Ed O’Neill is a famous actor known for his starring roles as Al Bundy in Married with Children and Jay Pritchett in Modern Family, but he’s also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) black belt. Although today there are many celebrity BJJ enthusiasts, O’Neill was one of the first few famous faces to take an interest in the sport. O’Neill began his training all the way back in 1991 when there were only a tiny number of locations in America that were available and most people training would be in direct contact with either the Gracie family or the Machado brothers. He actually explained how he was introduced to the sport as well:
“When I first came here, I had a friend John Milius who was a producer and writer; a friend of ours. He wrote Conan the Barbarian, he wrote Apocalypse Now, he wrote Jeremiah Johnson’s Big Wednesday… Very famous guy. He was taking lessons here with Rorion (Gracie) and his son was taking here with Royce (Gracie)… He said ‘you gotta meet these guys’”
Although Ed O’Neill is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt today, he wasn’t always eager to learn the sport. He explained that he had an interest in boxing and wrestling, but only agreed to even try out BJJ because of his friend Milius:
“I go in, I walk in and he’s in there with Rorion rolling around. John was a pretty big guy, they’re rolling around. I look and think ‘well uh, you know, rolling around on top of each other, place is very clean.’… So now I’m thinking ‘I gotta get out of here’. So they finish and John introduced me to Rorion…”
O’Neill tried to make his escape but Rorion Gracie talked him into staying for a ten-minute lesson, and even arranged for him to borrow a gi. That’s when Ed O’Neill explained what his first BJJ lesson was actually like:
“Do me a favor, just lie down. Lie down on your back. I say okay, so I lie down and he says ‘I want you to imagine you’re in your house, you’re in the middle of the night with your wife and kids and everything. Now you come out and a bad guy’s hiding and jumps on top of you, pushes you down and gets on top of you, what are you gonna do?’ I say ‘it’s fine, I’ll push the guy off me’… ‘You think you could push me off? That’s what I want you to do.”
Ed O’Neill set the scene well and he explained that Rorion was around 175lbs at the time while he was around 230lbs, so he had a clear size advantage over the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert. He was confident that he was going to be able to throw Rorion off him but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move him. That’s when Rorion decided to give O’Neill his second challenge:
“He said ’Do you think you can hold me down for 3 seconds?’ and I thought well, 3 seconds? Now that got me. “3 seconds? Yes!” Even though I just was humiliated, he said ‘That’s all I want you to do, just hold me down for 3 seconds’”
That second challenge went just as badly as the first one for Ed O’Neill, but that from moment on he was sold on the value of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Although the self-defense aspect is what first attracted O’Neill to the sport, he’s since found that there’s a lot more to be gained from BJJ:
“To me it was like the most amazing thing I ever experienced. The whole techniques and everything… Of course his dad was coming around in those days, so I got to know Helio (Gracie). Many classes actually, I probably had about 10 or 12 classes with Helio. All the brothers, or most of them. So for me it’s been a great experience. For me they’re kinda like, in a way, family.”
Ed O’Neill finished his speech by giving a little insight into the moment that he was given his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt too:
“When I got my black belt, I think it was last year or some time. When I got it same time as a bunch of my friends got it, I didn’t expect to get it. I honestly really didn’t think I was going to get it, but I said ‘16 years, this must come naturally’.”
The full video of Ed O’Neill giving a talk about the journey to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Jiu-Jitsu Times:
