Brendan Schaub recently looked back on his match against Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu a little over a decade after it took place at Metamoris 2. The two men engaged in a 20-minute match that is largely remembered as one of the worst professional Jiu-Jitsu matches of all time due to how little action actually occurred. The majority of the match was essentially Abreu sitting in guard and attempting to force Schaub to engage with him, while Schaub refused to do so. Given that the only real attempts at anything came from Abreu, he was awarded the decision win from the judges in the end.
When Schaub looked back on that match recently, he saw things a little differently to how many of the fans did:
“You talking about when I went against the number one grappler in the world? I stepped in his world as a brown belt and he couldn’t submit me in any facet. Oh he didn’t engage, it’s his platform. It was his intention to engage me. That’s what we were hoping for so I choke him out and I almost did, that’s on him.”
While putting the onus on Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu to engage with him, Brendan Schaub went a little further and compared what happened in their grappling match at Metamoris 2 to what might happen in a potential MMA fight:
“I stepped in his arena. What do you think would have happened if he stepped in my arena? It would last 30 seconds, he would get annihilated.”
While Schaub does make a fair point that he would almost certainly have won a professional MMA fight against Cyborg, it’s worth noting that the rules of engagement are a little different there. MMA fighters would not be allowed to disengage to the same degree that Schaub did during his match with Cyborg. Schaub has kept up with his grappling training regardless though, and was promoted to BJJ black belt just a few years ago. Although he still trains, Schaub has not competed in any sport in a little over a decade at this point. He retired from professional MMA shortly after his fight with Abreu at Metamoris 2 and hasn’t looked back since, other than briefly considering a grappling match with Nate Diaz.
The full episode where Brendan Schaub talked about his performance against Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu at Metamoris 2 was uploaded to his official YouTube channel:
