News Conor McGregor just received his BJJ-blackbelt

Are McGregor’s BJJ-skills blackbelt worthy?

  • Total voters
    327
StonedLemur said:
That last sentence is again a shining light in your statement sir.
Those guys earned their belts the way I believe people should.
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I believe a black belt should mean something…..feel they give them out a bit quick at times
 
kellier said:
Its years ago since he attended ( I haven't rolled post covid, kids arrived) but i was pretty sure he had a purple with brown stripes back then

Stand corrected, there's an image of him getting awarded it post Poirier 1. He must have been rolling with our purples
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Correct there is an article about it
"Conor McGregor Promoted To BJJ Brown Belt After KO Win Over Poirier"
https://www.bjjee.com/videos/conor-mcgregor-promoted-to-bjj-brown-belt-after-ko-win-over-poirier/
 
Frode Falch said:
Imagine being the nerd that vote no
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People literally in here arguing like they've got Jack Nicholson on the stand over how Conor doesn't deserve a black belt and they don't even train. Just flol

kellier said:
Guys acting like black belts are handed out like candy just because a black belt isn't a world champ or dominating mundials is a bit ignorant.

Most average guys will increase their proficiency over time and go up the grades. Same as every traditional martial art.

Unicorns that get belted every year is a different story entirely (or Nicky Rod nearly winning ADCC as a blue belt)
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Yeah, this is literally much ado about nothing. Conor's been training 20 years, he's probably very easily met the minimum threshold for holding a black belt in BJJ. Pretty sure Kavanagh is the first Irish bastard to get a BJJ black belt in the whole country, too.

It's really just silly. Conor showed very good grappling defense against Khabib of all people and has received basically nothing but adulation from well known grappling coaches for his TDD and jits skills. When you have Gordon Ryan commenting on your BJJ being good you've really made it. But hold on just a minute folks, some dorks on a karate forum who don't train think they have some insight as to why his half guard game is weak!

r-harper-1 said:
I believe a black belt should mean something…..feel they give them out a bit quick at times
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But that begs the question. What should it mean? Hell, what should it mean to get any belt?

Should a 38 year old 170 lb blue belt be able to ragdoll 21 year old 200 lb college wrestlers that come to open mat?

@ anyone in particular: A lot of this is in a gray area. I'm willing to accept that. IN GENERAL: if you have coaches and fighters who do this every day giving praise to Conor for his BJJ (including Gordon fucking Ryan), maybe take a step back and listen instead of talk. Especially when you don't even fucking train.
 
r-harper-1 said:
I believe a black belt should mean something…..feel they give them out a bit quick at times
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Absolutely.
I was always under the impression (from people I know that train) that you are supposed to essentially master each belt and all its positions etc before you moved up.
 
Asking Sherdog to give an unbiased take about Conor is like asking a KKK member to say something nice about black people.
It just isn't going to happen. In fact it's much, much less likely to happen than a KKK member saying nice things about black people.

Not to mention the vast majority of people here have not trained in any combat discipline for even a day in their life, but they will happily give their hot takes on who's black belts are legit and who's aren't.
 
StonedLemur said:
Absolutely.
I was always under the impression (from people I know that train) that you are supposed to essentially master each belt and all its positions etc before you moved up.
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That's not a very good way to look at black belt, or even brown or maybe even purple, in context to BJJ. IMHO. That's a mindset carry over from karate, kung fu, TKD, etc., not sure about judo never trained it enough to know. It's very accurate for blue belt because there are some minimums you have to have all around for that level -- kind of like in wrestling you have to be able to sprawl and chain your singles and doubles together, etc.

when I did a seminar with Randy Couture in 2010 I got introduced to the art of smash and pass which was wild to me. I don't think they called it that back then, but it was very antithetical to my "get guard with underhooks" or "butterfly guard with underhooks and sweep" and "armbar-triangle-omoplata" guard attack sequence type of training that I had been taught at my school. Because we had very legit blue/purple belts wrecking competitions locally in CA (including winning absolutes) that were winning with a good guard, good sweeps, and good top side control. Guard passing was good enough, but not as good as their wins would indicate. We didn't have a great mount game either looking back, although we were very good at back taking and winning from there. Long story short, it depends on where you train on what you'll know/be good at once you get to blue belt and start moving on. You certainly will not have mastered "all positions and techniques" at a belt level because that isn't how BJJ is taught or practiced in my experience. Hell, even once you get a blue belt, you just spend the next several years getting better at the basics as you sprinkle in some "cooler" stuff. Most of the black belts I've met are very good, but they are "masters" of very little, and typically only the specific things they love doing the most.

This also doesn't even touch on the fact that BJJ is about principles. Not techniques (such as, for instance, TKD). Somewhere I'm sure Danaher explains this eloquently, but long story short it really isn't about techniques. There's multiple lifetimes worth of techniques to master, it just isn't feasible.

Anyway, not to sound cantankerous with everyone, but a lot of these takes are just very off in left field. Let me get my spectacles and see what Conor's spider guard looks like before I sign off on a legit BJJ black belt getting handed out
<LikeReally5>
 
Conor's BJJ is decent, particularly defensively, and it gets chronically underrated because of the general hate for him. Is it black belt worthy?

Who tf knows and I mean a black belt under Kav aint the same as one under JOhn Danaher or whatever but if you look at his gilloutine attempt on Dustin in their last fight that wasn't really black belt level shit right there.
 
I haven't had McDonald's in years. Maybe I'll stop by a drive thru and get my belt as well.
 
Conor obviously has a good understanding of grappling. However If you are trying to compare him to other fighters who are dedicated ground specialists, it's clearly going to make him look like a poor man's grappler.

It's probably true to some degree who you get your black belt from matters. But imo at the end of the day what belt you have around your waist does not matter. Jon Jones was submitting people with his white belt.
 
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Eat My Teep said:
That's not a very good way to look at black belt, or even brown or maybe even purple, in context to BJJ. IMHO. That's a mindset carry over from karate, kung fu, TKD, etc., not sure about judo never trained it enough to know. It's very accurate for blue belt because there are some minimums you have to have all around for that level -- kind of like in wrestling you have to be able to sprawl and chain your singles and doubles together, etc.

when I did a seminar with Randy Couture in 2010 I got introduced to the art of smash and pass which was wild to me. I don't think they called it that back then, but it was very antithetical to my "get guard with underhooks" or "butterfly guard with underhooks and sweep" and "armbar-triangle-omoplata" guard attack sequence type of training that I had been taught at my school. Because we had very legit blue/purple belts wrecking competitions locally in CA (including winning absolutes) that were winning with a good guard, good sweeps, and good top side control. Guard passing was good enough, but not as good as their wins would indicate. We didn't have a great mount game either looking back, although we were very good at back taking and winning from there. Long story short, it depends on where you train on what you'll know/be good at once you get to blue belt and start moving on. You certainly will not have mastered "all positions and techniques" at a belt level because that isn't how BJJ is taught or practiced in my experience. Hell, even once you get a blue belt, you just spend the next several years getting better at the basics as you sprinkle in some "cooler" stuff. Most of the black belts I've met are very good, but they are "masters" of very little, and typically only the specific things they love doing the most.

This also doesn't even touch on the fact that BJJ is about principles. Not techniques (such as, for instance, TKD). Somewhere I'm sure Danaher explains this eloquently, but long story short it really isn't about techniques. There's multiple lifetimes worth of techniques to master, it just isn't feasible.

Anyway, not to sound cantankerous with everyone, but a lot of these takes are just very off in left field. Let me get my spectacles and see what Conor's spider guard looks like before I sign off on a legit BJJ black belt getting handed out
<LikeReally5>
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I'll see what I can do about finding a publisher for this novel sir.
I still love you dearly despite your flaws ;)
 
ComfortablyNumb55 said:
I can only take one hit of a joint.

More than that and I completely freak out and think I'm dying. I start questioning everything and I can't handle the overwhelming sense of life and I become guilt ridden over everything I've ever done wrong.

Lol.
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That's cool, we'll cry it out in my backyard, might be illuminating for both of us sir lol.
 
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