Has BJJ Stopped evolving for MMA?

[mataleaos]

I'd argue that choking someone could land you in jail a lot faster if you have a smart attorney against you. Yikes.

Choking is basically attempted murmer.

Yeah I would never say I choked anyone if questioned after. Well I wouldn't say anything. I'd ask for an attorney.

 

[asian-glow]

I'm the king of pulling up old threads, so my apologies if this annoys anybody. But I don't think bjj or any combat sport will ever stop evolving. I also think it's possible that techniques that have been or will be abandoned at particular points in bjj evolution could resurface down the line. Think about it, we know bjj has greatly evolved, and we know that some techniques are not seen as much as before. Overtime as those fade away, I think it's possible that people will stop training for them and forget some basic techniques and particularly how to defend them. That's when they could possibly re-surface.

I also think we are at a time where bjj has become a lot more mental. Specialists have also started to break apart. Like the death squad and leg locks, or Oleynik and the ezekiel choke. Focus has shifted to the very minute details simply because when 2 guys are well trained, the guy who has perfected his own specialized technique will be forced to use that instead of the run-of-the-mill set ups and subs. That I don't think will ever change. You can always add 1 more step to anything.

Danaher is a good example of a new-age pioneer. If you haven't ever heard him, listen to his stuff man the guy is a mad genius

I don't think anyone minds you necroing old threads. Your contributions are usually thoughtful. More importantly, similar to how you discuss the evolution of the martial arts here, it makes people revisit old techniques/topics, update them, and continue to evolve the body of knowledge.

I used to DM people who I thought were good at certain things but I realized it was selfish. I think forums like this allow other people to learn from your questions - there is always at least one other person who had that same question.

I know I've personally learned a lot from searching the archives. There's always some dude from 2009 who already had a solution to what I'm experiencing now. There is bound to be someone in the year 2020 wondering how to escape the front headlock.

 

[Judoka1532]

I don't think anyone minds you necroing old threads. Your contributions are usually thoughtful. More importantly, similar to how you discuss the evolution of the martial arts here, it makes people revisit old techniques/topics, update them, and continue to evolve the body of knowledge.

I used to DM people who I thought were good at certain things but I realized it was selfish. I think forums like this allow other people to learn from your questions - there is always at least one other person who had that same question.

I know I've personally learned a lot from searching the archives. There's always some dude from 2009 who already had a solution to what I'm experiencing now. There is bound to be someone in the year 2020 wondering how to escape the front headlock.

Yea I'm on here for basically 3 reasons: to stay up to date on the latest mma news (because I only have 1 social media account), to learn different things about the sport and other aspects of combat sports, and to basically converse and debate about a sport I really enjoy to watch. I can't tell you how many times I stumble across something that I think I have the answers to and then read another person's comments and it totally changes my perspective. and I don't ever want to pretend to be some fight guru because I'm far from it.

 

[WarriorMonk7]

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of fresh / new BJJ in UFC lately. I’m not 100% convinced the best game plan is being used yet, but what do I know. Things do change.

True.

MMA is still a very young sport and will continue to evolve just like BJJ. What surprises me more than anything is at how little JUDO is being utilized. Shocking really.

 

[BassAckwards]

bjj is still evolving and so it mma. when you see more people become technically proficient with leg locks, you will see more of them in mma.

 

[Adjaar]

True.

MMA is still a very young sport and will continue to evolve just like BJJ. What surprises me more than anything is at how little JUDO is being utilized. Shocking really.

Definitely shocking. Ronda Rousey utilized it extremely efficiently and it made her one of the highest paid and most populat fighters ever.

 

[someoldguy]

bjj is still evolving and so it mma. when you see more people become technically proficient with leg locks, you will see more of them in mma.

It will be interesting, I think that leg locks will have to evolve differently for MMA than for most sport BJJ. Butt scooting and double guard pull haven't been widely successful entries yet-I don't know how well modern leg locks will translate into MMA finishes-there was one heel hook in the EBI CJJ championship and that is still a long way from MMA. Super curious to see what Tonon might have in his bag of tricks.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

True.

MMA is still a very young sport and will continue to evolve just like BJJ. What surprises me more than anything is at how little JUDO is being utilized. Shocking really.

Well, much of that is because MMA is done without a gi, whereas judo is specialized for gi's (or jackets actually). That makes sense for much of the world (including Japan) where people tend to wear jackets (or at the minimum shirts) in daily life; if two people wearing jackets grapple, the one using jacket based techniques has a huge advantage over the one limiting themself to no-gi techniques. However, if people don't have jackets on, no-gi is superior to gi techniques. MMA is no-gi, so wrestling is going to work better in general.

Moreover, over the last fifty years, since the USSR(Russia etc) got interested in the Olympics in general and judo in particular, there has been a huge cross fertilization between wrestling and judo. Wrestling has long since adapted judo gi-throws into itself, and judo has (though many were eliminated with the change in rules banning leg touching) adapted wrestling no-gi takedowns into gi based throws (most famously, Kano wrote that he adapted kata-guruma from a book of western wrestling - of course what Kano used as kata-guruma is now banned).

Basically, wrestling adapted most of what can be taken from judo into no-gi decades ago, so there isn't much standing technique in judo left to be adapted to no-gi for MMA. There is the difference between crouched freestyle/folkstyle and more upright judo, but wrestlers who've done Greco are already used to it. And chokes/locks from judo are already covered (and more) from BJJ, which everyone learns.

This is a big deal. Judoka going into MMA have to get used to not having a gi to grab; this kind of transition takes years against high level competitors - a lot of automatic reactions have to be modified or even changed. This is why there are very few people (if any?) who've won Olympic medals in both judo and wrestling. As similar as they are in many ways, the gi (or lack thereof) changes things. And at high levels, the difference between a medal or losing in your first match in the Olympics is only a couple of percent in ability. Same is true for MMA; a judoka going into it is going to spend a couple of years getting the necessary automatic responses that a wrestler has learned over a decade of wrestling. That is a disadvantage, since like the wrestler they're also trying to learn striking and BJJ ... judoka have one more thing to learn than wrestlers, and that's no-gi.

 

[BassAckwards]

It will be interesting, I think that leg locks will have to evolve differently for MMA than for most sport BJJ. Butt scooting and double guard pull haven't been widely successful entries yet-I don't know how well modern leg locks will translate into MMA finishes-there was one heel hook in the EBI CJJ championship and that is still a long way from MMA. Super curious to see what Tonon might have in his bag of tricks.

Palhares did well in MMA but leg locks and heel hooks was his bread and butter. if you get guys with the same pedigree as demian maia using leg locks, the mma game will change

 

[Uchi Mata]

It will be interesting, I think that leg locks will have to evolve differently for MMA than for most sport BJJ. Butt scooting and double guard pull haven't been widely successful entries yet-I don't know how well modern leg locks will translate into MMA finishes-there was one heel hook in the EBI CJJ championship and that is still a long way from MMA. Super curious to see what Tonon might have in his bag of tricks.

From my own experience training with MMA fighters, leg locks will be used mostly as a way to distract from getting punched and create a scramble when you're caught on bottom. I'd guess the finish rate will be very low. Not because leg locks don't work, but because the sorts of positions that you use to set up the entanglement entries either

1. Don't come up that often in MMA, like seated butterfly against a standing opponent, or
2. It's smarter to stay on top and strike than to fall back for a leg

Even though I quite like to leg lock when rolling with punches I find about the only entry I consistently hit is going for the far leg in Z guard Craig Jones style. Butterfly just doesn't really happen that much (and when it does it's generally a lot smarter to create space and stand up than try to play guard), and when you're on top in guard striking and passing to strike more are much more reliable ways to do damage, score, and maintain position than going for a leg. If you look at old Pancrase matches where you couldn't strike on the ground you saw a lot more leg locks because the incentive structure was different. Top position is hard to get and so valuable that it just doesn't make much sense to go for the legs from top, and you get far fewer chances to go for them from the bottom than you would in a grappling match.

 

[WarriorMonk7]

Definitely shocking. Ronda Rousey utilized it extremely efficiently and it made her one of the highest paid and most populat fighters ever.

You're absolutely right.

And she was destroying everyone and making great money. She only started losing when her coach convinced her she could stand and bang with high-level strikers.

You would think other MMA fighters would learn from this and incorporate more Judo. One of the most surprising examples of this is Demian Maia. I mean - here we have an extremely high-level BJJ fighter. You would think he would pick up some of these upper body judo throws.

Maia had two title shots, and they both consisted of him spamming singles and doubles without success. He never really did learn that lesson. And I will bet my next paycheck that if he sticks to singles and doubles again against Usman, he will lose.

 

[Coconutwater]

True.

MMA is still a very young sport and will continue to evolve just like BJJ. What surprises me more than anything is at how little JUDO is being utilized. Shocking really.

To me, MMA will really reach its technical progressive capability when fighters learn and properly utilize at the right moments, the Karate and TKD kicking arsenal.

Wonderboy is the tip of the iceberg. The distance management and range afforded by these techniques is unparalleled, it’s just many lack pressure-tested, good hands.

Judo can always be a force but wrestling can stink them out. So far, I don’t see any other arts giving problems to traditional kicking arts in the future, since it has no counter measure besides actually learning more of it.

 

[EndlessCritic]

True.

MMA is still a very young sport and will continue to evolve just like BJJ. What surprises me more than anything is at how little JUDO is being utilized. Shocking really.

Yeah, it's amazing how techniques in a sport which is all about grip fighting is not commonly used in a sport in which the fighters don't wear gis.

 

[EndlessCritic]

To me, MMA will really reach its technical progressive capability when fighters learn and properly utilize at the right moments, the Karate and TKD kicking arsenal.

Wonderboy is the tip of the iceberg. The distance management and range afforded by these techniques is unparalleled, it’s just many lack pressure-tested, good hands.

Unbelievable stupidity.

Thompson controls distance extremely well with footwork and straight punches.

If anything, Jon Jones is the best example of a fighter who was able to dominate range with kicks.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

To me, MMA will really reach its technical progressive capability when fighters learn and properly utilize at the right moments, the Karate and TKD kicking arsenal.

Wonderboy is the tip of the iceberg. The distance management and range afforded by these techniques is unparalleled, it’s just many lack pressure-tested, good hands.

Judo can always be a force but wrestling can stink them out. So far, I don’t see any other arts giving problems to traditional kicking arts in the future, since it has no counter measure besides actually learning more of it.

There are a bunch of guys kicking today... now more than ever, since kickers who used to not want to kick so much for fear of going to the ground are much better on the ground or at least st getting up, also stalling to get up it’s easier now...

Thompson kicking is nothing new, managing distance with kicks isn’t either... wonderboy is quite good st it, but he hasn’t face a relentless offensive grappler, he did beat some good wrestlers/boxers, who like to strike more than wrestle. Maia Colby even Usman type of fighter will always carry problems to this type of fighter...

 

[EndlessCritic]

Thompson kicking is nothing new, managing distance with kicks isn’t either... wonderboy is quite good st it, but he hasn’t face a relentless offensive grappler.

Hendricks was when he fought him.

Hendricks's 5 fights prior to Wonderboy he employed a relentless wrestling pressure style, going 3-2, with both losses being very controversial.

 

[Ghost in the Dark]

 

[WarriorMonk7]

Yeah, it's amazing how techniques in a sport which is all about grip fighting is not commonly used in a sport in which the fighters don't wear gis.

There is definitely a learning curve, but many have used no-gi Judo with success. Just not very many, which is surprising.

 

[WarriorMonk7]

It's not gay if you're wearing a gi.

 

[Coconutwater]

Unbelievable stupidity.

Thompson controls distance extremely well with footwork and straight punches.

If anything, Jon Jones is the best example of a fighter who was able to dominate range with kicks.

Wonderboy is the tip of the iceberg in terms of technical execution not strategic application.

Jon Jones is phenomenal at application but modest at technical merits. For instance, someone can literally throw a cleaner, more relaxed, fully extended, snapping kick better than Jon but Jon knows when to throw it and even if it’s not the best thrown kick, it’s hyper effective. When I mean technique, I mean mechanics.

The UFC is still a new sport, wait until more and more people learn to sprawl and throw hands from the classic arts and a more different look will emerge.