Vinicius “Draculino” Magalhães is a legendary competitor and coach, who had brought up many famous competitors in his career.

He had seen Jiu-Jitsu change by quite a lot throughout not years, but decades – and he remembers the time when BJJ practitioners were seen as thugs.
Here is what Draculino had to say on the topic in an interview with BJJEE:

Jiu-Jitsu grew way bigger, got way more organized and is spread world-wide nowadays…

I really think that we will keep on growing.
You can see whole countries where Jiu-Jitsu is a mandatory discipline in schools and universities.

And for us, coming from a time when BJJ was almost marginalized – when people used to think that we were thugs, that we had a gang mentality, that we were bad guys and when the only press we received was negative press…

To witness this is really amazing, and I am very proud to be a part of that.

According to Draculino, a lot of what has changed in the sport and it being taken seriously also has to do with the career opportunities that go along with it:

The sport’s evolution made it possible for a lot of kids to make a living completely out of competing solely in BJJ.
There’s some kids that really live off of competitions in grappling and Jiu-Jitsu events.

They didn’t need to make a transition to MMA, which was the case before.

And, of course, this is still the case nowadays as well – but what’s different today is that you see a lot of professional competitors putting 100% of their efforts into grappling and Jiu-Jitsu.

 

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