John Danaher believes that today’s Jiu-Jitsu practitioners are significantly more well-rounded than previous generations.

In a recent discussion on Jake Shields’ podcast, Danaher addressed the frequent complaint that modern BJJ is too sport-oriented and wouldn’t hold up in real-world scenarios.
He strongly disagrees with this notion:

In terms of just pure Jiu-Jitsu, I truly think that the modern generation of Jiu-Jitsu was significantly better than, say, for example, my generation.

And in a Jiu-Jitsu match, they would annihilate them.

One of the key areas of improvement he highlighted was in takedowns:

Most modern Jiu-Jitsu athletes, especially of the last five years, are significantly better in takedown and standing position than the athletes of my generation where we did almost no standing training.

Danaher also pointed to the evolution of his student, Gordon Ryan, as an example of how modern athletes are constantly developing and refining their styles:

When he first arrived, he was a leg lock guy from bottom, then he was a leg lock guy from bottom who also had good back attacks, and then he switched completely mid-career to a top pressure player who did most of his best work from mounted position.

According to Danaher, today’s top competitors don’t specialize in just one area – they’re proficient in multiple aspects of the game:

They are very strong in leg locks, very competent in bottom position, but they also have a good pressure passing game, they’re very good in these top positions and they can put people down.

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