Jiu-Jitsu Is Now the Most Useless Discipline in MMA

This is a great article.

ps-I didn't write it.

The seeds of the modern-day MMA were planted in the Hermosa Beach garage of Rorion Gracie, son of Helio, brother to Royce.

When he began teaching jiu-jitsu in California's South Bay community, he attracted students that belonged to various karate, tae kwon do and boxing schools. All were fascinated by the exotic grappling-based style.

The story goes that the instructors of these other schools scoffed at the Gracie style and expressed their skepticism to their students. The result was a series of martial arts instructors, one after another, tapping on Gracie's garage.

When Royce entered the Octagon, he won fight after fight, establishing Gracie jiu-jitsu as a dominant martial art.

The sport of MMA owes its existence to Gracie and the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whose techniques like the rear-naked choke still enjoy wide success today. Ironically, in the intervening years, MMA has evolved in ways that diminish the value of the classic jiu-jitsu style.

The first such change was the introduction of the super fight at UFC 5. Today, all fights are what superfights were in the early days. In those tournament-style days of yore, the best fighters were sure to be exhausted by the time they met for the championship bout. By adhering to the classic jiu-jitsu principle of energy conservation, Royce Gracie did everything he could to ensure that he was the fresher fighter.

In the first superfight, his old nemesis Ken Shamrock was, like Gracie, rested and fresh, not having fought all night. Royce still won the superfight, but he spent 36 continuous minutes wearing Shamrock down before finishing him, the longest single round of combat in UFC history. This brings me to my second point.

What is the most valuable style in MMA
Jiu-Jitsu
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Wrestling
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The limiting of a fight's time and breaking the fights into rounds pulls fighters apart and gives them a break just as a tap is within the jiu-jitsu practitioner's reach. How many times have we seen a fighter locked in an inescapable submission saved by the bell seconds before a tap only to come back after a minute's rest and seize the win?

Further, the prevalence of the stand up in MMA is antithetical to the spirit of classic jiu-jitsu, which guides its students to slow the pace of the fight, to make the opponent exhaust himself trying to get free and, in the process, create for the savvy jiu-jitsu practitioner the space needed to hit the submission.

The brilliance is in having your opponent exhaust himself attempting to do exactly what you want. With referees standing up fights whenever the pace slows, this technique is much more difficult to leverage.

Finally, a new grappling-based art has arisen, which meets the challenges of the rules in MMA. Submission wrestling for MMA incorporates the positional control of wrestling, with ground and pound and submissions for finishing the fight. No longer having the time to wait for an opponent to wear himself down, these fighters pound the strength from their opponents prior to locking up a strangle or lock.

The effectiveness of classic jiu-jitsu is without question. But with the changes in the rules of the sport it was founded on and the rise of new arts to meet these rules, class jiu-jitsu is being supplanted as the go-to grappling style for MMA fighters.

 

Crappy article.

 

Way to strawman 'classical bjj'

In application you only wait for the opponent to make a mistake if you cant pressure an opponant to make a mistake.

In training both are valid learning styles.

 

Bloody "art de jour" articles!

 

I uhh… I always learned submission grappling in BJJ class. :[

The distinction between necessary and sufficient seems like an important one to make.

Edit: Necessary - if not x, then not y.
Sufficient - if x, then y.

Where x is knowing jiujitsu and y is beating the tar out of your opponent.

 

Wait a minute,I don't remember that happening.

Regardless fighters have used the techniques they have learnt in jiu-jitsu at the highest levels of MMA, so I don't think it's justifiable to call it useless.

 

Th self defence BJJ still works perfectly to this day in MMA. MMA guys have only improved on it. Erik Paulson has some excellent stuff on it too, as well as Eddie Bravo. This article is useless.

 

This article is entirely based on the Helio Gracie approach to Jiu Jitsu, ignoring the more offensive styles that came from Brazil in the years following to find success.

 

That article was a total waste of 1.5 minutes or so.

 

I wouldn't claim to know much about MMA, but it seems to me that provably the main reason BJJ has lost its claim to being the decisive style in MMA is because it's ubiquitous. Every MMA competitor will have trained in BJJ, so it's no longer the decider - it's the standard. Even the competitors whose main style is stand-up usually hold a belt in BJJ. It's just not the secret weapon any more because everyone does it.

 

Totaly Agree with that it's not a deciding factor as such unless you don't have it lol

From what I see you NEED bjj or some other form of submission grappling or you are missing a vital component of a rounded game and probably won't last long.

 

Sure, but I think Miesha Tate demonstrated at the weekend that wrestling isn't a sufficient substitute for BJJ. She managed to dominate a vastly superior wrestler on the ground because her BJJ was better.

 

One of those guys submitted Vitor, the other submitted GSP.... You could have said Chael

 

heres two points to consider

1) Wrestling without submission awareness / defence is not a good replacement for BJJ, (see how early wrestlers controled the takedown but still got submitted)

2) If your submisison grappling / groundwork includes submissions, passes, a guard etc then Its just BJJ by another name, (well you get what I mean)

In application, you need striking, clinch work and groundwork, any missing skills in this area can and will be used against you.

It used to be that BJJ was the rate limiting factor for success in MMA, now that everyone at that level has BJJ skills, that rate limiting factor can be other things, MMA isnt one dimensional anymore.

 

it's almost as if the author has never heard of carlson gracie.

 

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I don't think wrestling sucks - in fact, I think it's probably the most important aspect of a fighter's repertoire at the moment in high level MMA, but I think the Tate fight showed that whilst a world class wrestling background will get your opponent on the ground, but you need a strong BJJ game to keep them there or to get off your back.

 

Wrestlers are insanely good at pinning, but the whole point in BJJ is to escape pins and control the bottom position.