I sort of wish I could go back to preschool....with someone advising me to take up wrestling. Manlets are naturally excluded from many sports, but combat sports have weight classes, and I am very strong for my size. I think I could have done quite well. Again - when you're equalizing the weight, it makes a big difference.
On the flip side, I would hate to ruin my ears or face over a sport that pays basically nothing, unless you are the top in the world.
MMA is almost always "win one, lose one, win one, lose one", and even some of the fighters who surpassed that standard still crashed and burned [Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, for example].
Still though - I am confident in saying that you can be elite in MMA if you have national to world level wrestling, in combination with heavy hands. Obviously more than just some basics in martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu will matter [as I understand it - karate is more or less useless in the UFC/MMA in general...and Aikido, even more useless].
Examples of these "strong wrestlers" [wrestlers who hit like trucks, regardless of precision, just because they are so strong, and have naturally heavy hands]:
- Johny Hendricks
- Stipe Miocic
- Brock Lesnar
Brock being a bit of a one-trick pony at a time when it was possible to be one and be the champion.
Georges St-Pierre said that it went from specialists winning, to well-rounded fighters winning, back to specialists, and....I don't know the time frames, or even potentially the weight classes he may have been referring to [if not the average for the whole UFC].
Anyway - yeah...I sort of wish I took up wrestling at a young age. I'm completely confident based solely on how few people commit to wrestling from such a young age, in addition to always being strong for my size, that I could have done well with it.
What other sport can you succeed at when you are 5'8.5" / 174cm?
Soccer?
