This is my first post on the site, and I’m glad to be here. Looks like a great group of guys and a solid think-tank. Given my background in the sport, and some of the results from the recent UFC cards, I thought this would be a good way to start this off.
There was a time when many a sherdog columnist wrote that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was done, and that the new fighter was a hybrid of wrestling and muay thai, with a little jiu-jitsu and some submission defense. There was a time when there was not a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter could be found in the UFC.
That time wasn’t too long ago, but you’d never guess it by looking at the current status of the UFC, and objective assessment will show that those predictions, that BJJ would become an obsolete style when people figured out how to defend the armbar and utilize the groundnpound form guard, are clearly wrong.
Four of the UFC’s five champions are Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blackbelts. Anderson Silva, Matt Serra, BJ Penn and recently crowned heavyweight king Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (who gave Silva his blackbelt) all hold the honor, but they’re not the only one, and it’s clear that the knowledge of the ground game is something that can’t just be learned from wrestling and transitioning to grappling, as we’ve seen time and time again.
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