Famous actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar has fallen in love with Jiu-Jitsu over the last few years and now dedicates a huge amount of his time to the sport. Gosselaar is best known for his starring role as Zack Morris on ‘Saved By The Bell’, and he’s not the only member of that cast that has discovered the sport either. His co-star Mario Lopez is perhaps one of the most well-known celebrity BJJ enthusiasts in the world, and he’s been incredibly active both in endorsing the sport and in stepping on the competition mats himself. Gosselaar and Lopez have even trained together in the past when they were both blue belts.
Gosselaar recently appeared on a podcast with Kristian Harloff and was open about how much Jiu-Jitsu means to him:
“I’m obsessed with Jiu-Jitsu. I spend all my time watching Jiu-Jitsu videos. It’s like a religion.”
He always makes time for training and he revealed that it’s one of the biggest priorities in his life:
“I schedule my day around my Jiu-Jitsu training time. If I wasn’t spending this time with you doing this podcast, I’d probably be training Jiu-Jitsu right now.”
Like many people in Jiu-Jitsu, Mark-Paul Gosselaar spent a long time at blue belt. He was actually a blue belt for 8 years before being promoted to purple belt by Rigan Machado, but he revealed that it was dedication that drove him to that level:
“A few years ago, when I was just a blue belt. I made a conscious decision to spend all my energy and free time on my family and then on improving in Jiu-Jitsu.”
In his final thoughts on Jiu-Jitsu, Gosselaar echoed one of the most popular sentiments about the sport. He likened it to chess and explained how truly endless the sport is, two things that have been discussed extensively by both elite competitors and other famous BJJ practitioners in interviews:
“It’s chess on the mat. I like things that humble you. You never feel like you’ve mastered it.”
Mark-Paul Gosselaar discussed his love for Jiu-Jitsu in a recent podcast with Kristian Harloff and the clip was uploaded to his official clips channel on YouTube:
