Thursday, March 7, 2019
Unpopular Opinions
Based on the % of black belts popped by USADA (utilizing advance notice/one day per year testing at IBJJF), no less than 20% of the sport is juicing at the black belt level.
Masters Worlds is full of guys who look like cartoon characters at 40+ years of age. (see above *ahem steroids and PEDs).
You can't be a competitor in a spectator sport and blame any criticism of your matches being boring by saying "you can't appreciate the nuances of high level grappling." Nah, you don't need to be a black belt to not be fooled by two guys both doing as little as possible to not lose and get paid and barely engaging for 10 minutes.
Quintet doesn't allow heel hooks because most guys wouldn't sign up if there were heel hooks.
If anyone else had shown up first day at black belt adult and won double gold with that many submissions, IBJJF would be gagging to death from slobbing their knob, but because it was Gordon Ryan there was less coverage. If Gordon had DQ'd himself by slapping and stalling anyone it would've been the biggest story in JiuJitsu, but instead we got fanboy worship justifying Cyborg's behavior instead of holding him to a standard befitting his accomplishments and all the usual talk about the sport and respect and honor and other BS.
UAEJJF is coming for IBJJF's status at the premier event (warm-up areas! Cash prizes! Earth shattering concepts, I know.)
If JiuJitsu becomes an Olympic sport, the podium will look different thanks to out of competition testing. It might be Jesus and hard work but it's also anabolic steroids and HGH and diuretics.
ADCC isn't a JiuJitsu tournament. It's not even a submission grappling tournament. It's a wrestling tournament that allows submissions.
TLI is keeping a low profile hoping the #metoo movement blows over and skips JiuJitsu.
Masters Worlds is full of guys who look like cartoon characters at 40+ years of age. (see above *ahem steroids and PEDs).
You can't be a competitor in a spectator sport and blame any criticism of your matches being boring by saying "you can't appreciate the nuances of high level grappling." Nah, you don't need to be a black belt to not be fooled by two guys both doing as little as possible to not lose and get paid and barely engaging for 10 minutes.
Quintet doesn't allow heel hooks because most guys wouldn't sign up if there were heel hooks.
If anyone else had shown up first day at black belt adult and won double gold with that many submissions, IBJJF would be gagging to death from slobbing their knob, but because it was Gordon Ryan there was less coverage. If Gordon had DQ'd himself by slapping and stalling anyone it would've been the biggest story in JiuJitsu, but instead we got fanboy worship justifying Cyborg's behavior instead of holding him to a standard befitting his accomplishments and all the usual talk about the sport and respect and honor and other BS.
UAEJJF is coming for IBJJF's status at the premier event (warm-up areas! Cash prizes! Earth shattering concepts, I know.)
If JiuJitsu becomes an Olympic sport, the podium will look different thanks to out of competition testing. It might be Jesus and hard work but it's also anabolic steroids and HGH and diuretics.
ADCC isn't a JiuJitsu tournament. It's not even a submission grappling tournament. It's a wrestling tournament that allows submissions.
TLI is keeping a low profile hoping the #metoo movement blows over and skips JiuJitsu.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Shoyoroll NoGi Gear Review
The space under the armpit has vents/whatever that does legitimately make does it cooler to train in, and avoids that plastic bag constrictor feeling you get in other long sleeved rashguards. I train in long sleeved rashguards in an effort to minimize skin exposure as we have a ton of visitors at Renzo's and people coming from in off the street, the subway, whatever, may not have washed their hands et cetera.
All in all, it was $20 more than my Scramble matching set I bought a year ago. The stitching and construction seems sturdy, so we'll see how it holds up. I recently bought their ranked nogi gear drop for brown belts because I enjoyed the first set I bought so much. The shorts are trim and contoured around the thighs avoiding the snagged toes in or near your taint/gooch area that I've seen happen with shorter length shorts that parachute out/flare at the thighs.
The Shoyoroll NoGi sets are probably going to be the brand I buy going forward for training gear and compete in for IBJJF at brown belt when I return to competing. It seems steep at $150, but like I've said Scramble and other brands have comparably/in that neighborhood priced gear at $50-70 for the top + the same or more for shorts.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
UFC on ESPN+ in Wichita this Weekend: Lewis vs Dos Santos: Picks and Thoughts
Can Derrick Lewis survive 5 rounds with Dos Santos? Will be pull of yet another miraculous hail mary KO in the closing seconds of a fight he's totally lost? We'll find out.
Elsewhere on the card we've got some semi meaningful if not at least entertaining stylistic match-ups plus if nothing else, the Main Card starts at 8pm, thank God, because I was dying staying up to see that FIXED if I've ever seen one Jones/Smith fight last weekend.
Should be an entertaining slobberknocker for as long as it does or does not last. Anything has to be better than that Lewis/Ngannou non fight that happened, am I right? People keep picking against Lewis and he almost always pulls off the upset but this is very hard to not pick against him. I guess I'm gonna say Dos Santos is the pick, but I don't bet on HW fights.
Zaleski dos Santos finally gets co-main billing after a slew of entertaining AF bouts that I've seen of his and will face Curtis Millender. Millender has 3 wins in the past year or so of fighting against Thiago Alves, Max Griffin, and Siya Bahadurzada. Zaleski is a tier above those guys and should pick up an exciting stoppage win here in the 3rd round as he pours it on each of the 3 rounds wearing guys down even as he slows a tad from his impressive workrate. I love watching Zaleski fight. Each fight is what I want to see in MMA. Zaleski has only fought twice in the past year beating Vendramini and Strickland, neither entirely impressive names, but also had a deeper UFC win list of Nakamura, Akhmedov, Griffin (also), and Lyman Good before he got exiled for ye olde steroid pop. Zaleski will win this one in an entertaining scrap whether it goes the distance or not.
Beneil Dariush will face Drew Dober. Dariush after a promising start has seen him lose fights he was winning and get blown out in early goings against unknowns. It's been a rocky road as a fan of his because like Gunnar Nelson he has all the tools and the right camp to take him to the title. Dober has lost only 2x in the past 3-4 years, a guillotine loss to Efrain Escudero and an RNC loss to Oliver Aubin-Mercier. This suggests if Beneil doesn't stand too long trying his burgeoning Muay Thai skills he's honing at Kings MMA, he'll get to his neck and put Dober to sleep. Dober has a couple KO win's in fights over his UFC tenure but no one who's of high repute in their division.
Boetsch returns to face Akhmedov. Boetsch last fought coming up on a year ago against Antonio Carlos Jr. in a losing by submission effort. Before that it had been nearly a year since be beat up on a faded, still managed to miss weight in a weight class up Johnny Hendricks who must have an eating disorder with the way he's unable to now make weight regardless of weight class. Akhmedov has lost to anyone of note he's faced in the UFC (Zaleski dos Santos, Serginho Moraes, and Gunnar Nelson and decisioned anyone he's beaten. Boetsch is extremely durable (yes, I know, extremely overused in MMA parlance, but truly accurate for this guy). I see Boetsch beating him up 2 out of 3 rounds.
Means vs Price - Price was picking up steam before getting a win overturned due to those damn, derelict pesky marijuana metabolites. Price is coming off a loss to Abul Alhassan which was a fight he looked slow to start and got flattened. Prior to that he had 2 stoppage wins over Randy Brown & George Sullivan. I've always liked Niko's set of skill since his UFC debut and I'm hoping the Alhassan loss was an off night. I'm a say Price by submission.
Rothwell returns from steroid suspension to face Ivanov who debuted in about as tough as UFC debut as you can against Dos Santos. Talk about jumping into the shark tank of the UFC HW division. Ivanov lost about a year of his prime after getting stabbed by gangsters and nearly bleeding to death. Meanwhile in Russia....anyway, Rothwell has always had the size and reach to give many men trouble, as evidenced by his 10 finger tummy squash strangle of Josh Barnett awhile back. Ivanov has a mix of skills and I expect him to not BS around with Rothwell and force him to the mat 2 out of 3 rounds despite the danger that puts him in. Ivanov will get back on track here with a Decision win over another very tough HW contender.
Sergio Moraes is getting back on track after a KO loss to Usman (which seems less terrible given his title ascension). Moraes picked up a flawless submission win over Ben Saunders & Tim Means. He's also got wins over Ramos, Akhmedov, and Magny amongst others. He'll pick up a submission win here over this guy.
Elsewhere on the card we've got some semi meaningful if not at least entertaining stylistic match-ups plus if nothing else, the Main Card starts at 8pm, thank God, because I was dying staying up to see that FIXED if I've ever seen one Jones/Smith fight last weekend.
Should be an entertaining slobberknocker for as long as it does or does not last. Anything has to be better than that Lewis/Ngannou non fight that happened, am I right? People keep picking against Lewis and he almost always pulls off the upset but this is very hard to not pick against him. I guess I'm gonna say Dos Santos is the pick, but I don't bet on HW fights.
Zaleski dos Santos finally gets co-main billing after a slew of entertaining AF bouts that I've seen of his and will face Curtis Millender. Millender has 3 wins in the past year or so of fighting against Thiago Alves, Max Griffin, and Siya Bahadurzada. Zaleski is a tier above those guys and should pick up an exciting stoppage win here in the 3rd round as he pours it on each of the 3 rounds wearing guys down even as he slows a tad from his impressive workrate. I love watching Zaleski fight. Each fight is what I want to see in MMA. Zaleski has only fought twice in the past year beating Vendramini and Strickland, neither entirely impressive names, but also had a deeper UFC win list of Nakamura, Akhmedov, Griffin (also), and Lyman Good before he got exiled for ye olde steroid pop. Zaleski will win this one in an entertaining scrap whether it goes the distance or not.
Beneil Dariush will face Drew Dober. Dariush after a promising start has seen him lose fights he was winning and get blown out in early goings against unknowns. It's been a rocky road as a fan of his because like Gunnar Nelson he has all the tools and the right camp to take him to the title. Dober has lost only 2x in the past 3-4 years, a guillotine loss to Efrain Escudero and an RNC loss to Oliver Aubin-Mercier. This suggests if Beneil doesn't stand too long trying his burgeoning Muay Thai skills he's honing at Kings MMA, he'll get to his neck and put Dober to sleep. Dober has a couple KO win's in fights over his UFC tenure but no one who's of high repute in their division.
Boetsch returns to face Akhmedov. Boetsch last fought coming up on a year ago against Antonio Carlos Jr. in a losing by submission effort. Before that it had been nearly a year since be beat up on a faded, still managed to miss weight in a weight class up Johnny Hendricks who must have an eating disorder with the way he's unable to now make weight regardless of weight class. Akhmedov has lost to anyone of note he's faced in the UFC (Zaleski dos Santos, Serginho Moraes, and Gunnar Nelson and decisioned anyone he's beaten. Boetsch is extremely durable (yes, I know, extremely overused in MMA parlance, but truly accurate for this guy). I see Boetsch beating him up 2 out of 3 rounds.
Means vs Price - Price was picking up steam before getting a win overturned due to those damn, derelict pesky marijuana metabolites. Price is coming off a loss to Abul Alhassan which was a fight he looked slow to start and got flattened. Prior to that he had 2 stoppage wins over Randy Brown & George Sullivan. I've always liked Niko's set of skill since his UFC debut and I'm hoping the Alhassan loss was an off night. I'm a say Price by submission.
Rothwell returns from steroid suspension to face Ivanov who debuted in about as tough as UFC debut as you can against Dos Santos. Talk about jumping into the shark tank of the UFC HW division. Ivanov lost about a year of his prime after getting stabbed by gangsters and nearly bleeding to death. Meanwhile in Russia....anyway, Rothwell has always had the size and reach to give many men trouble, as evidenced by his 10 finger tummy squash strangle of Josh Barnett awhile back. Ivanov has a mix of skills and I expect him to not BS around with Rothwell and force him to the mat 2 out of 3 rounds despite the danger that puts him in. Ivanov will get back on track here with a Decision win over another very tough HW contender.
Sergio Moraes is getting back on track after a KO loss to Usman (which seems less terrible given his title ascension). Moraes picked up a flawless submission win over Ben Saunders & Tim Means. He's also got wins over Ramos, Akhmedov, and Magny amongst others. He'll pick up a submission win here over this guy.
My Reason(s) for Leaving Competitive Judo VS the Epidemic of Entitlement in JiuJitsu
Was reflecting back to when I made the decision to no longer compete in Judo and fully devote my time to JiuJitsu competition in the Gi which then got me to the Submission Grappling niche that's gaining traction.
Rewind to 6 1/2 years ago and I had been out of competition for the better part of a year due to ACL/meniscus injury and subsequent surgery. While I was gone, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) rule change banning leg grabs had come into effect. By the time I returned to Judo competition, to even briefly tough or grab the leg with your arm/elbow/hand as seen by a referee in he chaos of a high-paced match could bring about an automatic Disqualification or "hansokumake." It's tough to travel to compete, make weight, pay money (to say nothing of the opportunity cost of missing work et cetera to travel/be gone), and to have a referee rule you DQ'd immediately because you errantly touched or grazed the leg with your arm whilst in a match that can be as chaotic and high paced as Judo. I had fought 5 MMA fights up until this point. I won the state championships in both North and South Carolina in Judo. I was a new-ish purple belt in JiuJitsu. I was a devoted competitor arranging my personal life, work, most things if not everything around competing in whatever sport I was currently pursuing.
At any rate, I had returned to competing (both in Judo and JiuJitsu with increasing frequency), but the new restrictions in Judo had changed the pace and feel of a match and also had taken a good number of combinations and attacks out of the game as well. I didn't particularly mind the new style change overall, as my tokuiwaza (pet technique/specialty throw et cetera as it translates roughly), Tai Otoshi benefits/is easier to set up from a more upright style of play anyway, but the matches felt a bit less unpredictable, a bit more truncated, and just presented a narrower range of throwing techniques. I had always liked facing the myriad of grappling styles that Judo allowed up until that point.
Beyond this change in the feel of the game/matches, a Judo tournament director reached out to me and asked me to come referee at a tournament. I was being asked to commute several hours, spend the day reffing (miss work at my 2nd job), and do it out of the goodness of my heart. That same day, I was offered a job reffing a JiuJitsu tournament, where I'd be able to compete for free (couldn't compete because I was recovering but you get the point), and be paid to referee on top of that.
Let me clarify what made the choice for me, beyond the simple pros and cons/situation outlined above. The Judo tournament director, by his wording, made it clear that out of some sense of obligation and selflessness, that I "should" offer my time and energy et cetera to come pay back the sport of Judo. There was this sense of entitlement to my time, energy, and purpose that rang hollow to me. Pay back? Pay back? I was coming back from an ACL resonstruction surgery ($5,000 after insurance to say nothing of costs in PT/loss of work et cetera), to say nothing of the countless other injuries along the way. I was always paying Judo back. Missing work. Paying to compete. Paying to travel. Paying to train. Paying for surgery. Paying. Paying. Paying. Is it wrong to expect to be compensated for your time and expertise? It is wrong to expect to be treated like someone who is paid for their time and expertise? The reffing at Judo tournaments was always iffy at best with old time referees imposing their interpretation of the rules from a bygone era to career referees who do not train live at all and barely understand what they are watching. I'd lost more matches on bad calls than I cared to count and compensated with a hyper aggressive attacking style that I only expected to win if I could throw, pin, or submit within regulation.
I politely informed him that I'd be reffing at a JiuJitsu tournament that day and left it at that. He replied with some condescending remarks about my lack of commitment to the sport and selflessness (also probably entwined in a disdain for JiuJitsu as I'd put up with a fair amount of resistance/smart remarks/outright disdain/condescension for my involvement in JiuJitsu from some old school Judo instructors and even training partners ever since I began crosstraining while I was rehabbing, you guessed it, a knee injury). One might could write this interaction off as simply a differing of minds, but I had long tried to broach this topic of closed minded-ness for JiuJitsu as a sport and misguided altruism in Judo of selflessly teaching and investment previously with others in the Judo community. It was largely ignored by the entrenched Judo beliefs that still plague the sport (I can speak specifically of American Judo from personal experience at the regional level). You can only expect so much and so long from your competitors....and when another opportunity looms on the horizon that treats you much more like a professional and doesn't lay claim to your time and energy out of expectation, the choice sometimes doesn't seem very difficult for those of us without parents or programs funding our training and competition expenses. The selfless long-time martyr casting aspersions on the younger competitor, what a cliche. Over the course of my involvement in Judo it went from there being 3 skill divisions: white belt, green-brown, and black belt. By the end, there was one division at a lot of tournaments: open skill, meaning you'd have white belts and everyone along the way to black belt. Talk about the likelihood for injury...
I felt like Atlas Shrugged and watching all the signs piling up that the sport was languishing and the very stewards of the sport at the grass roots level where I was not only ignoring the problem, but exacerbating it. Before JiuJitsu, Judo could blame lots of theories and ideas as to why Judo was lagging behind other sports: culture of sport in America, video games, ideology/home environment, et cetera...yet JiuJitsu came along and went from not existing as a sport in America to parents shelling out $100 for their kids to win swords and belts. All along the way, Judo's response for quite awhile was to double down on it's attitudes and beliefs, with even some Judo organizations banning it's funded athletes from cross competition and MMA and while this ensnares the top cared for and funded athletes, it forces a hard line decision for those who are not.
At some point, I had to accept that to continue to tolerate the treatment/expectation of the athletes was to not only enable, but further deepen the problem. I can't tolerate the behavior, allow it to continue, perpetuate the cycle, and then complain for years on end.
That would be naive at best and disingenuous at worst. I reffed for several years for US Grappling who always treated me fairly, paid me to referee, let me compete for free, paid me expenses toward travelling over a certain distance and in doing so gave me the opportunity to grow my game immeasurably.
They also run one of the best tournaments I've attended (as a competitor). It's a tournament that truly is By Grapplers, For Grapplers. I owe that company an immeasurable debt toward my development as far as understanding and nerding out on the rules and competing month after month at purple belt until I moved to NYC.
One of the best things a grappler can do for the sport is both BEHAVE LIKE A PROFESSIONAL and then EXPECT to be treated like one. It's an old adage but true, people will rise to the bar you set for them.
On the flipside, in JiuJitsu, I see a lot of entitlement from "athletes" who treat grappling like this mommy/daddy/bank/welfare program. They expect events to pay them for their mid level grappling skills but don't promote the event, barely sell tickets, and want to just show up and have visibility provided to them. They expect at blue or purple belt for some promoter to pay for them to travel to an event, pay their way, when they've barely invested anything in the sport while living on the Bank of Mom/Dad, smoking weed, and playing video games. It's a joke. Training twice a day when you're 21, playing video games, and smoking weed isn't an athlete. That's a kid with no job who trains JiuJitsu twice a day and isn't even filling his free time going to college or working to offset his living expenses.
The sport is full of guys with their hand out, wanting free sh*t. They want to compete for free, travel for free, get paid to teach, but don't know how to build a program, retain members, and have barely invested 4-5 years in the sport both financially and literally in terms of time and days on the mat.
They want to drop in to a gym, pay no mat fee and benefit from what's been built there in terms of the physical space/lights/HVAC/toilet paper/whatever and own an Iphone and Beats headphones but don't want to slap down $20 to train for an hour. M*therfucker, you paid $3 for that Starbucks.
They put on boring ass matches, indistinguishable from any other random wrestling background/mma fighter/mid level JiuJitsu "athlete" then want to "make a living doing what I love." GTFO. You don't mean JiuJitsu Lifestyle, you mean Handout Lifestyle. "Everyday porrada?" You mean "Everyday handout."
Famous names from MMA and yesteryear in grappling get paid to put on the laughably boring superfights that are borderline works for how little each guy is trying. Ishii vs Mir? Cyborg vs Schaub? Vagner vs Canuto and it's 7 minutes of collar ties and circling to the boundary. Chantre vs Cummings with its 10 minutes of pattycake and the standing competitor refusing to touch more than a second or 2 at a time then disengaging. If you came to a Submission Only match, and refuse to touch your competitor for more than 1 second at a time, you're a scam artist.
ACB and it's deadly 50/50 sweep battles for 25 minutes that could put you to sleep if you had pounded Red Bull and snort cocaine at the start of each round? The ACB event literally folded because Gi competitors would literally rather not lose than open up the game and try to win and the guy bankrolling the event told them to kick rocks. Great job guys, now no one gets paid to do JiuJitsu by that organization. Spyder BJJ has put on 2 of the most boring events in Gi JiuJitsu I have EVER SEEN with multiple matches where both guys are awarded 2-3 penalties for stalling in -7 minutes. Are you serious? Grappling is better than this. Promoters are the ones with the purse strings. When they flex their nuts and stop bringing guys back or enforcing stalling, the matches will change.
I'd rather watch Finishers Sub Only than ANY of the matches I watched from the last Spyder BJJ event. #facts
It's entitlement to think that you should be paid like a professional to collar tie, handfight, circle, disengage, reset, and shoot one or two takedowns in 10 minutes of grappling. I'd rather go reff blue belt matches than watch that. Your resume & your achievements don't entitle you to a different standard of performance than anyone else in the sport, man. See the quote about: "Success isn't owned, it's leased, and rent is due." Not every performance can be match of the year, century or even month. But let's not kid ourselves and defend matches where it's 5 minutes with one guy in half-guard bottom, and another guy on both knees on top with neither passing and neither sweeping or throwing up some submissions. Let's not kid ourselves and defend 2 "athletes" in 50/50 for 5 minutes and seesaw sweep battling the last 30 seconds of the match as though it's the pinnacle of the sport and deserves the term "superfight". Lets's not kid ourselves and defend athletes striking other opponents with collar ties and stalling and disengaging and rationalize it because of who they claim to be and past accomplishments. Let's not kid ourselves when athletes tagging Jesus and prayer emojis are roided out and cheating. Let's not kid ourselves that anyone is above reproach or criticism after signing up to compete in a public forum and expecting to be paid.
Rewind to 6 1/2 years ago and I had been out of competition for the better part of a year due to ACL/meniscus injury and subsequent surgery. While I was gone, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) rule change banning leg grabs had come into effect. By the time I returned to Judo competition, to even briefly tough or grab the leg with your arm/elbow/hand as seen by a referee in he chaos of a high-paced match could bring about an automatic Disqualification or "hansokumake." It's tough to travel to compete, make weight, pay money (to say nothing of the opportunity cost of missing work et cetera to travel/be gone), and to have a referee rule you DQ'd immediately because you errantly touched or grazed the leg with your arm whilst in a match that can be as chaotic and high paced as Judo. I had fought 5 MMA fights up until this point. I won the state championships in both North and South Carolina in Judo. I was a new-ish purple belt in JiuJitsu. I was a devoted competitor arranging my personal life, work, most things if not everything around competing in whatever sport I was currently pursuing.
At any rate, I had returned to competing (both in Judo and JiuJitsu with increasing frequency), but the new restrictions in Judo had changed the pace and feel of a match and also had taken a good number of combinations and attacks out of the game as well. I didn't particularly mind the new style change overall, as my tokuiwaza (pet technique/specialty throw et cetera as it translates roughly), Tai Otoshi benefits/is easier to set up from a more upright style of play anyway, but the matches felt a bit less unpredictable, a bit more truncated, and just presented a narrower range of throwing techniques. I had always liked facing the myriad of grappling styles that Judo allowed up until that point.
Beyond this change in the feel of the game/matches, a Judo tournament director reached out to me and asked me to come referee at a tournament. I was being asked to commute several hours, spend the day reffing (miss work at my 2nd job), and do it out of the goodness of my heart. That same day, I was offered a job reffing a JiuJitsu tournament, where I'd be able to compete for free (couldn't compete because I was recovering but you get the point), and be paid to referee on top of that.
Let me clarify what made the choice for me, beyond the simple pros and cons/situation outlined above. The Judo tournament director, by his wording, made it clear that out of some sense of obligation and selflessness, that I "should" offer my time and energy et cetera to come pay back the sport of Judo. There was this sense of entitlement to my time, energy, and purpose that rang hollow to me. Pay back? Pay back? I was coming back from an ACL resonstruction surgery ($5,000 after insurance to say nothing of costs in PT/loss of work et cetera), to say nothing of the countless other injuries along the way. I was always paying Judo back. Missing work. Paying to compete. Paying to travel. Paying to train. Paying for surgery. Paying. Paying. Paying. Is it wrong to expect to be compensated for your time and expertise? It is wrong to expect to be treated like someone who is paid for their time and expertise? The reffing at Judo tournaments was always iffy at best with old time referees imposing their interpretation of the rules from a bygone era to career referees who do not train live at all and barely understand what they are watching. I'd lost more matches on bad calls than I cared to count and compensated with a hyper aggressive attacking style that I only expected to win if I could throw, pin, or submit within regulation.
I politely informed him that I'd be reffing at a JiuJitsu tournament that day and left it at that. He replied with some condescending remarks about my lack of commitment to the sport and selflessness (also probably entwined in a disdain for JiuJitsu as I'd put up with a fair amount of resistance/smart remarks/outright disdain/condescension for my involvement in JiuJitsu from some old school Judo instructors and even training partners ever since I began crosstraining while I was rehabbing, you guessed it, a knee injury). One might could write this interaction off as simply a differing of minds, but I had long tried to broach this topic of closed minded-ness for JiuJitsu as a sport and misguided altruism in Judo of selflessly teaching and investment previously with others in the Judo community. It was largely ignored by the entrenched Judo beliefs that still plague the sport (I can speak specifically of American Judo from personal experience at the regional level). You can only expect so much and so long from your competitors....and when another opportunity looms on the horizon that treats you much more like a professional and doesn't lay claim to your time and energy out of expectation, the choice sometimes doesn't seem very difficult for those of us without parents or programs funding our training and competition expenses. The selfless long-time martyr casting aspersions on the younger competitor, what a cliche. Over the course of my involvement in Judo it went from there being 3 skill divisions: white belt, green-brown, and black belt. By the end, there was one division at a lot of tournaments: open skill, meaning you'd have white belts and everyone along the way to black belt. Talk about the likelihood for injury...
I felt like Atlas Shrugged and watching all the signs piling up that the sport was languishing and the very stewards of the sport at the grass roots level where I was not only ignoring the problem, but exacerbating it. Before JiuJitsu, Judo could blame lots of theories and ideas as to why Judo was lagging behind other sports: culture of sport in America, video games, ideology/home environment, et cetera...yet JiuJitsu came along and went from not existing as a sport in America to parents shelling out $100 for their kids to win swords and belts. All along the way, Judo's response for quite awhile was to double down on it's attitudes and beliefs, with even some Judo organizations banning it's funded athletes from cross competition and MMA and while this ensnares the top cared for and funded athletes, it forces a hard line decision for those who are not.
At some point, I had to accept that to continue to tolerate the treatment/expectation of the athletes was to not only enable, but further deepen the problem. I can't tolerate the behavior, allow it to continue, perpetuate the cycle, and then complain for years on end.
That would be naive at best and disingenuous at worst. I reffed for several years for US Grappling who always treated me fairly, paid me to referee, let me compete for free, paid me expenses toward travelling over a certain distance and in doing so gave me the opportunity to grow my game immeasurably.
They also run one of the best tournaments I've attended (as a competitor). It's a tournament that truly is By Grapplers, For Grapplers. I owe that company an immeasurable debt toward my development as far as understanding and nerding out on the rules and competing month after month at purple belt until I moved to NYC.
One of the best things a grappler can do for the sport is both BEHAVE LIKE A PROFESSIONAL and then EXPECT to be treated like one. It's an old adage but true, people will rise to the bar you set for them.
On the flipside, in JiuJitsu, I see a lot of entitlement from "athletes" who treat grappling like this mommy/daddy/bank/welfare program. They expect events to pay them for their mid level grappling skills but don't promote the event, barely sell tickets, and want to just show up and have visibility provided to them. They expect at blue or purple belt for some promoter to pay for them to travel to an event, pay their way, when they've barely invested anything in the sport while living on the Bank of Mom/Dad, smoking weed, and playing video games. It's a joke. Training twice a day when you're 21, playing video games, and smoking weed isn't an athlete. That's a kid with no job who trains JiuJitsu twice a day and isn't even filling his free time going to college or working to offset his living expenses.
The sport is full of guys with their hand out, wanting free sh*t. They want to compete for free, travel for free, get paid to teach, but don't know how to build a program, retain members, and have barely invested 4-5 years in the sport both financially and literally in terms of time and days on the mat.
They want to drop in to a gym, pay no mat fee and benefit from what's been built there in terms of the physical space/lights/HVAC/toilet paper/whatever and own an Iphone and Beats headphones but don't want to slap down $20 to train for an hour. M*therfucker, you paid $3 for that Starbucks.
They put on boring ass matches, indistinguishable from any other random wrestling background/mma fighter/mid level JiuJitsu "athlete" then want to "make a living doing what I love." GTFO. You don't mean JiuJitsu Lifestyle, you mean Handout Lifestyle. "Everyday porrada?" You mean "Everyday handout."
Famous names from MMA and yesteryear in grappling get paid to put on the laughably boring superfights that are borderline works for how little each guy is trying. Ishii vs Mir? Cyborg vs Schaub? Vagner vs Canuto and it's 7 minutes of collar ties and circling to the boundary. Chantre vs Cummings with its 10 minutes of pattycake and the standing competitor refusing to touch more than a second or 2 at a time then disengaging. If you came to a Submission Only match, and refuse to touch your competitor for more than 1 second at a time, you're a scam artist.
ACB and it's deadly 50/50 sweep battles for 25 minutes that could put you to sleep if you had pounded Red Bull and snort cocaine at the start of each round? The ACB event literally folded because Gi competitors would literally rather not lose than open up the game and try to win and the guy bankrolling the event told them to kick rocks. Great job guys, now no one gets paid to do JiuJitsu by that organization. Spyder BJJ has put on 2 of the most boring events in Gi JiuJitsu I have EVER SEEN with multiple matches where both guys are awarded 2-3 penalties for stalling in -7 minutes. Are you serious? Grappling is better than this. Promoters are the ones with the purse strings. When they flex their nuts and stop bringing guys back or enforcing stalling, the matches will change.
I'd rather watch Finishers Sub Only than ANY of the matches I watched from the last Spyder BJJ event. #facts
It's entitlement to think that you should be paid like a professional to collar tie, handfight, circle, disengage, reset, and shoot one or two takedowns in 10 minutes of grappling. I'd rather go reff blue belt matches than watch that. Your resume & your achievements don't entitle you to a different standard of performance than anyone else in the sport, man. See the quote about: "Success isn't owned, it's leased, and rent is due." Not every performance can be match of the year, century or even month. But let's not kid ourselves and defend matches where it's 5 minutes with one guy in half-guard bottom, and another guy on both knees on top with neither passing and neither sweeping or throwing up some submissions. Let's not kid ourselves and defend 2 "athletes" in 50/50 for 5 minutes and seesaw sweep battling the last 30 seconds of the match as though it's the pinnacle of the sport and deserves the term "superfight". Lets's not kid ourselves and defend athletes striking other opponents with collar ties and stalling and disengaging and rationalize it because of who they claim to be and past accomplishments. Let's not kid ourselves when athletes tagging Jesus and prayer emojis are roided out and cheating. Let's not kid ourselves that anyone is above reproach or criticism after signing up to compete in a public forum and expecting to be paid.
Monday, March 4, 2019
Spyder BJJ Championship Qualifier 201 Event (Warning: Boring Gi Match Phobia/Criticism Ahead)
Moizinho submitted a Korean black belt you've never heard of.
Diniz beat some Korean black belt you've never heard of.
Calasans sucked Tinoco into 50/50 and when Tinoco got tired of doing nothing for 3 minutes got his back taken trying to get out of it.
Munis won off of a couple sweeps over the much smaller Jimenez.
Jones-Leary took no chances on top pretending to think about passing Moizinho who also took no chances trying to sweep and Jones-Leary won a ref decision.
Mendes lost a ref decision do to one near takedown in the match from Lutes in a standard both guys holding a lapel and sleeve spin and fade out to boundary then reset 20x match with a few random foot sweeps, knee touches, and little else.
Calasans vs Munis - both guys scored 2 points, Calasans got to an omoplata on the much larger purple belt, but Munis stood up and shook the tree and escapes, then jumped guard. Calasans spent the last 30 seconds in double unders on the much larger man. Munis locked up a no-arm triangle from bottom in an effort to eke out an advantage in the last 10 seconds as Calasans stacked him on his head.
Change this event to the "Oscars of JiuJitsu" for guys selling "attempts at things" as a way to win. What the *&^% am I watching? This one is even worse than the last one the young guy from Atos won by sweeping everyone and doing nothing the rest of each of his matches. Calasans got a ref decision but you could tell he was sweating tying his belt thinking "I prob just lost to this purple belt."
Spriggs beat Diniz after Diniz pulled a low half-guard then got flattened out/line of the shoulders and knee through passed. Diniz almost came up on a pant grip double leg but the ref stopped him midway there and ruled it a non-score.
Mendes vs Jones-Leary - Mendes got sucked into full-guard, then 50/50, then attempting to get out, got his back taken. He got to standing and fought the hands with Jones-Leary's body triangle locked and content to not give up the position by risking to finish. Somehow at this point it's all so boring I'm both unsurprised and not even mad because I've actually seen a couple transitions. It's like the end of a Serbian film when the henchmen are going to *&^% the bodies of the family after the murder-suicide but you're so desensitized it kind of makes sense in the alternate universe you've now become a part of by passively granting permission for your own degradation by participating/watching.
Munis vs Diniz - Diniz spends 4 minutes stuck in open-guard, mostly on both knees, curiously unable to pass from this supremely immobile and slow position. Munis sucks him into full guard with 3 ish minutes left. Munis cleverly baits Diniz into walking forward, feet not far apart at all and hits an ankle pick from seated. Haha, hilarity. Diniz feeds a lapel grip through the legs and tries to come up on a sit-up guard sweep, but loses it, they pause, Munis is kneeling, then he sits to guard and they incorrectly score it a sweep for Diniz so now it's tied again. Sigh. Diniz again on his knees, immobile, not even really pretending to try and double under or stack pass at this point, Munis locks up a triangle with 10 seconds left but not particularly deep, much akin to how the Calasans match ended. He's awarded an advantage and you can't feel that bad because Diniz decided to squander time on top in that atrocious fake double under position without much direction changing or attempts to stack. Play the margins, sometimes you fall off the edge, buddy.
Lutes vs Moizinho - Moizinho pulls because ain't no way on God's green earth he's trying to be standing with Lutes. Moizinho trying to pry a let out from bottom but Lutes literally splits his legs with hip grip and is looking to pass. Moizinho scores a sweep but is later turtled defending a back take/hooks from Lutes. Moizinho comes out on top but then gets swept from 50/50. Lutes gets the win.
Calasans vs Spriggs - Spoiler Alert: Not Much happens for 4+ minutes of the match. At over halfway in it's penalties apiece that are now turning into advantage points. Spriggs gets him moving with a cross-collar grip and series of snapdowns, that leads to back exposure and a backtake. Spriggs wins 4-2.
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