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Vagner Rocha Slams IBJJF: ‘Don’t Water Down Jiu-Jitsu’

Vagner Rocha Slams IBJJF: ‘Don’t Water Down Jiu-Jitsu’

Vagner Rocha, a BJJ black belt under Pablo Popovitch and a UFC vet, recently competed in the IBJJF world No Gi championship. Rocha already has a tremendous competition pedigree, being EBI champion and having a bronze medal at ADCC worlds.

Rocha was also in the news last year, for the wrong reasons:

Vagner Rocha Statement Following Sparta Kick on AJ Agazarm

He wasn’t impressed with what IBJJF, Jiu-Jitsu leading competition circuit, has done with sport Jiu-Jitsu and wrote about it on his Facebook:

So I competed at the IBJJF NoGi Worlds this weekend, which I haven’t competed in any of their format tournaments in over 5 years. Reason being, I have felt a certain type of way about the tournament rules, judging, and their lack of promoting JiuJitsu in the right direction.

But against my better judgment, I entered their tournament to try to show case my JiuJitsu to the world. On a positive note, they are the most efficient tournament on the planet. Everything is on time and even early sometimes.

However, my overall conclusion is that the format has too many holes. The rules limit the JiuJitsu athletes to certain movements that make you weak and vulnerable to all leg attacks.

It also promotes a lot of stalling; I often saw athletes score and basically run to win. Should you win a match for almost doing something? Because interpretations of almost doing something varies from person to person. #advantage

How many times can you see two athletes doing double guard pulls? I saw many athletes win matches because they played the rules better, not because they had better JiuJitsu. You can’t be a World Champion for almost doing something, or playing rules without doing some amazing JiuJitsu.

We cannot be sold that this is the purest of our art, or the path to be #1. It’s not fair to the world to call an IBJJF tournament victory a World Championship title. This is nothing against the competitors! What I’m saying is with so many great athletes in one place, don’t hold them and JiuJitsu down with this format. #DontWaterDownJiuJitsu #WeCanDoBetter

Last year, Chris Brennan shared similar thoughts:

Chris Brennan Slams NoGi Worlds, Sport Jiu-Jitsu And Corruption