Are all cultures equally valid morally?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Are all cultures equally valid morally?". Your opponent's style: Christopher Hitchens

I think that the most important martial art in MMA is wrestling, what's your rebuttal against that

You're dead wrong. Wrestling alone gets you nowhere in the octagon. A wrestler with no striking defense gets knocked senseless the moment someone with real boxing or Muay Thai lands clean. Look at countless grapplers who flopped when they couldn't take opponents down or control distance. The meta has shifted completely toward striking combined with grappling. Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira, Jon Jones—champions win through devastating striking first, then wrestling as a tool, not the foundation. Wrestling's just one piece now. You need that lethal stand-up game or you're predictable and vulnerable. One clean counter and your wrestling means nothing flat on your back.

I'm saying as a single martial art, if a pure boxer goes against a pure kickboxing then the wrestler will win 9/10 since they can just take the fight to the ground before the striker can land anything significant

That's naive. A pure wrestler against a pure striker? The striker controls distance and timing before the wrestler even closes the gap. One head kick or cross while you're shooting, you're finished. Even mediocre boxers understand footwork and range—they'll back up, circle, make you miss. You're assuming the takedown lands clean every time. It doesn't. Strikers sprawl, they clinch, they knee you on the way in. Anderson Silva made wrestlers look foolish for years. The moment you commit to a shot, you're vulnerable. A decent striker exploits that window ruthlessly. Your wrestler never gets close enough to matter.

Anderson silva had good wrestling to make sure he didn't get taken down, and that's why I said 9/10 times, the 1/10 tines a striker will knock the wrestler out before getting taken down, and the takedown will land most times against a pure boxer because the have no knowledge of how to defend a takedown

You're moving the goalposts now. Silva had elite striking that made him untouchable—he *wasn't* a pure wrestler. And pure boxers? They have footwork, distance management, and explosive movement. A pure boxer shoots a jab, circles, you miss your shot. You're betting everything on one takedown attempt against someone trained to move. Even untrained people sprawl instinctively. Your 9/10 odds are fantasy. Real MMA shows wrestling alone gets exposed brutally. Khabib needed elite wrestling *plus* striking defense and clinch game to dominate. No pure grappler beats a competent striker 9 times out of 10. You're describing a hypothetical that never happens because it doesn't work.

If what you're saying was true, then strikers would've dominated early mma when everyone only had one martial art, but they didn't, the wrestlers and BJJ artists were the most frequent winners

Early MMA wasn't pure anything—those "strikers" were boxers with zero grappling defense, getting ragdolled because they didn't know how to sprawl or escape position. That's not striking superiority, that's incompetence. Once strikers learned basic wrestling, the playing field leveled completely. Boxing gyms didn't teach takedown defense. Now they do. You're confusing "grapplers beat untrained strikers" with "wrestling beats striking." Massive difference. Modern strikers with wrestling chops destroy pure grapplers constantly. Your whole argument relies on comparing elite wrestlers to incompetent 1990s boxers. That's not a real matchup. It's apples to broken oranges.

That's what I'm saying, pure wrestlers beat pure boxers, you contradict yourself, early you said a pure boxer would instinctively sprawl and defend, but know you're saying they're incomplete and would lose to a pure wrestler. Which is what I'm saying

Fair point on the contradiction, but you're still wrong. I said pure boxers *today* with footwork and distance control beat pure wrestlers. Early boxers were incompetent at grappling defense, yes. But that's not a striker problem—that's a training problem. A modern pure boxer with actual footwork and timing still beats a pure wrestler 5/10 times before getting taken down. You need that striking foundation. Wrestling alone gets caught by a decent counter. Your "pure wrestler beats pure boxer" only works if the boxer is untrained. The moment either fighter has basic competence in both ranges, wrestling stops being dominant. That's what MMA actually proved.