UFC has some of the worst BJJ Black Belts

[GiganticMeat]

Tyrone Woodley, Cuba Swanson.

There's tons of guys that if they weren't in the UFC would have never received a black belt in a traditional gym.

Is Cuba Swanson a better or worse actor than Cuba Gooding Jr?

 

[FriskyRandy]

Is Cuba Swanson a better or worse actor than Cuba Gooding Jr?

Lol I didn't understand at all until I seen my spelling error. Two minutes of pure fucking confusion.

Edit++ just tested it and my phone auto corrects Cub to Cuba every time. Piece of shit South Korean device.

 

[Lord Pyjamas]

Not all black belts are the same shade of black ...

This has always been the case ..


In the words of Royce Gracie..

"A black belt only covers 2 inches of your ass , you have to cover the rest" ...


View attachment 1063515

Turned out to be a total asshole!
Every inch of him.

 

[krelianx]

BJJ gyms are like most things, extremely variable in quality. Not all belts mean the same.

 

[GiganticMeat]

Lol I didn't understand at all until I seen my spelling error. Two minutes of pure fucking confusion.

Edit++ just tested it and my phone auto corrects Cub to Cuba every time. Piece of shit South Korean device.

Lmao. Couldn't resist. Had never seen Cub written as Cuba before

.

 

[Kungpowking]

BJJ Black belts are like College Degrees. Often they mean someone is talented and a hard worker. Other times they are an incompetent boob. Just like a degree it matter where and how you get it. Just having either holds little objective value.

 

[Trabaho]

So because Dolidze (black belt, went on a tear at ADCC European trials not too long ago) outgrapples Smith (also black belt, but hasn't had major international sub grappling success in the last 10 years to my knowledge) your conclusion is not

there are levels to this shit

but

UFC black belts suck?

"Dolidze having good bjj means bjj is bad!"

What do you think happens in the black belt divisions at major tournaments? The majority of the black belts don't take first place.

My conclusion is they are both black belts but Smith is out of his prime, that matters too.

I think guys don't train bjj but hear team Khabib Islam make jokes than run with it and make these comments and threads

 

[Trabaho]

Yes, there can be different standards for fighters and belts, for example Wandy being given his black belt based on his BJJ-skills performance in an MMA match against Yoshida in the GP.

It's based on + decade of doing bjj. The belting after a fight is just a cherry on top. I think Wand never ever got subbed in 40 something fights.

 

[Bend NvR Break]

Imo
1. A great number of fighters understand the basics of BJJ even if they don't have a belt. I'll never forget what Brock's trainer said. "we don't teach Brock BJJ Brock can become good at BJJ. We teach him just enough so he can defend basic positions and defend subs." Since a great number of fighters know BJJ that tends to cancel out BJJ.

2. I'm willing to bet a lot of guys are trained in sport BJJ and not self defense Gracie BJJ. When he add in strikes and wrestling and things you can take someone like Andre Galvo and make him look like an amateur in a fight.

 

[shunyata]

Imo
1. A great number of fighters understand the basics of BJJ even if they don't have a belt. I'll never forget what Brock's trainer said. "we don't teach Brock BJJ Brock can become good at BJJ. We teach him just enough so he can defend basic positions and defend subs." Since a great number of fighters know BJJ that tends to cancel out BJJ.

2. I'm willing to bet a lot of guys are trained in sport BJJ and not self defense Gracie BJJ. When he add in strikes and wrestling and things you can take someone like Andre Galvo and make him look like an amateur in a fight.

Hold on there, Galvao went 5-2 as a pro and one of the losses was to prime Tyron Woodley. Most amateurs can't even string together a winning pro record.

Jiu jitsu is pretty much mandatory to train for modern mma (at least to defend against it), but it's MIXED martial arts. You also need kickboxing, clinch grappling, and the ability take down your opponent in the open or from the clinch if you want to win through grappling. If you want to win through striking, you need defensive jiu jitsu and defensive wrestling to standup after being taken down. You gotta mix the martial arts.


Glover was a jiu jitsu guy having success even at an advanced age, it's players like Kron who were guard heavy and couldn't takedown people from the clinch that had trouble. Maia's tripod passing and back attacks were a thing of beauty but OP already forgot about that jiu jitsu.

There's a lot of keyboard warriors on here who like to think because they got a BJJ black belt after training 3 days/week for years, or train with those who do, that they have better grappling and have something over "pro fighters". It's just pure ego on their parts.

There's probably a lot of idiots on here who thought they had better grappling than Mighty Mouse simply because he was only a brown (even if we all knew he should've been black a long time ago) or because he was small. Then Mighty Mouse decided to actually join grappling tournaments and most people got real reality checks that yes, these guys absolutely are putting in insane levels of work on the mats during their MMA careers and actually are better than the vast majority of grapplers.

(obviously MM is a GOAT but you get the point)

I saw the opposite, people complaining he was sandbagging for running through his bracket at brown belt in masters worlds last year.

This year, as a first year black belt in masters worlds (the old man divisions, not black belt adult), he had a good showing but did not win his bracket.

He wasn't sandbagging, and he's not the best in the world at his weight AND AGE bracket in the gi. He is motivated though to come back better, and I look forward to seeing his run in masters worlds 2025.

 

[Masturbin]

Such as?

David Branch

 

[StewDogg11]

Rashad doesn’t “claim” to have a black belt he was literally given a black belt by one of the Gracie’s. Also, there’s very few moves that originated from BJJ. Majority were all taken from Judo, Japanese Jiu Jitsu, and Catch wrestling

After the Thiago Silva fight no less in a fight that he used little to no jiu jitsu. That was for publicity and nothing else, was a fairly big deal on here at the time.

 

[StewDogg11]

People have given examples in this thread almost right away. Do you think Potan is legitimate black belt? Did you see how it was earned? Have you seen him roll?

Zero chance. There's over a dozen examples like that, Brazilian strikers are notorious for it. Here's Islams own examples since you won't respect mine.

It's been a tactic for a long ass time. The amount of black belts that Jon has submitted as a white belt is hilarious.

Islam Makhachev says which UFC stars he believes don't deserve their black belts

Islam Makhachev has named several UFC fighters that he thinks don't deserve their black belts

bloodyelbow.com

Lol no belt Matt Hughes submitted jiu jitsu demigod Ricardo Almeida as well. Chris Lytle also no official belt and has submitted numerous guys with “black belts”.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

It is obviously “easier” to earn your BB. As it pertains to mma.

Because a true BB, isn’t handed out when you ktfo of some can. But we see belt presentations on a regular basis.

No disrespect to anybody.

They're not giving out the black belt because they KOd a can. They just thought it'd be cool to present them with the belt in the cage

 

[Hellowhosthat]

People have given examples in this thread almost right away. Do you think Potan is legitimate black belt? Did you see how it was earned? Have you seen him roll?

Zero chance. There's over a dozen examples like that, Brazilian strikers are notorious for it. Here's Islams own examples since you won't respect mine.

It's been a tactic for a long ass time. The amount of black belts that Jon has submitted as a white belt is hilarious.

Islam Makhachev says which UFC stars he believes don't deserve their black belts

Islam Makhachev has named several UFC fighters that he thinks don't deserve their black belts

bloodyelbow.com

Jon probably doesn't put the gi on. If you're a no gi grappler you can be a white belt at BJJ because the belt is part of the gi uniform.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

David Branch

Branch is a Renzo Gracie black belt who trained under John Danaher. A black belt doesn't get any more legit than that.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

It is the US McDonalds model influencing some so-called BJJ schools. It is the modern day version of the Karate and TKD McDojos model of the 1980s. Most of the black belts in the UFC are not coming from old school BJJ guys. Of the top of my head, Dern is the major American exception and her dad is Brazilian and studied under the Gracies.

A few non Brazilian fighters have black belts off very legit people.

Erin Blanchfield is a Karel Prevec BB
Weidman has a Serra/Renzo BB
Holland under Lutter
Gunni under Renzo
Morono under Draculino
Brady under Daniel Gracie
Beneil under Barral
Swanson under Machado
Ortega under Rener Gracie

Etc etc

 

[lsa]

Lol no belt Matt Hughes submitted jiu jitsu demigod Ricardo Almeida as well. Chris Lytle also no official belt and has submitted numerous guys with “black belts”.

Lytle is a black belt

"While Lytle had long ago decided that he wasn’t interested in going for takedowns of his own, the jiu-jitsu black belt was more than ready to grapple when Hardy initiated it"

Today in MMA History: Chris Lytle's farewell adds to Dan Hardy's painful losing streak

(Editor's note: This story originally published on Aug. 14, 2017.) For two fighters coming from very different places in their careers, Chris Lytle and Dan Hardy had reached some similar conclusions about their respective futures by the time they met on…

mmajunkie.usatoday.com

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Lol no belt Matt Hughes submitted jiu jitsu demigod Ricardo Almeida as well. Chris Lytle also no official belt and has submitted numerous guys with “black belts”.

If Hughes has never trained in a gi he's not a black belt. Doesn't mean he's not a fantastic no gi grappler or capable of subbing black belts in a no gi setting like MMA.

 

[shunyata]

Jon probably doesn't put the gi on. If you're a no gi grappler you can be a white belt at BJJ because the belt is part of the gi uniform.

He has done a few gi sessions over the years and put up pics on social media, but the idea that Jon hasn't spent over a thousand hours training in nogi sub grappling with jiu jitsu black belts is fucking laughable.