I’ve been lying on my couch for two days, fighting off Influenza A, and I’m miserable. But most of all, I’m bored. There is a limit to how much “Declassified: Untold Stories Of American Spies” you can watch in a weekend before you lose your lust for life and pray for the Reaper to guide you across the River Styx into infinite darkness. I know the ferryman is Charon, too, nerds, but only nerds would get the reference, so back off my artistic freedoms, man.
So, here I am writing this article to avoid my deathbed, possibly leading me to be the victim of a future homicide at the hands of a random 10th Planet purple belt. But hear me now: submission-only Jiu-Jitsu will never be a spectator sport. Never.
I can hear the outcries of fans and promoters across the genre, ready to prove me wrong with data-driven facts to prove their points. And it’s true—more people are training Jiu-Jitsu than ever, and viewership numbers are astronomical for events. But I don’t care. It means nothing.
When I watch crowds at a WNO event playing with their phones or chatting while the best grapplers in the world compete in front of them, all I can picture is a behavioral science experiment on herd compliance. These people are all there because they think they should be, so they comply in suspended disbelief, applauding accordingly in unison.
I’m not a points Nazi, nor do I think that sub-only grappling is ruining our sport’s “real fighting” component. Even a guard-pulling Nancy would murder 99% of the public in a street fight if they were a high-level competitor.
Sub-only matches are tedious and complicated to follow, even for seasoned practitioners. But they are not important. Hardcore fans will watch anyway because they are in love with Jiu-Jitsu. The only way our sport goes mainstream—and our competitors have a chance to make enough money to make going pro worth the effort—is if people who don’t train tune in. And they don’t know why the guy on his back is winning or what the hell happened in the EBI overtime.
But I tell you what they do understand: a scoreboard. There’s drama in knowing a grappler is down 2-0 with 30 seconds left and desperately needs a guard pass or takedown to win. Those moments are the core of what makes all athletics exciting: the quantifiable ebb and flow of action between two opposing forces until one overcomes the other in the closing moments. Real sports fans can watch any sport and get excited—even without understanding all the rules—as long as there’s a clearly defined outcome.
Maybe it’s because modern Jiu-Jitsu has a counter-culture element pulling the strings. Until recently, it never attracted top-tier athletes in America because those athletes were smart enough to play sports that pay—football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, soccer, or pretty much anything else.
So, what are we left with in Jits? Guys who already got their competitive loins furrowed or nerds who were never good enough for team sports and probably got picked on a lot in high school. Be honest, guys. We’re adults now.
Those guys despise points matches. They hate that a better athlete can take them down and hold them there, rendering their fancy technique useless because the other guy is just bigger, better, and faster. It’s why Brazilians on Açaí and prayers—aka “La Bomba”—dominated everything until the last five years.
Then Eddie Bravo changed the game. He removed points and created an event that let opponents fight to the tap, as God intended. His unique overtime format guaranteed a winner at the end of regulation. Thus, the Eddie Bravo Invitational (EBI) was born.
Eddie’s format was going to prove his systems were superior. And he probably would have—if John Danaher hadn’t decided to become an evil genius hell-bent on world domination instead of just the world’s greatest grappling coach.
Submission-only grappling ushered in a new breed of submission-hunting gunslingers and brought us out of the dark ages when professional huggers could stall their way to championships. But the time has come to put it to rest. It served its purpose.
At the ADCC finals last year in Vegas, I witnessed something I’d never seen before in a grappling match: excitement. An arena full of spectators screaming at the top of their lungs, the UFC promoting Gordon Ryan’s upcoming match, and millions tuning in. And what format did they use? Sub-only with EBI overtime. We were close.
I know many respected members of the BJJ community will disagree and potentially disown me. I’m sorry, but I can’t sit by and watch this madness anymore. After nearly a decade of competition and journalistic coverage, I have a right to my opinion—and it matters.
I own a gym now, and I want nothing more than to sell my students on the glories of professional grappling, helping them build a better life. But that’s a lie. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze to reach the top, because no one outside our gyms cares. I firmly believe that the stubborn insistence on sub-only formats for our biggest events has us living in a false reality.
And for the love of God, can we please quit playing cheesy house music during matches? That is the corniest L.A. thing I’ve ever seen—and it wasn’t even cool back when it was cool.
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