Mikey Musumeci has a very distinct grappling style and it’s been attracting criticism from several loud voices in the BJJ community in recent weeks. It’s been stemming from his successful title-defense against Keven Carrasco at UFC BJJ 3, where Musumeci hopped towards his opponent on one leg to bait him into going for a takedown. Carrasco was originally a bit hesitant to go for the leg and for good reason, because he was submitted very quickly after the match went to the ground. It took just 3 minutes from start to finish for Musumeci to hit his patented Mikey Lock, retaining the UFC BJJ bantamweight title in the process.
Despite finding the finish quicker than most of the other competitors on the card, he’s still been the target of most of the criticism that the event has faced. The bulk of it comes from his tactic of baiting his opponent into a single-leg in order to start attacking the legs himself. There’s nothing in the rules that UFC BJJ uses to prevent him from doing that and like many unpopular tactics in the sport, it’s hard to argue that someone should stop doing something that they’re having success with. For Musumeci in particular, he’s been winning titles at every major promotion in the world so it’s not like he has any competitive reason to change.
The only real reason would be popularity, as Musumeci has been vocal about wanting to bring new fans to the sport and even existing ones generally don’t seem to like the tactic. That isn’t the only thing that appears to be a problem for Musumeci and UFC BJJ right now either, as Claudia Gadelha has been open about having difficulty finding opponents for him too. Musumeci is ultimately one of the stars that the promotion has pinned their future on and it doesn’t bode well for them if they can’t find him tough opponents and he’s competing in a fashion that a segment of the BJJ community isn’t a fan of.
Musumeci’s public statement directed at his critics explains his side of the story, and he seems to genuinely believe that this tactic is more entertaining to watch than some other competitors. He does make a solid point, that watching two Jiu-Jitsu competitors battle for collar-ties on the feet for an entire match isn’t entertaining either. He even placed some of the blame on Carrasco for not wanting to take the bait in the beginning, claiming that he would have got the finish quicker if he did. One thing Musumeci does seem to miss is that this isn’t a binary choice, there’s plenty of exciting competitors out there who don’t waste entire matches fighting for collar-ties or try to bait single-legs either.
Mikey Musumeci shared his response to critics of his grappling style in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
