Nicky Rodriguez has spent the last few years establishing himself as one of the best BJJ competitors in the world but the possibility of an MMA career is something that’s been floated around for almost that entire time. For his part, Rodriguez has never expressed any real desire to make the transition to MMA and he hasn’t spent any length of time working on his striking either. That hasn’t prevented fans from clamouring for him to make that move though, and as an athletic heavyweight grappler it’s not hard to see why. Someone with his physical and technical attributes could have a fantastic MMA career if he ever chose to pursue one.
The topic of a potential transition to MMA came up once again during the post-fight press conference for UFC Fight Pass Invitational 8, and Nicky Rodriguez was quick to shut the idea down:
“I’m a millionaire with no CTE, I think I’m good. Those guys are a different breed. I understand my capabilities in jiu-jitsu and I understand what it would take to become the UFC champion. For me it would probably take five years committing to striking and then that takes away from some of the jiu-jitsu.”
Rodriguez isn’t wrong either, plenty of elite MMA fighters will be suffering with CTE symptoms but the risk in professional grappling is relatively minimal. It doesn’t really make sense then for someone to pursue an MMA career if they can make a similar amount of money in grappling, and Rodriguez did recently win a million dollars at the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational. That’s more than most MMA fighters will ever make for one night’s work, unless they reach the very top of the sport as a dominant champion. It isn’t just the financial implications and health risk that put Rodriguez off the idea of an MMA career though:
“I don’t know if I would love fighting, but I know I absolutely love jiu-jitsu, so that’s what I do. I wake up everyday with a goal in mind when it comes to training. There’s no need for me to take a different path. I’m making great money, and that money continues to multiply as I make better decisions.”
Nicky Rodriguez has previously been open about the fact that it would take a lot of money for him to take an MMA fight, and it’s unlikely that any promotion would be willing to pay him what he’d want given that he’s completely untested in the sport. He’s not wrong either, his Jiu-Jitsu career is only growing bigger each time he competes and that sum of money he’d ask for likely grows at the same time. He actually has been offered a bare-knuckle MMA fight in the past but that never came to fruition and now it’s reached a point where the possibility of him ever moving into the sport has reached zero.
The full UFC Fight Pass Invitational 8 post-fight press conference with Nicky Rodriguez where he shuts down a potential transition to MMA was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of MMA Mania:
