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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26627 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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There is an undying faction of TMA (traditional martial arts) which refers to BJJ as blowjob jujitsu or similar, as though some rhetorical win can possibly reverse the steamroller that modern MMA represents. Reassuringly, this faction gets smaller every year as the evidence rolls in.

It doesn’t surprise me. Most TMAs are basically LARP at this point, and they definitely feel the cognitive dissonance of watching MMA/BJJ fighters learn how to fight properly while they are awarded multiple belts and even half-belts for learning to play fight. You can get pretty high in the ranks of most TMAs without actually needing to demonstrate that you are a good fighter, where in MMA and BJJ rank comes directly from winning matches.

Modern BJJ is nothing like modern MMA and I'll fight you (literally) on that.

For starters as far as I can tell, basically every current MMA fighter focus's on Just standing up out of bottom position rather than fighting from bottom position.

Next from top position MMA guys emphasize holding the other person down and punching them, prefering to remain with their legs tangled in wrestling rides rather than passing the legs

BJJ's big 4 submissions are the Rear Naked choke, The armbar, the inside heel hook and the outside heel hook, when was the last time you saw a heel hook win an MMA fight? It's literally the 2nd and 3rd most common submission in top level bjj yet in mma both combine to about 6th? Like the Arm triangle is more common than both combined, when the arm triangle is 9th in bjj.

My MMA skills are rusty and I'd need to get back on the juice before I'm ready to fight anybody for real, but modern BJJ and modern MMA grappling have diverged to such an extent that to call the 2 the same is crazy.

I don’t know much about this at all, but aren’t you really just describing how MMA moved from a free-for-all mix entered into by fighters of various background to what is increasingly a specific martial art of its own?

As evidence of your claim that BJJ has fallen by the wayside in modern MMA, as well as a fun historical artifact, feast your eyes on Rousmiar Palhares's career record. Five heel hook submissions in the UFC! Five more in other pro fights! Of course, his last one in the UFC was over a decade ago, which kind of makes the point. Still, an impressive career that includes kneebarring Jon Fitch and tapping Jake Shields with a kimura.

I think there's a reasonable argument that MMA grappling has diverged from BJJ largely because bjj has been incorporated into the training process. Sort of a pareto effect thing.

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