BTG 193 - UFC BJJ Opens

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I want to talk about the OCBJJ push into the amateur tournaments. They have now announced, I believe, it's going to be here in Vegas in September. There's going to be a UFC BJ open which is going to be open to the public. Anybody can enter. They have kids divisions, adults, masters. They are making their foray into competing against IBJJF I and ADCC which are currently the two big dogs now in the grappling circuit. There's not a lot of details out there. I had to like scrge around to get some of it. The one thing that seems to stand out the most is stalling calls. Apparently, they're going to be pushing it very hard for essentially 13 and up. And it's a active minus point. So if you had four points, you get a minus point. It's now three. There's going to be I think from the language it's going to be similar to wrestling. You're stepping away. You're not engaging. You're fleeing the mat. All going to be called minus points. That is actually a good move in pursuing what they want, which is on the ridden, finishing matches, right? uh and finishing intent. This is something that I feel classic BJJ doesn't really have where he can just stall out forever and and makes very long drawn out matches. Whereas when there is a push for constant progression, somebody has to be moving and if nobody's moving, someone's getting called stalling. So that's going to be a huge tactical change as well as in pacing because right now in grappling you can relax and sit in the position for a while. Especially if your opponent's also not moving, the referee doesn't really have a reason to do anything. But if there's an active stalling call going on, things will happen. I think the people who were the first to really push this in jiu-jitsu is PGF. I hadn't seen anyone else really do what they do, they're a little bit more extreme in the sense that I've seen it where like a guy is sitting in someone's guard and for like 5 10 seconds and they start with the stalling. uh they've gotten I think they're at a pretty good spot right now at least from what I saw over last season where they've toned it down a little bit where now it's very reasonable but the consequence is still very harsh which is if you're hit with a stalling call you have 15 I think it's like 10 seconds uh or 15 seconds to take action and if they if you don't do something that they merit is enough action you'll be started from the turtle position with the other person on top. That's a huge consequence, right? Like that's not like a trivial like, oh, you lost an advantage. Now, this is like the match could be over now because the guy could get your back. It's a bit harsh, but at the same time, in their format, it makes sense because they have six minute matches and they there's no points, so they want submissions. So, I think it works really well for them. But the UFC BJJ adopting if they adopt a similarly strict and aggressive stalling call out, but instead of the positional change, since it is a point scoring event, they just take points away. I believe it'll have a similar effect in getting people to move more because even the people who hated on PGF for their stalling calls, there's a lot of finishes that happen in those stalling calls. Like you'd be surprised like someone's in a bad spot like cuz they'll call you from stalling from bottom out if you're just not trying to get away. You just like lock your hands and kind of sit there and escapes happen there. Sometimes people boom launch out of submission during those stolen calls. So it works. Um so it'll be curious because that would be a big differentiator between uh ADCC which allows stalling rampidly and IBJJF which also allows stalling rampidly. if a major tournament circuit came out like UCBJ, which obviously has the funding to do so and pushes stalling aggressively, that could be the thing that changes the game. And you guys, if you listen to me normally know I'm not a big UFC fan as far as them being this monopoly in MMA. And while I do have some concerns about them doing the same thing in jiu-jitsu, we have enough I mean IBJF has so much history that it seems like it would be really hard to knock off the its pedestal. Uh and then you have ADCC who came in by storm once they started doing their opens and it has a solid foothold especially in the Nogi game. More competition is better. in my opinion. So UFC coming in will add some heat and especially if they can put a rule set that would make things more exciting even better. the other stuff in the rule set which I agree with. One, no sitting to guard. That's a minus point. But you can aggressively pull guard. If I jump into a closed guard or I immediately pull into a butterfly guard, that's allowed. That's not penalized. But if I just sit down and to guard, minus point, which is great because no one wants to see that, right? And if you're going to do that, then take the consequences with it. Uh, so that's solid. And I think the only other thing I read that looked different was guard passing is worth two points instead of three points. Not a big deal really. Uh, so it's pretty much the IBJF, ADCC, all the standard scoring system. It's just, uh, a onepoint tweak there. the guard pull ADCC has, but it's universal. So, there's a small differences. The main difference is the stalling calls. That's actually what I'm most excited about because when done right, it's going to create a lot of action. So, it'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off and and because you remember, it's one thing to write it down the rules. It's another thing to enforce it. And if you're using referees that used to do IBJFS and ABCC's, they probably are not going to be ready to enforce because they already have a way of working where it's like, well, I can just hold off. Let this run a little bit. So, I would think you would want fresh refs that people who don't really work those tournament circuits. They're new to it, so to speak. not new to the sport, but perhaps newer to refing and or at least they're very well trained in what the thresholds are to allow. So when they get in there, they are not afraid to be aggressive with the stalling calls. That's another thing PGF did really well, which is their referees were not afraid to call stalling to the dismay of a lot of competitors. you know, you got to crack a few eggs and make an omelette. So, I think you need that also because it's not a popular call to get stalling, right? Like, it's not a fan favorite, especially when you're in that the athlete who's getting called stalling on. So, it takes a little bit of uh conviction and also certainty to be able to make those calls. the the the the rules have to be well laid out as far as what specifically deems something for being called a stalen call. Is it just backing up? Is it for a certain amount of time? Or is it just a ref judgment call? There should be some objectiveness here because otherwise uh it can devolve into like who's the ref's favorite, right? So, there should be some objectiveness to it. I would think anybody who's backing up, running away off the mat for sure. Uh, if you're in someone's closed guard and you just stay put, that's probably not going to work out well. Or if you're the guy with the guard and lock a body triangle and just don't do anything, then to me that guy is stalling now. So like few ways to see it but it just has to be written out so that everybody understands it and then can move forward. The interesting thing about making a very aggressive stalling policy is that it changes pacing significantly. If you watch a wrestling match versus a IPJF IPJJF uh match very very different pacing. Wrestling is explosive, frantic, it's constantly moving. There's no rest. It's exhausting. Whereas your standard grappling match is pretty relaxed. There's moments of explosiveness and but lots of dos in the action. You don't need as much cardio or explosive energy to do a grappling match. Whereas in a wrestling match, you need a lot of explosive energy because it's happening constantly. If that happens to jiu-jitsu, that's also going to change how athletes are going to have to prepare for it because they're going to have to be ready to explode a lot more and not be able to just sit and rest. I would be curious to how they will pace the matches as far as timing goes because this is very different than the UFC BJJ rule set which is like the three five minute rounds and the scoring is not anywhere near the same either. So I'll be curious how it happens in this open. Is it going to be a fivem minute round, 10-minute round? Are they going to do actually two fives or three fives? I can't believe they would. So, I'll be interested to see how that pans out because that will also shift it. If they make the matches shorter, it's going to create more action. The longer the match is, the slower pace the match will become. But you can try to push that pace with the again the stalling calls, but there's still just a limit to human ex exertion that is going to be reached. It's kind of like if you ever had, you know, practices where you do buddy sprints back and forth. It's not enough time to recover optimally. If you're doing like a 50 yard sprint and every time your buddy returns, you're going to sprint. That's like a one to one rest ratio if you're both running the same way. Ideal recovery is 3 to one. So after a couple minutes, you're going to be fast jogging, eventually slow jogging, right? And it just keeps getting worse over time because you're just not getting enough recovery time. And that's what happens when a match is strung out too long and you're trying to, you know, push the pedal to the metal. you're just going to not have enough steam. So, that's going to be interesting to me as well. And I guess the next thing is, is this going to entice the top athletes to start competing in the amateur tournament for hopes in getting into the UFC BJJ Pro TV spotlight? Right. Is that enough of a carrot to get people in? ADCC gives out prize money. You IBJF I think started giving out prize money. So there is a payout in winning those advanced divisions. And plus they now like in ACC winning trials gets you into a world qualifier or winning enough of those opens even if you don't win the trials gets you noticed right and for IBJF to compete in the world so you have to compete and do well and get enough points in other events throughout the year. So for UFC, BJJ, the question is, is this going to work like the MMA circuits where they have like the contenders and theater shows that the UFC uh uses to get fighters eventually into the big show? Is there enough interest in competing in UFC BJ? I would imagine probably yes. There's from what I've heard there's a good amount of money being paid to compete at UFC BJJ and especially in the grappling world where money is still somewhat short compared to other sports. The opportunity to compete under the UFC banner it's always alluring. So I would imagine that would be effective. The the only thing that can throw things off a bit is the exclusivity. EDCC and IBJJF don't really have any exclusive things, agreements, right? Like you can compete wherever you want. You just have to show up and qualify. Whereas UFC has been enforcing exclusivity where once you're signed with them as a pro alete, you're not allowed to compete anywhere else without getting permission. And that's something that's bothered a lot of people. I understand from a business sense that you don't want your star athletes going around competing for other competitors in the space because now perhaps you have a talent that you built up for a few years and now they jump into another show and they take their audience with them. You basically paid the bill for your competitor to have a star. I understand that from a fan perspective it sucks though because we want to see the top athletes fight each other and if the top athletes are all in different organizations that are exclusive now we can't get our dream matchups which has happened many times before Pride UFC era we had that happen quite a bit and we never got to really see the dream matches that some people had hoped for uh just because they were locked up in contracts. In an ideal world, we could look past that, but I understand the reality of business, and there is good logic to it. I'm just not sure how you reconcile that. The one thing I will say to the UFC defense is that they do a much better job of building stars than every other MMA promotion out there. I was talking to one of my my fighters, Jason, about this and he correctly called out how other promotions fail to build storylines. And I believe I also talked about this on a recent podcast where they're seem to just be putting together fights just to put them together. They also don't seem to recognize that when you have an upand cominging star, you have to sell that star to the audience. You have to like you might know it, but you got to let people know why. You got to give them a story. And other promotions like PFL and Bellator failed to do that. UFC does a good job of this. You know, there's a story behind Jon Jones, GSP, right? Uh Conor McGregor, and and everyone who follows him knows it. And they get big audiences as a result of that. That really hasn't happened in Grappling. The only two people that are in my opinion that were that are truly famous, Gordon Ryan, Craig Jones, and they did all of their storytelling. EDCC didn't do it. IBJJF didn't do it. EBI didn't do it. They did it. They got on social media. They got on their platforms and they made themselves known. They told the stories the way they wanted to and it has resulted in having a huge influence on the sport. Those organizations were merely platforms for them to tell their story. You would think that they may have taken notice of the effect of the storytelling and started doing some of the storytelling themselves or at least coaching the athletes on how to do that to get eyeballs on their events, but it doesn't seem like that's happened yet. And to me, that's an obvious shortcoming because those two were outliers, Gordon and Craig, that understood the value of marketing, that understood the value of getting their name out there and getting a brand, which they both still have, even though they're both not competing anymore. It's not easy to do, and that's probably why no other athlete has really engaged in it. And that's why most other athletes are not really known because they haven't done the storytelling. I would hope that an organization like EDCC and IBDF at a certain point have will start doing that for them or at least point them in the direction because it behooves them to do it. UFC though does do that. And if the UFC starts doing that with their athletes, it could start creating the next generation of superstar talent. And if we can get that again, because again, we our stars burned very brightly before they faded out unfortunately with Gordon and Craig. And there really isn't anyone that's anywhere close to where they were. When UFC BJJ says Mikey Musamechi is the face of UFC BJJ, no disrespect intended, but the reality is that's a sad state because he is not a polarizing figure, not somebody that works the mic really well, at least in my opinion. He has a story. He's very talented as far as competing on the mat, but he doesn't really move the needle. And maybe I'm just not the audience and I'm speaking out of the term. It's possible, but I don't see people lining up to get synergies from Mikey Musamechi or get paraphernalia from him. Like, I don't think he has that star power. He just doesn't have it. Not everyone does. I feel like they have people that would be better star figures. I think for example Mason Fowler if they promoted him right because he's kind of funny. He has he has a lot of videos he puts up so he can play to that more. But I haven't seen that really pushed out yet. And I know they're still relatively new in the game, but they really need to start building some stars. They haven't really got there yet. I know they've been trying, but it really hasn't took yet in my opinion. And you really need a headline with someone other than Musamechi. Again, no disrespect to him. I think as an athlete, he's amazing. He's I don't like the style even if I'm being honest of just letting your leg dangle, not being very wrestler oriented. Doesn't really strike my fancy, but there's no denying how effective his leg locking is. It's just nasty. He's passing everything. His grappling game is very sound. So, I just don't think he's moving the needle. He's not putting seats eyes on the screen or butts on the seats. So, and I do think they have people who could do that. A Nikki Rod is another guy, the Tacket Brothers or other people like, but they're not being pushed hard enough in my opinion, right? Like they really need to work on building these guys. Like Andrew Tacket would be another great example. All-American guy, great kid, extremely talented u and charismatic. Like push the hell out of him. If I was the UFC, he would be the face of the UFC PJ in my opinion. He's very young. He's got a bright future ahead of him. He's well spoken and he doesn't have any character flaws. [laughter] And you know, at least publicly, you know, he's not it would be a wholesome image in my opinion. Uh so yeah, that's what I would say in that regard. But all in all, I'm I'm intrigued to see how UFC BJJ opens develop or if they push the stalling calls. To me, that would be a victory, especially if it works out well because it's then going to put pressure on other organizations to adapt or they're going to start suffering. As someone who's competed in many tournaments in his lifetime, when you get stalled out, it's very frustrating. And amateur competitors, especially when they're paying like 150 bucks to compete and then someone just takes them down and holds them down for five minutes. That is an agonizing experience and very frustrating. it won't make you want to compete again, especially when you know there's a rule set that won't allow that to happen. You'll probably just jump into a different tournament circuit. So, I think this could be a great opportunity for the UFCJ. Kudos on them for identifying that because that would be one area they could really capitalize on that is one major weakness in every other tournament circuit. So, uh, I'll be rooting for them. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys. I will catch you all next week.