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The prodigy of Polish MMA & BJJ, Marcin Held: “If BJJ would pay as much as MMA, I would stay in BJJ”


Marcin Hel is a Polish brown belt with numerous titles, and he also a professional MMA fighter with a 13-2 record . 


1.Marcin, can you please present yourself to the BJJ Community of Eastern Europe (Name, age, where are you from, BJJ rank, where you train, your MMA record )

My name is Marcin Held, I’m 20 years old and I come from Poland. I training in my family city in Bastion Tychy club. My MMA record is 13-2-0.

2. Please tell us how you started training BJJ and became to be know as the BJJ and MMA prodigy of Poland

I started training when was 9. Firstly it was just for fun. In the same time I worked out football, but I had to chose one and then I decided it will be BJJ.
Now I know I made really good choice.

3. You started fighting pro MMA quite young. Was MMA always your goal while you were training BJJ? What attracted you to MMA?

 At the beginning I didn’t think about MMA. Later I realized that BJJ doesn’t let me keep up myself. I spent a lot of time on BJJ training and I am not be able to reconcile with break or even restriction my training, so I decide to try in MMA. Before I was professional I had a lot of unprofessional fights and I think I was be good at this because I had good BJJ background.

4. If you could make a good living teaching and competing in BJJ, would you still be fighting MMA?

Most of people doesn’t know how hard is MMA, how many sacrifices all fighter ought to do. They don’t realized about it often. For me MMA is great but absolutely hard and more dangerous than BJJ, so if in BJJ people could earn the same money like in MMA I would stay in BJJ. BJJ is just more friendly

5. Please tell us about your academy, Gracie Barra Bastion Tychy and about your best training partners.

My club Bastion Tychy is one of the best BJJ clubs in Poland. We also have MMA group and couple totally good fighters. My coach is black belt and he is experienced in pro MMA. Main sparing partner for me is Paweł Ostasz. We trained together a lot. He is very experienced and I can learn a lot when I practice with Paweł. I worked out also with other polish fighters e.g Artur Sowiński. When I prepared for fight I arrived to London ShootFighters for some time.

6. Please tell us about your last fight which you won in Bellator 2 weeks ago

My last opponent in Bellator was Derrick Kennington. I won in first round by leglock. In this fight I wanted to fight in standing but my opponent has big range advantage, I went for takedown and I catch heelhook.

7. We know that footlocks are a important part of your arsenal. What are your favorite BJJ submissions?



My favourite submission in BJJ are chokes, specially when I can use my opponent’s GI. Unfortunately I can’t do this techniques in MMA


8. Please name your Top 3 favorite BJJ players?

Rubens Charles Cobrinha , Robson Moura, Marcelo Garcia

9. How far do you want to take your BJJ and MMA career, and do you plan to become the first Polish BJJ Black Belt adult world champion and UFC champion?

Of course I hope some day I will be world champion ( maybe not first  ) and some day UFC champion. In closer future my the biggest dream is became a Bellator champion.

10. What is next for you for the rest of 2012?

I will fight in the next season light-weight tournament in Bellator.