absolute division at the Mundials, and nine of his MMA wins have come by way of submission.

Gonzaga recently discussed how he felt about the grappling level of the other heavyweights in the UFC, and it’s no surprise he doesn’t think it stacks up against the other divisions. Gonzaga will have his next chance to show off his ground skills when he fights Travis Browne at The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale.

He told Pro MMA Now:

Actually I thought it was going to be better. Because when the years go by the people start to develop more skills. But I think the heavyweight division, the people don’t have ground game skills how the other divisions have. Every single different division has a really high level black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu showing their skills there except heavyweights do not having good ground game skills. Mark Hunt yesterday showed a lot of mistakes in [his] ground game. Brendan Schaub’s last fight too with.. I forgot his name, didn’t show too much of ground game. They improve a lot in wrestling game to put the guys down, to throw the guys to the ground, that improve a lot but the ground game is still a little bit far from the other divisions.”