Diego's high school wrestling was nothing impressive and he was doing very well in the grappling scene before the move to Saulo.
Nice try.:icon_conf
Diego was an AWESOME grappler even before going to the Ribeiros.
Oddly enough though, his game was like a standard competition style BJJ game. Takedown, pass, mount, punch, submit. There was nothing distinctive about his grappling style.
Again, I really don't think Greg Jackson invented a grappling style or taught all his students to grapple. I'm sure he had coaches in grappling disciplines teaching his guys. Coaches with more credentials than "coming from a wrestling family". People hear the suffix "jitsu" and automatically ask how it's different from BJJ. Jitsu means style or art. It doesn't necessarily connote grappling. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is not the origin of the term Jujitsu either (notice the different spelling). It's analogous to any of the "jitsu's" out there. You can tack on that style to any prefix and make a valid name for whatever you want. I think that whatever Gaidojitsu is, is what Greg Jackson has branded the style of MMA he teaches, but there's no reason to assume that it's confined to grappling, and even less reason to assume that a man with no grappling credentials to speak of in any style was able to teach grappling at an appreciably high level.
He's an excellent trainer, tactician, and coach. Beyond that, let's not kid ourselves.
And before anyone jumps in I'm not asserting that all his guys were just learning BJJ from somebody. Although I think their grappling styles show that's definitely one of the grappling arts they were training.
I'd also like to point out that very few of Jackson's current fighters started under him. The only homegrown guys I can remember are Diego, Jardine, and Villasenor. Everyone else came after they were already established.
