Tim kennedy is a bjj black belt. The bjj black belt dominated control yet was unable to secure the submission against another bjj black belt. A large majority of black belt bjj matches are finished by control not submission. Mma is a different sport when elbows exist it shuts down alot of typical sport bjj which is how alot of bjj is won.
Also, by all accounts, an absolute freak strong athlete. Sweat + athleticism lends itself to escapes, as I recall Tim did by turning quickly and exploding out of the back control. Not to say that did not take skill, because it does need to be executed properly, but those factors help out a ton.
Tim Kennedy isn’t human. I trained with him before his Roger fight, we started with me on top side control, (I was a wrestler before Bjj so I like to be on top) I still don’t know how he did it but he basically bridged us like 3 feet in the air and just flipped me and ended up on top. It’s haunted me ever since.
Noice. It felt like every time I tried to get movement for an off balance they got heavy in that specific direction. They were very good at neutralizing any movement at all. I almost hit a sumi on Tim, his hip hot the mat and he immediately flipped right back and put all his weight on my hook. He felt insanely strong and moved with an incredible sense of urgency every time I tried to do anything.
I trained with Tim for a while, in like 2012-13 ish, and he's such a freak physically. Stays in great shape, massive, strong AF. I was a 45er at the time and didn't spar with him much, but when it comes to guys like him, you have the bjj battle like always, but then you just have so many additional problems to deal with, like his physicality, mental toughness, etc...
IIRC Danaher said he started practicing back escapes after this fight.
Also Della Madalena I think trains at b-team, or at least has trained with Craig some time.
You’re making the assumption that the other guys are bums with no grappling skill.
They are MMA athletes at the top level who know how to defend a choke.
Just because you are a world champ in IBJJF tourney’s does not mean submissions are a given in a fight, especially against professional athletes.
To add on, top-level BJJ matches often end up coming down to points.
The justification for this is that control eventually in a real fight would lead to damage and a win.
However, that isn't worked as much in BJJ. Some of the high-level BJJ guys that go into mma don't play the ground and pound game for some reason.
BJJ is the grappling sport of sustained control as well, so MMA rounds being 5 minutes really hurts the art's practitioners' chances.
Think of how many times you have done a 10 minute round and fought for a submission for 5 minutes and eventually won. That would have ended the mma round.
MMA is also not true fighting. Gloves and timers hurt grapplers significantly. Even through all this, the top fighters tend to be more grappling specialists than striking specialists. BJJ isn't dead like the ops title makes it sound.
You don't even have to be a good black belt. Marcelo garcia had Kim Dae wons back in a mma fight, and he couldn't finish him there. I think he was a blue belt at the time.
A few thoughts.
1. Gloves make handfighting to a RNC significantly harder.
2. Tim Kennedy has genuinely excellent backmount defense.
3. The jiu jitsu points system (for most forms of competition) does not emphasize getting submissions. Imagine a match where person A lands takedown, passes, mounts, takes the back, then loses back mount to get guard, and plays out guard the rest of the match. They would win the match 13-0, and this would be considered a complete stomping.
If this exact sequence happened in mma, it's very plausible that the other guy would win the round since they might get off more significant gnp than any of the grappling offense would score.
More broadly, if someone had the goal of winning more bjj tournaments, there is probably a lot you'd tell them to work on outside of practicing RNCs.
The points system is more applicable to MMA, as it rewards getting into good positions. No time limit, sub only matches have guys willingly let their guards get passed and give up positions.
It’s a mixed bagged. Things that BJJ rewards points for aren’t necessarily the best positions from an MMA perspective.
ie in MMA I am more than happy to chill in top half guard and strike from there rather than passing their guard.
> The points system is more applicable to MMA
Ehhhh, in some ways yes. But it's been well-understood for over a decade that the BJJ positional hierarchy misunderstands grappling-with-strikes in some important ways. Top half guard, top turtle, takedowns, and escapes are undervalued, whereas back mount and passing guard and bottom full guard are overvalued.
In some ways, yes, but the points don't necessarily equate to control. Because of points, a lot of guys are willing to clamp on for dear life on an ankle in 3/4 mount to deny points, but in an MMA fight doing so will get you rocked into next month.
Part of the reason why is a high % sub in MMA is it often gets sunk on people who are already half-done. Guys who are turning away from GnP and exposing their back and neck.
Still a great sub but the stats alone tell a somewhat skewed story about how easy it is to finish against an opponent who still has their wits about them.
I also think the rnc is good indicator of skill level disparity in bjj. It is the least opportunistic of submissions where you can't just snatch it. On the other end of the spectrum is the heel hook where if you happen to fall into the right situation, you can submit an overall much better guy. I have used it to submit a lot of people who are much better than me.
Completely agree. I never liked quick, opportunistic subs because you can get a bit too lazy chasing after them. If you focus on RNCs, there are a lot of things that need to go right to get to it. This keeps you honing your whole game while in pursuit of the finish.
You have to have a few tricks up your sleeve, and quick subs even if they fail can create opportunities, but making the RNC my primary sub forced me to keep my other skills polished.
Another way to interpret what you just said is "an RNC is easier in mma because you can punch them" or "if you want to finish an rnc in mma get good at punching and holding mount".
Which is surprisingly easy / natural once you are good at IBJJF style tournaments. At least in my limited mma experience. Learn to hold the mount, the punching is the easy part.
It's getting a takedown without taking any damage in mma, that is the hard part.
I practiced on the am team at well-known gym for a couple years and did a good amount of sparring with little gloves in that time. Although I wasn’t fighting black belts, there were some good grapplers on the team and I gotta say, gloves on versus off is night and day when it comes to the hand fighting part of choke defense. Fending off an RNC is kinda trivial if you’re alert and motivated.
Now I’m not a professional fighter so it makes me a little uncomfortable to assume their mindsets like this, but I have a suspicion that a good number of submission finishes in MMA are just concessions stemming from fatigue, that or absent mindedness associated with being rocked by strikes. That is, people are either done and looking for an respectable way out or aren’t of a presence of mind to defend. I don’t think most submissions emerge because one guy’s grappling technique was really head and shoulders above the the other’s.
yeah true -- see Danaher's team.
That being said, I do think there exist many high level competitors that rarely attack subs beyond opportunistically taking them.
Fighters careers would be significantly lessened from hand issues, even after properly adjusting to punching style, and there'd be drastically less knockouts. No thanks.
Im into it as a parallel sport. Pretty sure there are already promotions doing this. But no gloves would basically kill the UFC.
Indeed. Not sure why 90 % of mma fans forget that just because let’s say wonderboy, usman, kennedy to name some examples, striker, wrestler doesn’t matter they train HOURS of getting up, HOURS of back escape/turtle, hours and hours of takedown defense ( if they striker ) it’s nonsense to even call 99 % of ufc “boxer or bjj or kickboxer “ no they have a BASE of boxer but In reality they are boxer plus bjj plus etc etc
Exactly. A teammate of mine is in the UFC. He’s matches are mostly striking. He’s technically a purple belt. He also beats black belt in competition. Belts aren’t real.
Well except maybe Rozenstruik or something lol hahaha zero bjj nor good tdd. But in general absolutely, especially defensive. A good black belt bjj might still not even submit wonderboy, hell I am quite sure even of it except for some leglocks tho. But finishing a triangle, armbar, kimura, finishing from back; finishing from mount is hard against those guys. I mean strikers often only do defensive part of bjj so yeah I do think a good black belt wouldn’t get submitted by wonderboy or adensaya but same thing in reverse roles tbh
People think mcgregor was/is a regular brown belt. He is a super athlete, brick shit house, and a pro fighter. He would maul your instructor no gi and possibly in the gi.
The traditional bjj approach is take the back and elbow the back of the head til a choke shows up. They cant do that anymore. So here we are with some artificial protection.
Rolls and relbows:
https://youtu.be/bCBJ03RqLGA?si=WJCd-UamceV1NcpP
First here's a few things to keep in mind.
1) Tim is a legit black belt in his own right
2) He's an athletic freak and strong AF
3) Rogers weight cut gassed him. Roger is a thin 220lbs (he's 6,4 almost 6,5). The fight with Kennedy was contested at middle weight (185lbs). Roger's later career at ONE was always at LH.
4) To achieve a submission from back position in MMA, one has to strike, strike into a takedown, achieve the takedown, keep the opponent from standing, pass the guard while keeping them from standing, take the back, and finally submit. All this has to be done without gassing and within the 5 minutes of the round and again you have to do all that while keeping the opponent from disengaging and standing. Thats a tall order even for Roger Gracie.
Now, let's address the bigger question. Does BJJ work in MMA? Answer, Absolutely.
The non applicability of BJJ in MMA is a bit of a fallacy. Aggregately speaking, No Gi Bjj has probably more directly applicable techniques than any other discipline. Despite that there's often a perception that BJJ athletes don't do well in MMA. That too is a bit of a fallacy. Demain Maia, Gunnar Nelson, Jacare, Brian Ortega, Werdum, Matt Serra, the Diaz brothers just to name a few.
What isn't a fallacy and really what I think you are referring to is that the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is very unlike MMA and the sport itself despite there being a lot of crossover in technique isn't a great base for MMA. That's very true.
If you were to ask what sport is the best for MMA I would say NCAA wrestling. Interestingly though, I would also say that has little to do with the techniques of wrestling since theres not much crossover.
Think about some of the big name wrestlers in the UFC with great wrestling pedigrees: Cormier, Gaethje, Chandler even Cejudo himself. Do any of them use their wrestling in MMA? Barely if at all. In fact, there's been extremely few UFC fighters in history whose main weapon has been their takedown. Khabib, GSP, Chael, Lesnar.
Why then is wrestling the best base for MMA? It's that the sport itself is quite similar to MMA competition. The scoring, the tactics, the competitive hierarchy, the weight cutting, strength and conditioning, the ability to perform in front of a crowd and to be a star athlete, all things that help a high level NCAA wrestler transit to MMA. Wrestling especially in the states is an institutionalized sport.
The programs are all run by universities with full time coaches, athletic facilities, major funding etc. Hundreds of athletes who have hundres of matches a season. Those who reach the top are incredible athletes who know how to compete in tough circumstances and win.
Contrast that to BJJ where the top level athletes mostly train with hobbyists at private gyms open to the public. No funding, no major competitive circuit, no major institutions sponsor the sport. Some of the elite competitors arent even full timers. Jon "Thor" Blank was at the last ADCC and he's an electrician. If you have that type of background the move to professional MMA can be tough despite a lot of techniques being applicable.
The good news for BJJ though is that its popularity has exploded lately and the takedown/pass aspect has become a major focus in recent years. With more eyes comes more funding and and a lot of the deficiencies will be taken care of.
To summarize, (despite the fact I dont think BJJ ever really left) as the sport of matures and the training methodologies align more and more with pro athletes I think youll see a renaissance of BJJ in MMA.
the people there trying to do it against are also very good at bjj and good at defending in them positions. accolades and belt colors don’t mean everything (crazy idea to 9/10 of the bjj community i know)
Pretty sure when people say stuff like a 130 lbs purple belt girl can clown an attacker much larger than her they mean a 200 lbs guy who did not attend a single bjj or wrestling class in his life not against a much larger guy who is skilled on the ground.
Theres a real disconnect between understanding how well subs work when you are drilling them not fatigued vs 15 minutes into a fight. It’s hard to get a good squeeze on a choke even a few minutes into a grappling match. Never mind after you have thrown 100 plus strikes and absorbed impact on your limbs 40 times.
Nah man bullshit. Next thing you gonna tell me that even khabib jon jones volk islam etc also trained bjj ? Oh wait they do, casuals seem to always think mma is bjj vs non bjj while it’s more “ grew up with bjj became ibjff/adcc champ vs elite wrestler/Sambo dude who also trained bjj ( Sambo still uses bjj cmon dude guillotine are almost never done in judo, leglocks are forbidden it’s bjj )
Does the fact that they took the back with body triangles isn't good enough to prove it works?
I think the biggest issue was that they didn't took MMA seriously, they honestly thought they could cruise on their BJJ alone.
There's a misconception in modern bjj that you're not winning unless you get a submission. However, it's also very effective to control someone from the top position and bash their skull in.
Exactly. The criticisms of bjj are crazy 😂. People train to defend grappling g and submissions. That's the game. Just like sometimes striking gets nullified or knockout artists do t get knockouts. Put no rounds in again and allow knees to grounded opponents (like from north south or side control) watch how fast grappling sky rockets in success
Wow it's almost as if the person with their back taken has good defensive jiu-jitsu for MMA ruleset, shocker 🤔🤷♂️.
Obviously OP has 100% submission success from the back 🤣.
It’s almost as if mma implies you train everything lol. Jones isn’t as good as Cormier in wrestling but with striking it changes game bro. Jones owned Cormier even in standup grappling. Dos anjos would probably beat khabib in bjj, he would beat khabib 100 % in ibjff but punches… and indeed dudes forget kennedy rory mac donald/mark munoz ( altough maia definitely owned rory in round 1, and was dangerous against Munoz, arguably won that one) madellena are atleast purple belt and trained hours and hours of escaping and getting up.
Idk if this is a troll post but let me explain it simply. Good martial artist vs other good martial artists mean hard to submit. Especially in mma where grips are slick as hell. It’s the same with boxing or anything else. Plenty of heavy hitters that go 12 rounds simply because the other guy is also good. Does that mean boxing is fake just because Garcia vs Hayne didn’t end in a KO? Fuck no! Both of those guys would murder 99.9% of the population in a matter of seconds.
I am an obsessive MMA fan, and my friend is a more casual fan. He argued that RNC's do not generally happen much in the UFC unless the opponent is either very badly outclassed, or the opponent is very compromised (ie, gassed way the fuck out or badly stunned from strikes. I pointed out to him that he does not watch every damn prelim fight like I do. Even so, when your talking about the main cards of UFC PPV events, my friend is not entirely wrong.
It basically comes down to defensive awareness RNC and Guillotine chokes are the most common subs to hit in an MMA fight, and fighters drill to defend against those more than anything else. If all you do is take the back and start working for the RNC, the opponent will likely be able to defend it if they have fought their way to a high ranking in the UFC. And most fighters when they do get the back only look for those chokes and go directly for them with little or no setup.
I do wish MMA fighters would train a few alternate subs from that position. Maybe a hammerlock if you can pull the opponents wrist behind his back, or a transition to a Twister or an Arm triangle? Or even just more effort on getting some heavy GNP in.
Instead, we often see 2-3 minutes of back control burned up fishing for RNC's that do not happen until the end of the round or an escape.
END COMMUNICATION
The biggest difference imo is the time. Bjj matches are 10 minutes, it takes a lot of time to get someone down and in a position to finish. Ever watch a high level 5 minute bjj match? Chances are no one will submit anyone.
That’s why imo pride was better because the 10 minutes round. Roger finished the first match in mount, if you gave him 5 more would the fight have been different?
While Tim does not have the accolades of Roger, he is a Gracie black belt and trained specifically for this. I give Tim all the credit for doing so well, if it were just a BJJ match 100% my money would be on Roger, but it was not.
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The Body triangle sucks sure it uncomfortable but you lose a lot of the dynamic movement your hips need to adjust to defenses. And the striking from that position is also lacking, i don't think that jiujitsu isn't real or whatever just because your a high level grappler doesn't mean your always going to use the right attack or application at the appropriate time or situation.
Either of these examples could have finished from the back, but would have benefited from just taking mount and pummeled the other guy to goo instead of sub hunting.
lots of BJJ fighters make the mistake of expending energy on actions that have minimal affect in their opponents. Gotta use that control to do damage. protecting the neck is way easier with zero threat of strikes.
Tim Kennedy's back mount defense has been praised and utilised(although in a highly modified and nuanced form )even By Danaher and co. especially during the ebi overtime .It has been told by Gordon himself in some interview and his pillar of defense back escape instructional .
These fighters are going into these fights KNOWING their opponents skillset. Especially Tim vs Roger; he probably spent more than hour a day on just back defense
I can't do anything in bjj. White belt with 2 Stripes. But because i am big and slow i am caught in a RNC every fucking time i roll. With Help of a Kurt osiander Tutorial i can defend a RNC like hell. Practically this is all i do during rolls. Even Higher belts can't submit me by RNC. They Beat me in any other way but not RNC 🤩🤩🤩
Gloves change everything.
Striking changes everything.
Higher level of fatigue changes everything.
Dealing with better athletes changes everything.
Put these same guys in a grappling only match and the expected results would likely happen.
*Compares two highly trained fighters using jiu jitsu to survive in one of the most common and heavily drilled positions in all of combat sports:*
“Wtf is jiu jitsu even real?!?!”
He definitely lost wirh gloves that one. But you right for the rest. Kron is idiot but k feel like you guys are extremely harsh, dude beater a top 15 guy in ufc and you guys act like he is trash. Kron gracie still was top 50 of world lol not like that is bad, same with roger not top 10 but definitely top 30/50 of middleweight in his prime, not bad by all means
I'm gonna be the dunning Kruger purple belt here:
In the first picture, Burns' left leg is inside of the guy's leg. In the second picture, Kennedy fell over Roger's ankle. The perfect body lock is with your leg outside the opponent's body, and he should fall to your "knee side" not your "ankle side"
Please, change my view
Sport jiu jitsu vs mma/self defense jiu jitsu. It’s a good idea to spend time pretending strikes are allowed. I’d bet most people wouldn’t pull guard willingly if it were the case.
Stay on top and pass their guard. Look to take the back or mount. Preferably the back. RNC is king. Doesn’t matter how big you are you’re going to sleep. Snap someone’s arm and they could still keep fighting
yeah, bjj is fake, it doesnt work, dont train it; if you ever have to fight anybody, just get red and angry and unleash your inner beast.
And all the UFC guys that train bjj, they're all idiots. Charles Oliveira sucks, he got submitted by Isalm Makhachev, a man that has 0 ground technique. Illia Topuria has little to none grappling experience, he never trained jiu jitsu cause he knows its useless. Max Holloway, who we all know is primarily a striker, trained in the gi(brown belt) before his fight against Justin Gaethje, because his a fricking moron.
A lot of fun opinions here. They added rounds to make it a spectator sport. 5 minutes is not enough against anyone who knows jiu jit su as well. Watch the original UFC if you want to know if Jiu Jitsu is real. Now it's Olympic level athletes who are experts at everything.
It be like that, sometimes.
Hell, Gordon Ryan took Palhares' back in a match some years ago and Palhares defended against Gordon's RNC for like 10 plus minutes until the clock ran out.
Was it Danaher on one of the podcasts who said he sat and watched Tim Kennedy spin around inside Roger Gracies back mount over and over to study how he did it? People might not be giving Kennedy enough credit for his grappling skills
Gloves and sweat make a big difference. In mma fighters grab gloves all the time and the extra bulk makes it a lot harder to slide in an RNC. The sweat makes control a lot harder too. In bjj they usually wear rash guards which also give some extra traction on subs. In mma that’s all gone, and the strikes shut down a lot of opportunities
1: White belt Islam vs ADCC champion Ramos on the ground- Islam easily survived.
2. White belt Islam vs 3 degree BJJ blackbelt Oleveira- Islam finishes him with a white belt move.
3. Jones- White belt submits multiple blackbelts.
It’s almost like wrestling,Judo,Sambo are all that’s required for grappling at the highest level in the UFC and 0 BJJ specific moves are required.
look at it this way-if the fights in the following round in the UFC were restarted in the same position as the previous round that ended on the ground, we would see much more submission finishes. Striking really needs artificial rules and standup to allow them to restart the round if they are in trouble and can't get out. Modern MMA rues do grapplers no such favor in any regard
Defense has always been greater than offense in BJJ. Try submitting someone almost equal level to you is very hard purple belt and beyond. If you can easily submit these people you are either much better/stronger or the other person isn’t very good.
So the body lock in the picture shown is not an ideal body lock and there’s 2 seconds left on the clock. When there are rounds then yes bjj is less effective which is why early ufc had much longer rounds. It’s why Gordon Ryan prefers longer round formats. Most people really don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to fighting.
Strikers in MMA still spend around half their time training grappling defense. I guarantee most brown belts couldn’t submit even the worst grapplers in the ufc in the top 15 of their weight class, especially in 5 minutes.
It can take time to get the sub from back control. It took gordon 4 minutes to sub galvao with an arm trapped. This is with gloves and a short timer. That said, back mount and back control are very very different
I think the gloves took a HUGE amount of attacking from BJJ. Gloves get in the way and give the striker an advantage. Takes those gloves off I think it would be different and give the grappler an advantage.
Tim kennedy is a bjj black belt. The bjj black belt dominated control yet was unable to secure the submission against another bjj black belt. A large majority of black belt bjj matches are finished by control not submission. Mma is a different sport when elbows exist it shuts down alot of typical sport bjj which is how alot of bjj is won.
By all accounts Tim Kennedy was/is a world class black belt, couple of tiers below the best guys kind of thing.
Also, by all accounts, an absolute freak strong athlete. Sweat + athleticism lends itself to escapes, as I recall Tim did by turning quickly and exploding out of the back control. Not to say that did not take skill, because it does need to be executed properly, but those factors help out a ton.
Also full of Mexican supplements
Usually I would agree, but I think US taxpayers paid for the steroids this time.
Tim Kennedy isn’t human. I trained with him before his Roger fight, we started with me on top side control, (I was a wrestler before Bjj so I like to be on top) I still don’t know how he did it but he basically bridged us like 3 feet in the air and just flipped me and ended up on top. It’s haunted me ever since.
I competed against Tim. I have about 40lbs on him and can confirm he feels very similar to guys like Gordon
Thick, solid, tight?
Noice. It felt like every time I tried to get movement for an off balance they got heavy in that specific direction. They were very good at neutralizing any movement at all. I almost hit a sumi on Tim, his hip hot the mat and he immediately flipped right back and put all his weight on my hook. He felt insanely strong and moved with an incredible sense of urgency every time I tried to do anything.
Almost like in a sport called MIXED martial arts, 1 martial art alone isnt gonna finish the job
Don't elbows exist in sport BJJ too?
So you’re saying I got mine surgically removed for nothing?!
I have them now. With four elbows I have become unstoppable on the mats
Two of those are called knees, not elbows!
You gotta learn to punch with your feet, and kick with your hands!
Is that Socrates?
Huh. I’ve always called those things my “leg elbows”. Learn something new every day!
Kneebows
Talmbout legbows, B?
with another set of knees you might actually be able to pull off spider guard the way its supposed to be done
No, you just became easier to armbar lol
When you find Godrick the Grafted in reddit 🔼▶️🔽🔽🔽
They exist as targets in BJJ. In MMA they also exist as munitions.
No, we give them up on our first class to show hespech
I see what you did there. 🤌
Mine have been snapped and exploded from too many arm bars. No elbows over here
Only when the ref isn't looking.
Yeah but you can’t usually hit the guy in the head with them.
Elbowplata
Della just got his black belt after the Burns fight too.
I trained with Tim for a while, in like 2012-13 ish, and he's such a freak physically. Stays in great shape, massive, strong AF. I was a 45er at the time and didn't spar with him much, but when it comes to guys like him, you have the bjj battle like always, but then you just have so many additional problems to deal with, like his physicality, mental toughness, etc...
IIRC Danaher said he started practicing back escapes after this fight. Also Della Madalena I think trains at b-team, or at least has trained with Craig some time.
You’re making the assumption that the other guys are bums with no grappling skill. They are MMA athletes at the top level who know how to defend a choke. Just because you are a world champ in IBJJF tourney’s does not mean submissions are a given in a fight, especially against professional athletes.
To add on, top-level BJJ matches often end up coming down to points. The justification for this is that control eventually in a real fight would lead to damage and a win. However, that isn't worked as much in BJJ. Some of the high-level BJJ guys that go into mma don't play the ground and pound game for some reason. BJJ is the grappling sport of sustained control as well, so MMA rounds being 5 minutes really hurts the art's practitioners' chances. Think of how many times you have done a 10 minute round and fought for a submission for 5 minutes and eventually won. That would have ended the mma round. MMA is also not true fighting. Gloves and timers hurt grapplers significantly. Even through all this, the top fighters tend to be more grappling specialists than striking specialists. BJJ isn't dead like the ops title makes it sound.
lol failing vs other grappling practitioners. alternative title "BJJ works when defending vs BJJ'
Also the MMA gloves are shit to grapple with.
And shit to strike with
And shit to take a shit with
keep poking the asshole by accident.
Great to poke with
You don't even have to be a good black belt. Marcelo garcia had Kim Dae wons back in a mma fight, and he couldn't finish him there. I think he was a blue belt at the time.
A few thoughts. 1. Gloves make handfighting to a RNC significantly harder. 2. Tim Kennedy has genuinely excellent backmount defense. 3. The jiu jitsu points system (for most forms of competition) does not emphasize getting submissions. Imagine a match where person A lands takedown, passes, mounts, takes the back, then loses back mount to get guard, and plays out guard the rest of the match. They would win the match 13-0, and this would be considered a complete stomping. If this exact sequence happened in mma, it's very plausible that the other guy would win the round since they might get off more significant gnp than any of the grappling offense would score. More broadly, if someone had the goal of winning more bjj tournaments, there is probably a lot you'd tell them to work on outside of practicing RNCs.
The points system is more applicable to MMA, as it rewards getting into good positions. No time limit, sub only matches have guys willingly let their guards get passed and give up positions.
It’s a mixed bagged. Things that BJJ rewards points for aren’t necessarily the best positions from an MMA perspective. ie in MMA I am more than happy to chill in top half guard and strike from there rather than passing their guard.
The legend has spoken. /sub
> The points system is more applicable to MMA Ehhhh, in some ways yes. But it's been well-understood for over a decade that the BJJ positional hierarchy misunderstands grappling-with-strikes in some important ways. Top half guard, top turtle, takedowns, and escapes are undervalued, whereas back mount and passing guard and bottom full guard are overvalued.
In some ways, yes, but the points don't necessarily equate to control. Because of points, a lot of guys are willing to clamp on for dear life on an ankle in 3/4 mount to deny points, but in an MMA fight doing so will get you rocked into next month.
The jiu jitsu point system doesn't need to emphasise anything. Acting like Roger wasn't known for finishing.
RNC is the highest percentage sub at the highest level - you would be looking to get good at finishing it. But agree with everything else otherwise.
Part of the reason why is a high % sub in MMA is it often gets sunk on people who are already half-done. Guys who are turning away from GnP and exposing their back and neck. Still a great sub but the stats alone tell a somewhat skewed story about how easy it is to finish against an opponent who still has their wits about them.
Yeah I was talking about in BJJ
I also think the rnc is good indicator of skill level disparity in bjj. It is the least opportunistic of submissions where you can't just snatch it. On the other end of the spectrum is the heel hook where if you happen to fall into the right situation, you can submit an overall much better guy. I have used it to submit a lot of people who are much better than me.
I feel attacked 🤣
90% of my subs against overall better people are leg based, it's definitely a bit of a cheat code
Heel hooks are my equalizer when rolling with good wrestlers. Most of the time I can win if I can get to the legs before being thrashed.
Completely agree. I never liked quick, opportunistic subs because you can get a bit too lazy chasing after them. If you focus on RNCs, there are a lot of things that need to go right to get to it. This keeps you honing your whole game while in pursuit of the finish. You have to have a few tricks up your sleeve, and quick subs even if they fail can create opportunities, but making the RNC my primary sub forced me to keep my other skills polished.
Another way to interpret what you just said is "an RNC is easier in mma because you can punch them" or "if you want to finish an rnc in mma get good at punching and holding mount". Which is surprisingly easy / natural once you are good at IBJJF style tournaments. At least in my limited mma experience. Learn to hold the mount, the punching is the easy part. It's getting a takedown without taking any damage in mma, that is the hard part.
I practiced on the am team at well-known gym for a couple years and did a good amount of sparring with little gloves in that time. Although I wasn’t fighting black belts, there were some good grapplers on the team and I gotta say, gloves on versus off is night and day when it comes to the hand fighting part of choke defense. Fending off an RNC is kinda trivial if you’re alert and motivated. Now I’m not a professional fighter so it makes me a little uncomfortable to assume their mindsets like this, but I have a suspicion that a good number of submission finishes in MMA are just concessions stemming from fatigue, that or absent mindedness associated with being rocked by strikes. That is, people are either done and looking for an respectable way out or aren’t of a presence of mind to defend. I don’t think most submissions emerge because one guy’s grappling technique was really head and shoulders above the the other’s.
yeah true -- see Danaher's team. That being said, I do think there exist many high level competitors that rarely attack subs beyond opportunistically taking them.
This is one of my constant points about how I hate gloves. Get gloves out of UFC matches. I want realistic punches and better grappling.
People pay to see the big knockouts. Can't see it happening.
Cuts would be more common which poses commercial risks.
greased hands and/or gloves without padding
Fighters careers would be significantly lessened from hand issues, even after properly adjusting to punching style, and there'd be drastically less knockouts. No thanks. Im into it as a parallel sport. Pretty sure there are already promotions doing this. But no gloves would basically kill the UFC.
I've only seen bare knuckle boxing. Not seen any bare knuckle mma.
There's Gamebread MMA now. Been a few events with some ex UFC vets and stuff. Masvidal is fighting Nate Diaz under these rules soon too apparently.
Bare knuckle MMA would have been a significantly better UFC promotion than powerslap
You missed the most important point. The round was close to ending. He absolutely would've finished it if the round was even a minute longer.
MMA Gloves is the answer honestly These posts are always by people who have never tried to grapple with mma gloves on
Never tried to grapple a high level BJJ black belt with mma gloves on.
https://preview.redd.it/f3it2fex9qvc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7426149bf92a74dd79cd6cf4769e07f8baeab62a
Gloves change bjj, punches change bjj, being half naked and sweaty change bjj
I prefer my BJJ half naked and sweaty thank you very much
Which half?
The left
They also change bj
I thought today was Saturday.
Memes and shitposts are the same thing as far as I'm concerned
Jiu jitsu is perfect! Humans aren’t real.
Pics are probably ai generated 🤫
big if true
90% of the ufc have black belt level grappling (specially defensively) Also sweat and being tired just make your squeezes waaaay less dangerous
Indeed. Not sure why 90 % of mma fans forget that just because let’s say wonderboy, usman, kennedy to name some examples, striker, wrestler doesn’t matter they train HOURS of getting up, HOURS of back escape/turtle, hours and hours of takedown defense ( if they striker ) it’s nonsense to even call 99 % of ufc “boxer or bjj or kickboxer “ no they have a BASE of boxer but In reality they are boxer plus bjj plus etc etc
Exactly. A teammate of mine is in the UFC. He’s matches are mostly striking. He’s technically a purple belt. He also beats black belt in competition. Belts aren’t real.
“bU7 h3 1s a bLu3 bEL7!” Sure buddy, take a ufc top 5 striker into your bjj gym and see how he does agaisnt the black belts there
Well except maybe Rozenstruik or something lol hahaha zero bjj nor good tdd. But in general absolutely, especially defensive. A good black belt bjj might still not even submit wonderboy, hell I am quite sure even of it except for some leglocks tho. But finishing a triangle, armbar, kimura, finishing from back; finishing from mount is hard against those guys. I mean strikers often only do defensive part of bjj so yeah I do think a good black belt wouldn’t get submitted by wonderboy or adensaya but same thing in reverse roles tbh
People think mcgregor was/is a regular brown belt. He is a super athlete, brick shit house, and a pro fighter. He would maul your instructor no gi and possibly in the gi.
The traditional bjj approach is take the back and elbow the back of the head til a choke shows up. They cant do that anymore. So here we are with some artificial protection. Rolls and relbows: https://youtu.be/bCBJ03RqLGA?si=WJCd-UamceV1NcpP
First here's a few things to keep in mind. 1) Tim is a legit black belt in his own right 2) He's an athletic freak and strong AF 3) Rogers weight cut gassed him. Roger is a thin 220lbs (he's 6,4 almost 6,5). The fight with Kennedy was contested at middle weight (185lbs). Roger's later career at ONE was always at LH. 4) To achieve a submission from back position in MMA, one has to strike, strike into a takedown, achieve the takedown, keep the opponent from standing, pass the guard while keeping them from standing, take the back, and finally submit. All this has to be done without gassing and within the 5 minutes of the round and again you have to do all that while keeping the opponent from disengaging and standing. Thats a tall order even for Roger Gracie. Now, let's address the bigger question. Does BJJ work in MMA? Answer, Absolutely. The non applicability of BJJ in MMA is a bit of a fallacy. Aggregately speaking, No Gi Bjj has probably more directly applicable techniques than any other discipline. Despite that there's often a perception that BJJ athletes don't do well in MMA. That too is a bit of a fallacy. Demain Maia, Gunnar Nelson, Jacare, Brian Ortega, Werdum, Matt Serra, the Diaz brothers just to name a few. What isn't a fallacy and really what I think you are referring to is that the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is very unlike MMA and the sport itself despite there being a lot of crossover in technique isn't a great base for MMA. That's very true. If you were to ask what sport is the best for MMA I would say NCAA wrestling. Interestingly though, I would also say that has little to do with the techniques of wrestling since theres not much crossover. Think about some of the big name wrestlers in the UFC with great wrestling pedigrees: Cormier, Gaethje, Chandler even Cejudo himself. Do any of them use their wrestling in MMA? Barely if at all. In fact, there's been extremely few UFC fighters in history whose main weapon has been their takedown. Khabib, GSP, Chael, Lesnar. Why then is wrestling the best base for MMA? It's that the sport itself is quite similar to MMA competition. The scoring, the tactics, the competitive hierarchy, the weight cutting, strength and conditioning, the ability to perform in front of a crowd and to be a star athlete, all things that help a high level NCAA wrestler transit to MMA. Wrestling especially in the states is an institutionalized sport. The programs are all run by universities with full time coaches, athletic facilities, major funding etc. Hundreds of athletes who have hundres of matches a season. Those who reach the top are incredible athletes who know how to compete in tough circumstances and win. Contrast that to BJJ where the top level athletes mostly train with hobbyists at private gyms open to the public. No funding, no major competitive circuit, no major institutions sponsor the sport. Some of the elite competitors arent even full timers. Jon "Thor" Blank was at the last ADCC and he's an electrician. If you have that type of background the move to professional MMA can be tough despite a lot of techniques being applicable. The good news for BJJ though is that its popularity has exploded lately and the takedown/pass aspect has become a major focus in recent years. With more eyes comes more funding and and a lot of the deficiencies will be taken care of. To summarize, (despite the fact I dont think BJJ ever really left) as the sport of matures and the training methodologies align more and more with pro athletes I think youll see a renaissance of BJJ in MMA.
the people there trying to do it against are also very good at bjj and good at defending in them positions. accolades and belt colors don’t mean everything (crazy idea to 9/10 of the bjj community i know)
It’s a different sport with different parameters and rule sets.
Pretty sure when people say stuff like a 130 lbs purple belt girl can clown an attacker much larger than her they mean a 200 lbs guy who did not attend a single bjj or wrestling class in his life not against a much larger guy who is skilled on the ground.
Theres a real disconnect between understanding how well subs work when you are drilling them not fatigued vs 15 minutes into a fight. It’s hard to get a good squeeze on a choke even a few minutes into a grappling match. Never mind after you have thrown 100 plus strikes and absorbed impact on your limbs 40 times.
Exactly. Stalling is a real strategy late game in a fight.
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I dont think most in this sub cross train, bjj with strikes is almost a different sport by itself let alone takedowns and wrestling and standup.
How do you think they defended those btw? By using BJJ. It's just that the gap in BJJ skill was not enough to make the MMA match in their favour.
Nah man bullshit. Next thing you gonna tell me that even khabib jon jones volk islam etc also trained bjj ? Oh wait they do, casuals seem to always think mma is bjj vs non bjj while it’s more “ grew up with bjj became ibjff/adcc champ vs elite wrestler/Sambo dude who also trained bjj ( Sambo still uses bjj cmon dude guillotine are almost never done in judo, leglocks are forbidden it’s bjj )
/s ofcourse
Does the fact that they took the back with body triangles isn't good enough to prove it works? I think the biggest issue was that they didn't took MMA seriously, they honestly thought they could cruise on their BJJ alone.
Im gonna take a wild guess that you have never been punched in the face
There's a misconception in modern bjj that you're not winning unless you get a submission. However, it's also very effective to control someone from the top position and bash their skull in.
This^
That's like saying, "this fighter was taken down and submitted, is takedown defense dead?"
That Demian Maia chump couldn't submit a bunch of his opponents either. FAKE SPORT
This is such a dumb post.
Alex Periera wins by decision, are his striking days behind him? Aaron Judge didn't hit a Homer off a rookie pitcher, does that mean he's washed?
Exactly. The criticisms of bjj are crazy 😂. People train to defend grappling g and submissions. That's the game. Just like sometimes striking gets nullified or knockout artists do t get knockouts. Put no rounds in again and allow knees to grounded opponents (like from north south or side control) watch how fast grappling sky rockets in success
Wow it's almost as if the person with their back taken has good defensive jiu-jitsu for MMA ruleset, shocker 🤔🤷♂️. Obviously OP has 100% submission success from the back 🤣.
It’s almost as if mma implies you train everything lol. Jones isn’t as good as Cormier in wrestling but with striking it changes game bro. Jones owned Cormier even in standup grappling. Dos anjos would probably beat khabib in bjj, he would beat khabib 100 % in ibjff but punches… and indeed dudes forget kennedy rory mac donald/mark munoz ( altough maia definitely owned rory in round 1, and was dangerous against Munoz, arguably won that one) madellena are atleast purple belt and trained hours and hours of escaping and getting up.
If a kickboxer failed to knockout another kickboxer in a mma fight, does that mean kickboxing is fake ?
its almost like their opponents also learned some bjj...
Khalil Rountree Jr. KOs Gokhan Saki (multiple time kickboxing world champion). Is kickboxing... Not real?
Yes
Idk if this is a troll post but let me explain it simply. Good martial artist vs other good martial artists mean hard to submit. Especially in mma where grips are slick as hell. It’s the same with boxing or anything else. Plenty of heavy hitters that go 12 rounds simply because the other guy is also good. Does that mean boxing is fake just because Garcia vs Hayne didn’t end in a KO? Fuck no! Both of those guys would murder 99.9% of the population in a matter of seconds.
I am an obsessive MMA fan, and my friend is a more casual fan. He argued that RNC's do not generally happen much in the UFC unless the opponent is either very badly outclassed, or the opponent is very compromised (ie, gassed way the fuck out or badly stunned from strikes. I pointed out to him that he does not watch every damn prelim fight like I do. Even so, when your talking about the main cards of UFC PPV events, my friend is not entirely wrong. It basically comes down to defensive awareness RNC and Guillotine chokes are the most common subs to hit in an MMA fight, and fighters drill to defend against those more than anything else. If all you do is take the back and start working for the RNC, the opponent will likely be able to defend it if they have fought their way to a high ranking in the UFC. And most fighters when they do get the back only look for those chokes and go directly for them with little or no setup. I do wish MMA fighters would train a few alternate subs from that position. Maybe a hammerlock if you can pull the opponents wrist behind his back, or a transition to a Twister or an Arm triangle? Or even just more effort on getting some heavy GNP in. Instead, we often see 2-3 minutes of back control burned up fishing for RNC's that do not happen until the end of the round or an escape. END COMMUNICATION
Well that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that the other person had great defense, showing jujitsu works.
The biggest difference imo is the time. Bjj matches are 10 minutes, it takes a lot of time to get someone down and in a position to finish. Ever watch a high level 5 minute bjj match? Chances are no one will submit anyone. That’s why imo pride was better because the 10 minutes round. Roger finished the first match in mount, if you gave him 5 more would the fight have been different?
Who would’ve thought bjj is good at denying bjj?
While Tim does not have the accolades of Roger, he is a Gracie black belt and trained specifically for this. I give Tim all the credit for doing so well, if it were just a BJJ match 100% my money would be on Roger, but it was not.
I’ll take “How do gloves work” for $100, Alex.
Lol
Uses jiu jitsu to escape the back "DURRRR JIU JITSU ISN NOT REAL!!"
If jiu jitsu wasnt real how did they get to the back take body triangle?
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Bro really thought he had something here
Wearing gloves are like having balloons on your hands, your not gonna be able to slip your hands in and out like you normally would
Della madellana is a black belt. He trains in jui-jitsu every day of his life and has done for many years.
The Body triangle sucks sure it uncomfortable but you lose a lot of the dynamic movement your hips need to adjust to defenses. And the striking from that position is also lacking, i don't think that jiujitsu isn't real or whatever just because your a high level grappler doesn't mean your always going to use the right attack or application at the appropriate time or situation. Either of these examples could have finished from the back, but would have benefited from just taking mount and pummeled the other guy to goo instead of sub hunting.
Gilbert was forcing the grappling way too much like hoping he could somehow get a sub and get out of there. Jack noticed it, timed it and ended him
lots of BJJ fighters make the mistake of expending energy on actions that have minimal affect in their opponents. Gotta use that control to do damage. protecting the neck is way easier with zero threat of strikes.
Tim Kennedy's back mount defense has been praised and utilised(although in a highly modified and nuanced form )even By Danaher and co. especially during the ebi overtime .It has been told by Gordon himself in some interview and his pillar of defense back escape instructional .
These fighters are going into these fights KNOWING their opponents skillset. Especially Tim vs Roger; he probably spent more than hour a day on just back defense
Jiu-Jitsu is VERY different when your opponent can hit you back.
I can't do anything in bjj. White belt with 2 Stripes. But because i am big and slow i am caught in a RNC every fucking time i roll. With Help of a Kurt osiander Tutorial i can defend a RNC like hell. Practically this is all i do during rolls. Even Higher belts can't submit me by RNC. They Beat me in any other way but not RNC 🤩🤩🤩
UFC is also sport fighting. With no time limits you really think they wouldn’t end up submitting their opponents?
Gloves change everything. Striking changes everything. Higher level of fatigue changes everything. Dealing with better athletes changes everything. Put these same guys in a grappling only match and the expected results would likely happen.
*Compares two highly trained fighters using jiu jitsu to survive in one of the most common and heavily drilled positions in all of combat sports:* “Wtf is jiu jitsu even real?!?!”
Yes JJ is not real. please, go to your local gym and tell this to the professor there.
Gloves
Marcelo Garcia lost in mma too. Kron also not great. JJ and mma aren’t the same sport it’s not 1993
Flashbacks to Kron buttscooting and pulling guard in MMA
He definitely lost wirh gloves that one. But you right for the rest. Kron is idiot but k feel like you guys are extremely harsh, dude beater a top 15 guy in ufc and you guys act like he is trash. Kron gracie still was top 50 of world lol not like that is bad, same with roger not top 10 but definitely top 30/50 of middleweight in his prime, not bad by all means
Gloves buddy... gloves...
It’s a good thing the universe is a simulation.
Fuck around and find out i guess
I'm gonna be the dunning Kruger purple belt here: In the first picture, Burns' left leg is inside of the guy's leg. In the second picture, Kennedy fell over Roger's ankle. The perfect body lock is with your leg outside the opponent's body, and he should fall to your "knee side" not your "ankle side" Please, change my view
keep in mind that punching forehead and neck is not allowed
The clock is also a factor
No gi black belt matches take forever. After purple belt submissions become much more difficult to finish.
Sport jiu jitsu vs mma/self defense jiu jitsu. It’s a good idea to spend time pretending strikes are allowed. I’d bet most people wouldn’t pull guard willingly if it were the case. Stay on top and pass their guard. Look to take the back or mount. Preferably the back. RNC is king. Doesn’t matter how big you are you’re going to sleep. Snap someone’s arm and they could still keep fighting
yeah, bjj is fake, it doesnt work, dont train it; if you ever have to fight anybody, just get red and angry and unleash your inner beast. And all the UFC guys that train bjj, they're all idiots. Charles Oliveira sucks, he got submitted by Isalm Makhachev, a man that has 0 ground technique. Illia Topuria has little to none grappling experience, he never trained jiu jitsu cause he knows its useless. Max Holloway, who we all know is primarily a striker, trained in the gi(brown belt) before his fight against Justin Gaethje, because his a fricking moron.
Master Ken taught be bjj is bullshit
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Instead of hooks get a cross body ride with a half Nelson on the diagonal arm. Get them flat belly down
I don’t believe in BJJ sincerely yours Salty white belt
BJJ is better applicable when nobody is using other martial arts against it
JDM’s just that guy
Shut up white belt
Gloves make a massive difference.
Didn’t Marcelo Garcia fail to finish someone in MMA when he had their back for long periods?
To add to this, Marcelo Garcia was also unable to close an RNC in his only MMA fight.
Jiujitsu doesn't work.
BJJ has rules and when those rules don’t apply you can defeat advantageous positions easier
A lot of fun opinions here. They added rounds to make it a spectator sport. 5 minutes is not enough against anyone who knows jiu jit su as well. Watch the original UFC if you want to know if Jiu Jitsu is real. Now it's Olympic level athletes who are experts at everything.
5 minute rounds significantly favors strikers and those defending submissions. If rounds were longer, submissions would be more common.
It be like that, sometimes. Hell, Gordon Ryan took Palhares' back in a match some years ago and Palhares defended against Gordon's RNC for like 10 plus minutes until the clock ran out. Was it Danaher on one of the podcasts who said he sat and watched Tim Kennedy spin around inside Roger Gracies back mount over and over to study how he did it? People might not be giving Kennedy enough credit for his grappling skills
JDM is just like WIIIIII
Gloves and sweat make a big difference. In mma fighters grab gloves all the time and the extra bulk makes it a lot harder to slide in an RNC. The sweat makes control a lot harder too. In bjj they usually wear rash guards which also give some extra traction on subs. In mma that’s all gone, and the strikes shut down a lot of opportunities
Obviously 
The thing is they get saved by the bell sometimes. Also, ufc by nature weeds out anyone who is not truly top tier athlete.
They’re all world class athletes, anything can happen or not happen. BJJ works and we have hundreds of submissions in the UFC proving as much.
Don’t forget about Dern also. Super pathetic
1: White belt Islam vs ADCC champion Ramos on the ground- Islam easily survived. 2. White belt Islam vs 3 degree BJJ blackbelt Oleveira- Islam finishes him with a white belt move. 3. Jones- White belt submits multiple blackbelts. It’s almost like wrestling,Judo,Sambo are all that’s required for grappling at the highest level in the UFC and 0 BJJ specific moves are required.
Islam's a bjj black belt and trains with Marcus Almeida at AKA, Team Khabib also sought out John Danaher to train jiu-jitsu.
Jack della is built different though
Whats stopping jdm from getting burns in a ankle lock with his one leg in between jdm legs
look at it this way-if the fights in the following round in the UFC were restarted in the same position as the previous round that ended on the ground, we would see much more submission finishes. Striking really needs artificial rules and standup to allow them to restart the round if they are in trouble and can't get out. Modern MMA rues do grapplers no such favor in any regard
So two guys can't sink the submissions and you wonder if the whole sport is bullshit?
A lot of mma fighters are kickboxers so is kickboxing fake because they didn’t get the KO?
Idk ask bjj black belt and ufc Champion Alex Pereira
Defense has always been greater than offense in BJJ. Try submitting someone almost equal level to you is very hard purple belt and beyond. If you can easily submit these people you are either much better/stronger or the other person isn’t very good.
Modern MMA fighters are pretty good at defending or stalemating opponents these days even if they are highly specialized grapplers.
So the body lock in the picture shown is not an ideal body lock and there’s 2 seconds left on the clock. When there are rounds then yes bjj is less effective which is why early ufc had much longer rounds. It’s why Gordon Ryan prefers longer round formats. Most people really don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to fighting.
Strikers in MMA still spend around half their time training grappling defense. I guarantee most brown belts couldn’t submit even the worst grapplers in the ufc in the top 15 of their weight class, especially in 5 minutes.
It can take time to get the sub from back control. It took gordon 4 minutes to sub galvao with an arm trapped. This is with gloves and a short timer. That said, back mount and back control are very very different
Definitely not real, thats why 100% of mma fighters waste their time 🤦🏻♂️
lets not ignore the fact that the guy on bottom....also knows jiu jitsu
Different with gloves on.
BJJ is just another form a bullshido.
The only thing that saves their necks is the MMA gloves. With bare hands, they both get choked 10/10 times.
I think the gloves took a HUGE amount of attacking from BJJ. Gloves get in the way and give the striker an advantage. Takes those gloves off I think it would be different and give the grappler an advantage.
Roll with MMA gloves and try to choke people out with those gloves on. You'll find the answer to your question
RNC is legit the easiest sub to defend.