The current Super Heavy world champion Rodolfo Vieira was not present at the Pan this year but he has been following the action on Live Stream. He wasn’t impressed by what he has seen.

Rodolfo is known as a finisher. You will never see him resort to tactics such as winning by advantage and slowing down the game by putting his opponent in the 50/50 guard and other sport specific strategic positions.

He took to his Facebook page to share his disgust at the current state of competition Jiu-Jitsu:

For the good of the sport, they could change the rule for those who stay more than 2 minutes in that shit that is the 50/50 guard. They should penalize them and get them back to their feet. This disgusts me and makes me want to sleep when I watch these matches WTF. I’d rather lose than win fighting like this !!

 

Xande Ribeiro also recently voiced his dissaproval of the 50/50. In an interview with tatame, the two-time ADCC champion was tolerant of the berimbolo, but criticized the double guard pull and excess time spent in 50-50.

 

“You take what you want of Jiu-Jitsu. Some people tie the entire fight and only rise at the end to get points and to win. The Federation is very reluctant to punish athletes who exaggerate in the 50-50 and the double pull. You have to reward a sweep, a pass, something that I built and honed by the sweat of my workout. The problem is the 50-50. It looks like two idiots on a seesaw. The Paulo Miyao and Keenan Cornelius, are two exceptional athletes who are, were, in a match, more than seven minutes on 50/50 and in the end went up to try to make points. I think that’s devaluing our sport “

 

Royler Gracie, the son of Helio Gracie partly ‘approves’ of the new positions, but he warns in an interview in Portuguese with Tatame that they are only good for competitions, nothing more:

“These are very good positions for the competitions, but nothing more. There are people learning to 50/50 and berimbolo but don’t know how to escape mount. For competitions, I think the IBJJF has an obligation to change the rule so that the fights are more dynamic. Now, if you are a practitioner of Jiu-Jitsu, please learn to defend yourself rather than learn fancy competition stuff “