Eddie Bravo is a curious case, a serious jiu-jitsu player who some think is a crackpot and some think is the truth. Best known for training UFC commentator/living expression of Reddit Joe Rogan, he's also done some impressive stuff in competition—his win over Royler Gracie at an event the Abu Dhabi Combat Club held in 2003 was one of the great sports upsets of the century—and has some interesting ideas about the way jiu-jitsu translates into the MMA environment.


Ahead of a rematch with Gracie this weekend at the Metamoris 3 event in Los Angeles, Bravo gave an interview to MMAFighting.com's Luke Thomas. Up to a certain point, it was really compelling—Thomas has a genuine knack for getting athletes and trainers to talk about the intricacies of their sport, and Bravo has things to say that are worth listening to about such subjects as why jiu-jitsu artists who train while wearing a gi often find themselves helpless against wrestlers. As he pointed out, even the Gracies, the founding family of jiu-jitsu, admit that lots of their techniques are useless in MMA. (The short version is that they're meant to be used on people who are wearing shirts, which MMA fighters don't do.)

Roger Gracie said 80 percent of BJJ with the gi is useless in MMA. He said it! Rickson Gracie, quoted, 70 percent of Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the gi is useless in MMA. These guys are saying it. I've been saying it for 11 years and now they're saying it.


Fair enough! Things got weird, though, when Bravo thought it over and came up with this as the single analogy that would best express his strong convictions about whether you should or shouldn't wear specialized gear while training jiu-jitsu:

There should not be any debate anymore. It's ridiculous. It's like debating Tower 7. Demolition expert after demolition expert after demolition expert is on video watching it go down and telling you it's a controlled demo and there's no demolition experts on the planet who will get on video and say fires brought down Tower 7. But yet, people will still believe the government or believe that fires brought down Tower 7 when that's never happened in the history of skyscrapers ever. No plane in Tower 7. Demolition experts, 2,000 structural engineers, architectural engineers, they all confirm it was a controlled demolition. Yeah, people still believe the government because the government said, 'Eh, it was fires. It got hot.' So, that right there tells you there's a certain percentage of the population, no matter how you break it down to them scientifically - and ironically, they're the ones always wanting science - but they only believe government science. They don't believe unbiased science. That tells you right there there's a sickness going on. There's some kind of brain disease going on that will not let intelligent people look at the evidence without any bias. Look at the evidence like a true detective. There is something there that will not let their brains do that and it's scary. It's not only in conspiracy theories in Tower 7, it's in a lot of aspects of life. Here's another one, jiu-jitsu, the same thing.

God damn it, Eddie.

[MMAFighting]