In a candid conversation, former UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub revealed that his transition away from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu wasn’t just about competing — it was about the culture shift he experienced between different training environments.

It took place when he rolled with Rener and Ryron Gracie:

You know, I rolled with Rener and Ryron at the Torrance Academy, and then when I started rolling down where I’m at, it was like guys would go so hard.

I just went, like: “Hey, man, Dana White’s not going to give you a contract if you tap me out. Like, I’m literally just looking for work, man.”

So it was a fight. It was a fight.
And eventually I was like, man, this just isn’t what I want to do every day.

The shift in atmosphere — from the more relaxed and flowing rolls at the Gracie Academy to intense, competitive sparring — left Schaub disillusioned.
For someone who had already proven himself in MMA, the idea of treating every roll like a fight didn’t appeal anymore.

Schaub’s jiu-jitsu story is complex. He earned a brown belt under Amal Easton in Colorado, but when he moved to Los Angeles and trained at the Gracie Academy, it created some confusion.

In an earlier Fight Companion podcast, Schaub explained how he ended up wearing a white belt there, even though he held a brown belt elsewhere:

I had no issue with it. I literally didn’t care but I would tell guys I’m not a white belt like- I’m not a white belt I know what I’m doing brother. When I moved from Colorado to Los Angeles, we trained mostly no-gi, so when we rolled in the gi occasionally to mix up the training and sharpen my defense/escapes, I would wear a loaner gi and a white belt that came with the gi (since they didn’t have loaner brown belts).

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