The popularity of BJJ is not growing with the rate we all want and expected. The reasons may be many and complex, but one of the biggest is that the BJJ competitions are not attractive for the casual fans.
IBJJF rules have been long criticized for being boring, and points have been blamed for taking the focus out from submissions to positions. The submission only events like Metamoris and Polaris have emerged and risen, but do they deliver more submissions and interesting matches?
Looking purely at the statistics, the answer is NO. But statistics can be misleading, and here they miss a very important point. The professional events have equally matched opponents and long rounds that require tactical and energy efficient play. That is why the submission rates at “submission only” events are not higher.
The most important question is how to make BJJ attractive for the casual fans, and at the same time preserve the effectiveness of the art?
The answer is – dynamic fights with many submissions.
To achieve that we will need tournament formats with shorter rounds, different level fighters and big bonuses for submission. The tournament format also allows people to pick their favourite in the early rounds and creates stars. It looks like Eddie Bravo got it right. The financial troubles of Metamoris and the many draws in the last Polaris events are one more indicator that Eddie Bravo Invitational has the best rule set for the casual fans.
Similar rules can be implemented in amateur tournaments too. We just need to keep the rounds short, the rules submission based and not have two many belt and level divisions. Winning by decision is a good option too. This will reduce the number of matches that go to overtime and will avoid some awkward situations where one competitor survives the whole match and then wins in the overtime.
Of course, IBJJF rules and long pro matches have their goals too and are here to stay. But to attract more people to BJJ, we need to make it interesting!
Todor Abrashev
BJJ competitor and instructor at Open Mat BJJ – Sofia.
