Robert Drysdale, ADCC champion and MMA competitor turned Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu historian, has spent years researching old newspapers, letters, and interviews to separate the sport’s mythology from what’s actually documented.

On The MMA Lab, he laid out an argument that runs against much of BJJ’s own marketing – its global rise wasn’t driven by technical superiority, but largely by culture:

Now, people think that Jiu-Jitsu is popular because of the techniques. That’s nonsense.
The techniques exist in catch wrestling. Not all of them, but mostly.

In fact, you could argue that catch wrestling has a greater arsenal than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

He extended the argument to other grappling disciplines:

They’re in sambo. They’re in kosen judo. They’re in judo itself, right?
So, I think newaza itself is the rest is the key to the success of the recipe. It is part of it.

Drysdale argued the real edge came down to something far less technical:

I strongly believe that the leading motive that you know what gave BJJ an edge over other martial arts, and this is very difficult for other martial artists to concede on, but I just don’t see a way around it, was precisely that Copacabana culture, that aspect of Brazilian culture, right, that Carlson (Gracie) brought to the mats.

For Drysdale, BJJ effectively became a vehicle for exporting a broader Brazilian sensibility to the world:

Essentially Brazil managed to export to the world the very best it had to offer, which was that happy way of like joking around and being in and not taking everything so seriously all the time.
That’s very Brazilian.

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