Stuart Cooper is a legendary Jiu-Jitsu videographer known for his incredible ADCC content, and he recently explained how FloGrappling led to the breakdown of his relationship with the promotion. Cooper appeared on an episode of El Segundo podcast with Craig Jones and they discussed his history with the world’s biggest no gi grappling promotion. It was a mutually beneficial relationship for a very long time and for many older grapplers, Cooper’s ADCC videos were part of what attracted them to the sport in the first place. They were incredibly popular highlight reels that were brilliantly made, showcasing the very best professional grapplers in the world.
According to Cooper, he actually first got involved with ADCC before he ever even knew much about the competitive side of grappling at the highest level:
“When I did 2011, I didn’t really know much about it at all. It was a friend of mine called Jason Tan that put me in contact with Braulio (Estima) and he told me he was preparing for this massive event called ADCC. I didn’t know many of the competitors, I didn’t really know who Braulio was at the time. I became good friends with him afterwards but I remember getting interviews with Rickson Gracie, Kron Gracie, and Ryan Hall afterwards and I didn’t actually know who they were.”
Although it might seem like FloGrappling and ADCC have a long-standing relationship, Stuart Cooper was actually involved with ADCC long before they ever appeared on the streaming site. He was pretty complementary about the work that FloGrappling do, but there are aspects of their business that he wasn’t as supportive of:
“FloGrappling have done a lot of good quality stuff and they have done some good stuff to make the sport grow, but I think it’s just with a growing sport like Jiu-Jitsu it’s not good to just all of a sudden just ban all videographers. I’ve been going there for years, putting out these highlights for free on YouTube which was growing the sport. With that footage making videos of Braulio Estima, (Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu), Gunnar Nelson… And it was boosting their profiles. Unfortunately, FloGrappling were very, very draconian with their video rights.”
Cooper was doing great work with ADCC from 2011 to 2015 and his highlight reels are still some of the most watched videos in the sport even ten years later. That’s what led to him being invited to work on ADCC 2019 as well:
“I just got an Instagram message from Mo (Jassim) saying if I would like to be there to film 2019 ADCC, I was like ‘Yes, great, thanks for thinking of me! I’d love to!’ I was actually thinking of reaching out anyway because I’d like to be involved… I said right away when he offered me if I’d like to film 2019. I was like ‘look, will I have any trouble with FloGrappling?’ and he was like ‘nope. I have in the contract I’ve got my own videographer. You have full access.’ And I’m like ‘are you sure? I don’t want any trouble from Flo(Grappling).’ He goes ‘no, don’t worry about it, you’ve got full access.’ And I’m like ‘can I use the footage for some of my own videos afterwards?’ and he’s like ‘Yeah, you can do whatever you want with the footage afterwards.’”
At first glance it seems like everything would have worked out well with that arrangement, but Stuart Cooper explained that the agreement between FloGrappling and ADCC may not have been as simple as it sounded at first:
“When it actually came to (it) I flew all the way out to California and then I think it was a couple of days before, all of a sudden FloGrappling are giving me a lot of restrictions about what I can or cannot do. They’re saying I’m not allowed submission finishes in the highlight, which is kinda strange. It’s like we’re doing an ADCC highlight here, you want a highlight with no submission finishes?!”
That wasn’t the only restriction that FloGrappling put on the ADCC highlight reel that Cooper was making either. He went on to explain that there was further issues for him when it came to trying to deal with both organisations at the same time:
“So when I returned, moved to Vancouver at the time, I remember it was maybe a week or two weeks afterwards that Mo reached out to me and was like ‘how’s the highlight going?’ I’m like look it’s finished, I’ve actually finished it and he’s like let me have a look and you’re good to release it. I’m like well FloGrappling have been telling me I’m not allowed to release it for 90 days and they’re also saying I’m not allowed submission finishes in it and the shots are not allowed to be more than 3 seconds. He’s like ‘look I’m the boss, they do as I say, just release it!’ I’m like ‘Mo I don’t want any trouble here, can you just call Flo up and get the green light. Talk to them and say that we spoke and I’m gonna put this out?’”
It didn’t take long for that to get resolved, or so Cooper thought:
“He gets back to me the next day and goes ‘you’re good, go ahead and release it’ so I released the highlight. Next thing you know f**k me, my text messages, my emails… I’m getting quite threatening emails from FloGrappling, very upset that I released this highlight. So I’m like super f***ing confused, so I actually call up Riccardo (‘Baleia’ Ammendolia) and I’m like Riccardo what’s going on?! He goes ‘why did you release the highlight?!’ and I’m like ‘hang on, didn’t Mo call you up yesterday to say that we’re gonna release this?’ and he goes ‘yeah, he did but you still shouldn’t have done it.’”
That sequence of mixed messages from ADCC and FloGrappling is what ultimately led to Stuart Cooper no longer working as a videographer for the promotion too. That obviously put a sour note on the relationship and things took a turn for the worse when Cooper was honest about that in public:
“I saw some people talking about the ADCC 2019 highlight… I just made one comment, I just said ‘look, FloGrappling did not give me permission, ADCC did. If anything, FloGrappling gave me a bunch of restrictions.’… Mo screenshot it, sent it to me, and he was very upset at me. Extremely upset. He’s like ‘do you think you’re going to be invited to ADCC i the future?’ and he sent me some pretty rude messages and I just didn’t even respond. It was like right… I think that’s me done with ADCC at this point, so I was never allowed back after that.”
While this might not seem like a huge issue to people unfamiliar with the content creation business, it’s important to remember that rights are basically everything. It’s what allows a creator to profit off what they’re making and for photographers or videographers, it can often be the main way that they expect to make any money. Cooper actually explained that his deal with ADCC meant that owning the rights to the footage he shot was actually a key element of their agreement:
“I didn’t sign anything, I never got paid to do it or anything. I was happy with the rights to the footage. So that’s the way I saw it, if I can have the rights to the footage then I can make money from this afterwards. Making my little short films of all the different athletes… That’s the way I was looking at it, if I get the rights to the footage then you don’t have to pay me, you know? I did actually make some money from the sponsor logos in the end, but I never actually got paid from ADCC or Mo (Jassim) to make that highlight.”
The full El Segundo podcast interview with Stuart Cooper where he explains his absence from ADCC and dealings with FloGrappling was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu: