I didn't catch that post, actually. But "fight records"? What do you mean? Which ones? What counts as "a BJJ guy"? Mark Kerr won the whole thing in 2000 and while I'm sure he has some BJJ experience, is he really "a BJJ guy"? Anyway, the ADCC rules are more easily adapted to by BJJ guys than by judo or sambo guys. Maybe that's not the case for catch, but I've yet to see that it actually still exists. Also, my perception of the talent pool entering the ADCC is that almost all of them are BJJ guys anyway. If that's the case, BJJ had better do pretty well there. If five pure Turkish oil wrestlers enter the ADCC and take first place in three weight classes and the absolute division, we'll know something weird just happened.
I know Oversouls already covered this, but it really annoys me when people assume stuff like this was an innovation of, or unique to, BJJ.
Let's face it... for some techniques... you're never going to be able to use them at full speed or power. It's not possible. If many of the moves of Aikido or Daito ryu Aikijujutsu were done full speed/full power you wouldn't have any training partners after a very short time. They'd all be recovering and rehabilitating injuries. The limitation isn't in the art... the limitation sometimes comes from what the human body will allow. No one... not even in BJJ practices neck cranks at full speed/full power.
i don't really know if theres anything new for BJJ. cause everything that 'can' has already been done.
Records of pure bjj stylists. Plenty of wins against other monostylists. Few losses against other monostylists. This is my impression. Kerr is an iffy one, true. And all the rest? Arona. Lister. Gracie, Drysdale. And don't forget all the individual weight divisions. Names like Garcia, Xande, JJ Machado, Pe de Pano, all are huge in submission grappling. I honestly am confused as to why you don't see more sambo and shooto/catch people competing. Why are the rules more easily adapted to? What about the other arts make them less able to function under that ruleset than BJJ? And as for catch... it's mostly been subsumed into shooto but you still get people like Barnett who claim catch as their primary style. It's open to everyone and has large cash prizes as well as massive recognition and respect for the winners. You did have a lot more non-BJJ people entering (especially wrestlers) but I think the number has dropped after they haven't done so well. And you can't just look at the absolute division.
What records? Where are they? More of them in general or more of them than there are BJJ guys? I remember one submission wrestling ruleset for some organization that would offer a lot of points for "high altitude throws" and there were complaints that people from styles that used these throws a lot would exploit it by racking up points and stalling for the win. I don't remember all of the rules the ADCC uses, but when I read them I thought they were pretty good. Personally, I like them, but they are definitely going to favor people that regularly train and compete under rulesets more similar to them. I would think such people would primarily be the no-gi BJJ competitors. If I'm wrong and the rules to the ADCC are actually more similar to what the shooto guys are training I'd be interested to know about it. I was thinking more about judo and sambo. With judo, you have a larger talent pool than BJJ, but I think the rules the ADCC uses obviously favor the BJJ rules. As for catch, Barnett's the only one I can think of and he didn't do that well. Yeah, but with the wrestlers, for example, they usually aren't training with submissions and that's a pretty big disadvantage. They can train in BJJ to compensate for that, but then at what point are they no longer "wrestlers" but instead "BJJ guys."
Where are you going with this? I don't know of anyone that honestly disputes that mono-stylistically, BJJ tends to win. And I am far from an authority on MMA: but I repeat, that is my honest impression and not some attempt to say "har har bjj is teh bestest" because from what I can tell once you start mixing styles BJJ can be replaced for certain gameplans by judo, sambo, shooto. Is my impression offensive to you? If you insist I suppose I can dig up a list of matches or whatever... Vitor Ribeiro, the obvious few Gracies, Aurelio... More in general. ADCC's rules are essentially anything goes *except neck cranks/spine locks*. Points for a takedown, points for positional improvement, etc. The ADCC rules.. would you say they are more loose or less loose as compared to the judo, sambo? And yes obviously the ADCC rules are even somewhat based off of BJJ rules - which as far as I can tell are the most minimalist of the lot. Yes it is a big disadvantage. But the whole point of the ADCC was to see who the best overall*grapplers* in the world were, and thus they allow just about anything involved in grappling. It's like saying about San Da that "yeah a boxer would be at a big disadvantage". That said, wrestlers with basic submission defense (Kerr) often do well precisely because of the point system lifted from BJJ - rewarding positional dominance and control. It isn't all about submissions. But submissions are a part of grappling too. Eh.. do you see what I'm getting at here?
I'm not sure where you're getting these fight records from. MMA can't count because everyone in MMA crosstrains. The only thing I can think of that was ever BJJ monostylists against other monostylists would be something like the Gracie challenges, which I'd consider a pretty bad source. I agree and as far as I can tell it's a good ruleset, but it does give BJJ practitioners an advantage. Really? Then perhaps they should compete on concrete so that throwing specialists will have more of an edge. Or maybe wrestlers could argue that their lack of submission training gave them a disadvantage because eventually they get caught in a submission even if they had the opponent pinned down nicely for a few minutes and that had striking been allowed, they could have headbutted or elbowed their way to a knockout. The ADCC doesn't show who the best overall grapplers are. Grappling prowess could constitute different things to different people. It shows who is best at grappling under ADCC rules. So if, hypothetically, the ADCC made their rounds too short and the wrestlers dominated before anyone could submit them, would that mean they were better grapplers than the BJJ guys? I'd say no and that it merely meant they were the best under those rules.
The fighters I mentioned are known for being close to pure BJJ in strategy. If you look at early MMA, there are a lot of examples of pure BJJ doing very, very well. (And lots of examples of Sambo, shooto, judo too). Would you please just state your point? Is it that "well even BJJ guys cross-train these days"? Yeah, of course. These days. When all their opponents cross-train too. I don't really see what's bothering you about what I said. Which throwing specialists train on concrete? So? Would you expect a boxer to demand a K-1 fighter only use punches if they were to have a match? You are missing the fact that not all rulesets are equal. The least restrictive ruleset demonstrates most overall capability. Again, think boxing/Muay Thai. Why would a ruleset prohibiting certain types of grappling demonstrate who the better grappler is? If I challenged a champ boxer to a kickboxing match where he wasn't allowed to punch and leg-kicked him to death, it would not prove that I was a superior striker. Only by saying "okay, we can hit eachother however we want with whatever body part we want" and then going at it would we determine who the better striker is. Same with grappling. The ADCC does demonstrate who the best overall grapplers in the world are, and the only way to produce a more accurate determination would be to allow all submissions and slams. Making the rules more restrictive would obviously not increase accuracy. A better argument would be "what if ADCC allowed neck cranks/spine locks and catch/shooto people started winning a lot", which is a legitimate complaint. All rulesets are not created equal.
It's quite simple: I don't see much, if any, evidence that BJJ monostylists tend to beat all other monostylists. I don't think evidence for something like this exists. I would guess that BJJ would do pretty well, but really guessing is all I can do. None that I know of, but that doesn't really have anything to do with what I said. If it were a boxing match, then yes. Again, this doesn't really have anything to do with what I said. Most traditional wrestling styles use pins (or sometimes throws) to determine the winner of a match. That's the understanding of what makes someone "better" than someone else at it. A wrestler with little understanding of submissions might be able to control a BJJ practitioner for quite some time before getting submitted. If striking were allowed and he elbowed the BJJ guy into unconsciousness, what does that mean? If the wrestler has a more restrictive ruleset that doesn't give the BJJ guy time to pull off a submission, he can win. Or if he has an extremely unrestrictive ruleset, he can use strikes and win. But that area in the middle is where he loses. Of course, all of this is hypothetical anyway. Maybe the BJJ guy can submit him quickly and win under the more restrictive ruleset. Or maybe he can sweep the wrestler and win with strikes himself under the extremely unrestrictive ruleset. Or maybe the wrestler can avoid the submission and win on points under the ADCC rules (it has happened, as you already pointed out). The ADCC ruleset allows for an exciting sport in which grapplers from multiple styles compete and BJJ stylists tend to have the biggest showing and enjoy the most success. Great. But that doesn't mean it's enough to draw a bunch of other conclusions from about the efficacy of these other grappling styles under other conditions. The ADCC demonstrates who the best overall grapplers in the world are if you define "the best overall grapplers" as "the people who win in the ADCC." I don't see the ADCC as needing to fill some sort of goal like being an accurate determination of how grappling styles measure up against one another overall. For one thing, it's all up to what you consider grappling prowess. Besides, it's individuals (many of whom do crosstrain anyway) and not styles that are really competing at the ADCC. I'm not making a "complaint." I like the ADCC. I just don't see it as a gauge for measuring the efficacy of grappling styles or whatever. I don't believe such a gauge exists or that there is any need for one in the first place.
