Mads Burnell is an MMA veteran with experience fighting for the biggest promotions in the world, but he recently made some explosive comments on the state of modern Jiu-Jitsu. Burnell is a UFC veteran who currently fights for Bellator and he’s actually well-positioned to talk about the way that Jiu-Jitsu is taught and practiced across the world. That’s because Burnell is a student of Chris Haueter, and he also happens to have made one of the quickest rises through the ranks to black belt.
He was recently conducting some interviews ahead of his fight with Daniel Weichel at Bellator 299 and he was asked about whether Jiu-Jitsu was still relevant in modern MMA. He didn’t mince words giving his answer either:
“Not the way that they teach it in the Jiu-Jitsu gyms today. It’s soft as f*ck to say it like, mildly.”
That might seem like an odd statement coming from a BJJ black belt, especially one who has used his grappling skills to register multiple submission wins in his professional MMA career. Burnell expanded on his statements though to clarify the issues he sees within modern Jiu-Jitsu:
“They’re going for worm guard, spider guard, this guard, that guard. The old-school way like Renzo (Gracie) and Rickson (Gracie) did it like: get the takedown, get on top, get to mount, punch somebody in the face and choke people. That’s how it works in MMA. But this soft sh*t where they butt scoot to each other and try to get each other’s foot, that sh*t don’t fly in MMA. When you get slapped, that don’t work.”
He also went on to explain why he thinks there are more submission finishes in professional grappling than in MMA as well:
“I think you’ve gotta be smart, always position before submission. Usually if you get the submission it’s because the opponent kinda quit on you, especially in MMA. In Jiu-Jitsu it’s more like, scrambly, people open up more for position but MMA guys are better at getting up. That’s actually a thing I think is a major flaw in today’s Jiu-Jitsu schools is that they emphasize way more on submissions than positions. If I have my position correct, you’ll never get me in a submission.”
So it’s not that Mads Burnell thinks that Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t work in MMA at all, he just takes issue with the way the sport is taught and the way it plays out on the competitive scene. He had some suggestions for how to fix that though:
“It all goes back to the Jiu-Jitsu schools, they’re soft. It’s as simple as that. When you look at ADCC and all that stuff, none of them goes for the wrestling. They’re just ‘oh, I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna scoot with my butt towards you.’ No, that’s not a fight. If they wanna make Jiu-Jitsu great again, and make it great again in MMA, they should start giving minus points for jumping guard. If your guard is that freaking good, you’ll get a minus point, and I bet you then they stop jumping guard.”
The full pre-fight interview with Mads Burnell where he gives his opinion on the state of modern Jiu-Jitsu was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Sherdog:
