Rickson Gracie: ‘Athletic’ Jiu-jitsu Is Diluted | BJJ Beat

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On this recurring feature, we’ll tackle the biggest news from the professional grappling scene, and roll everything into an easily digestible and familiar jiu-jitsu format.

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Warm Ups

Rickson Gracie Not A Fan Modern BJJ ‘Dilution’

Mixed martial arts (MMA) pioneer, Rickson Gracie, doesn’t sound too happy about the current state of jiu-jitsu. According to the 64-year-old proponent of Gracie Jiu-jitsu, the sport has veered away from its roots and now favors strong and athletic competitors.

“The dilution is already beginning because it’s becoming a very athletic sport. You know, it doesn’t favor the weak the way it’s supposed to favor them,” Gracie told Andy Stumpf (HT: JitsMagazine). “The core of jiu-jitsu, in my vision, is self-defense, not competition. Competition is great for people who like to (compete), but for everyone, you’d love to learn how to survive; how to defend yourself from an attacker, how to protect someone you love.

“Sport jiu-jitsu is growing a lot but I would like to see academies start to become more confident and teach self-defense and empower people, and be able to bring that knowledge for the weak ones.”

I understand the point he is trying to make, but sports evolve, and a prime Rickson Gracie actually dominated the field in part because he was a jacked, physical specimen himself. He was by far the most athletic among his relatives, which is the reason they instead sent the scrawnier Royce Gracie to UFC, to market their brand and push the idea of “weak” fighters overcoming stronger guys.

Much like the earlier days of MMA, jiu-jitsu can still easily be used to overcome stronger but untrained opposition today. Against equally knowledgeable and technical opponents, though, it’ll just be like any other combat sport throughout history, where athleticism and strength matter more, and why weight classes exist.

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Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Drills

Elisabeth Clay Wins Double Gold At IBJJF (Two Months After Childbirth)

Winning one gold medal at a major jiu-jitsu tournament with two months to prepare is already a difficult and notable accomplishment. Incredibly enough, Elisabeth Clay instead won two gold medals, just two months after giving birth to her first child.

“Double gold 76 days after giving birth!” Clay said about her accomplishment. “This was a huge goal of mine, to not only continue to be an athlete after becoming a mom, but to also be able to come back fast.”

After sitting out most of 2024 due to her pregnancy and childbirth, Clay didn’t need much recovery time or warm up competitions. She went straight to the 2024 IBJJF No Gi Pan Championship and won five matches to win gold in her weight class and in the absolute division.

The Polaris GP winner and two-time no gi world champion made it look easy, but she said her body still wasn’t the same.

“I got hurt in my very first match as well. Guess my body is slightly more fragile after giving birth.”

On the men’s side of things, former Bellator champion, Rafael Lovato Jr., continued to impress in the BJJ scene, submitting much younger opponents and taking gold at 41 years of age.

Full results from the 2024 IBJJF No Gi Pan Championship are here.

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Move of the Day

Gordon Ryan teaches Jon Jones

After training together in preparation for UFC 309, Gordon Ryan filmed a couple of technique videos with a special “uke” in UFC champ Jon Jones. The BJJ champ added nice small details to tighten up basic moves, like putting your ear by the shoulder for d’arce chokes, and switching your wrist grip for overhook triangle set ups.

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Rolls

Kade Ruotolo + BJJ GWOAT Go 2-0 In MMA, B-Team Black Belt Goes 4-0

Three jiu-jitsu stars remained undefeated in MMA recently, and could two of them make their way to the UFC soon?

Bia Mesquita — a 16-time world champion across ADCC, IBJJF gi and no gi — went 2-0 in her MMA career. The BJJ all-time great also had to deal with some early adversity before letting her grappling skills take over:

On the other hand, B-Team black belt, Damien Anderson, actually worked on his stand up game on his fourth MMA fight. He chose to trade for majority of the contest, eventually dropping his previously 5-1 opponent, before finishing him with a heel hook.

Lastly, CJI $1 million winner, Kade Ruotolo, went 2-0 in his MMA career, completely overwhelming his Pakistani opponent in little more than one minute. He dropped him with a wild overhand, before quickly finishing with their patented d’arce choke.

Ruotolo is by far the biggest star among these three undefeated grapplers, but with ONE Championship’s extremely restrictive contracts, the other two are far more likely to move to UFC first.

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Cooldown

Full WNO 25 Fight Card Finalized, Andrew Tackett And Others Added

The entire Who’s Number One 25 (WNO 25) line up for Dec. 4, 2024, has been finalized. As we wrote about earlier, it will feature both of the ADCC 2024 double gold medalists in Kaynan Duarte and Adele Fornarino, and the rest of the card has since been made official.

Added to the main card are other BJJ stars such as fan-favorite and CJI standout, Andrew Tackett, ADCC 2024 gold medalist, Felipe Pena, and Polaris champ Helena Crevar, who will all be competing in separate matches.

Checkout WNO 25’s full fight card below:

WNO 25 main card

• Kaynan Duarte vs Roberto Jimenez
• Pedro Marinho vs Izaak Michell – WNO light heavyweight title
• Adele Fornarino vs Alex Nguyen – WNO strawweight title
• Felipe Pena vs Declan Moody
• Helena Crevar vs Leilani Bernales
• Andrew Tackett vs Fabyury Khrysthyan

WNO 25 ‘Prelims’

• Julian Espinosa vs Randy Baker
• Emelio Hernandez vs Isaac Cordova
• Dylan Melton vs Sebastian Attard
• Thaynara Victoria vs Kathryn Discianni

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Review

To close things out, here are other interesting BJJ stories you might have missed:

• After five days of matches, Ryan Aitken beat Chris Wojcik in the final to become the PGF World Season 7 champion. You can watch full day events for free on YouTube (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4), and the eight-man tournament final on UFC Fight Pass.
• UFC fighter and BJJ star, Ryan Hall, said he had 19 (!!!) surgeries since his last fight, but is still “absolutely not” retiring.
• Robbery? Long-time UFC star Carlos Condit looked good in his return to competition, but lost a questionable decision in his grappling match against UFC Welterweight, Michael Page.
• The biggest professional event this month is The IBJJF Crown. Checkout the full line up for the rare professional gi event.

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