Mendes Brothers question

HunterAcosta

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Does anyone know if the Mendes Brothers have done any mma training? Or trained with strikes involved like EBI style with slaps? I follow Baret Yoshida on FB and he has been working no gi with slaps with his students a lot. I know the MB's don't have that in their curriculum but just curious if they have ever done any vale tudo/mma type training. Im curious how they would adapt(Im sure they could adapt being that they are so good).
 
Does anyone know if the Mendes Brothers have done any mma training? Or trained with strikes involved like EBI style with slaps? I follow Baret Yoshida on FB and he has been working no gi with slaps with his students a lot. I know the MB's don't have that in their curriculum but just curious if they have ever done any vale tudo/mma type training. Im curious how they would adapt(Im sure they could adapt being that they are so good).


idk i doubt it tbh they are purist they dont even really work the new age leg lock game much do they?
 
Rafa has gone on record saying he dislikes training takedowns, not something that would fill you with confidence if you were a betting mam.
 
Seems that he was lying, he alway smiles a lot when he takes down someone in sparring.
Or possibly changed his mind?

I can easily imagine a guy with a very technical mentality like Rafa being turned off by how BJJ guys tend to train/think of takedowns, as a dumb contest of power and toughness, but then having his eyes opened training with slick Judoka or wrestlers.
 
idk i doubt it tbh they are purist they dont even really work the new age leg lock game much do they?

Rafa know more about everything than people think. Do people know him for his Peruvian necktie? Definitely not but I've seen him roll with a black belt and suddenly just subbed him like 4 or 5 times in 5 minute roll with nothing but Peruvians. He has his finger on the pulse of what's going on even though he's retired.

Honestly Rafa has really good leg locks for it not to be a major focus of his game. You don't see it a ton when he isn't training for ADCC but when he was training for the last one that he (2013 I think?) did he was doing the new school heel hook finish by bridging into the side of the knee instead of ripping across his chest. I don't know where he learned it but it looked much more like modern heel hook finishing. There were rolls of him doing to ashi and staying on his side tight and doing "modern" heel exposure mechanics too. Also some 411 finishes. But if you go back and watch his ADCC 2011 training his heel hooks looked a lot more old school and sloppier. More classic reap and barrel roll down the mat style finishes.

And on their website now you can see them doing 411 heel hooks and stuff.

He definitely prefers upper body subs though. Most of his no-gi subs are armbars, triangles, RNCs, and various head and arm chokes like anacondas or brabos, and some occasional guillotines.

Rafa has gone on record saying he dislikes training takedowns, not something that would fill you with confidence if you were a betting mam.

He's said that but honestly I don't think his wrestling is terrible even though he doesn't like doing it. They were Brazilian national champs in wrestling in high school. And his wrestling is probably low college level but not much more than that. But compared to most featherweights his is better than most. He's won matches at ADCC via takedown. Cobrinha is a much better wrestler than he is though and beat him at ADCC by basically out wrestling him.
 
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Adcc forces you to wrestle
It definitely does.

The innovators of the berimbolo/leg drag are purists?

I think he meant purists in the sense of liking straight up jiu-jitsu.

And by the way the leg drag is about as fight/MMA/self defense effective as it can get. Shit I actually think the leg drag is a more effective position in MMA than side control is. I'd rather hang out in the leg drag and strike and potentially take the back or get an arm triangle if they expose it than straight up pass to side control.

The leg drag is incredibly solid for actual fighting.
 
It definitely does.



I think he meant purists in the sense of liking straight up jiu-jitsu.

And by the way the leg drag is about as fight/MMA/self defense effective as it can get. Shit I actually think the leg drag is a more effective position in MMA than side control is. I'd rather hang out in the leg drag and strike and potentially take the back or get an arm triangle if they expose it than straight up pass to side control.

The leg drag is incredibly solid for actual fighting.
I hear what you are saying about the leg drag and its a solid position for bjj and prob mma/self defense, and it does offer more mobility than side control, but I would rather side control in the street on a one on one fights as I would Mark Coleman style knee the shit outta their head from tripod position. If the UFC allowed knees to the head of a grounded opponent, you would see a lot more kos from side control. Hell I don't think guys in mma do enough knees to the body from side control either for that matter.
 
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The one handed leg drag (the pass) might be one of the better mma passes to transfer. What is better? Not the torreada grabbing the inside of the pant leg. Not the double under nor single under, not the over under.


Remember the old school Mario Sperry videos? "One...two..."then the throws the leg to the side and closes the distance. If you can leg drag you can do that.
 
I remember reading an interview ages ago (I think it was during preparation for ADCC 2011, before he moved to the US), where he mentioned possibly transitioning into MMA, and they took some pictures of him with MMA gloves. I doubt he was entirely serious - this was kind of the end of the era where most top sport jiu jitsu competitors dipped their toe into MMA or (more often) paid lip service to trying it. But he probably has done at least a handful of sessions of MMA jiu jitsu, but probably not too seriously and not for a very long time. I doubt he's done it at all since opening AOJ.
 
The one handed leg drag (the pass) might be one of the better mma passes to transfer. What is better? Not the torreada grabbing the inside of the pant leg. Not the double under nor single under, not the over under.


Remember the old school Mario Sperry videos? "One...two..."then the throws the leg to the side and closes the distance. If you can leg drag you can do that.

Can he kick in the head with the free leg?
 
They were Brazilian national champs in wrestling in high school. And his wrestling is probably low college level but not much more than that. But compared to most featherweights his is better than most. He's won matches at ADCC via takedown. Cobrinha is a much better wrestler than he is though and beat him at ADCC by basically out wrestling him.

Both were national champs in wrestling? That sounds pretty fantastic if true.
 
The one handed leg drag (the pass) might be one of the better mma passes to transfer. What is better? Not the torreada grabbing the inside of the pant leg. Not the double under nor single under, not the over under.


Remember the old school Mario Sperry videos? "One...two..."then the throws the leg to the side and closes the distance. If you can leg drag you can do that.

Frankie Edgar ran riot of Cub Swanson with leg drags. Just constantly spamming them and making Cub adjust and when he squared up, struck because hands were over committed.
 
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