Jordan Burroughs is one of the best wrestlers on the planet and he recently shared some footage of him getting involved in a no gi BJJ training session. Burroughs has had an incredibly long freestyle wrestling career and first established his place at the very top of the sport over a decade ago. He was already used to competing and winning at the highest level even before that, as he won three Big 12 championships and was an NCAA champion twice during his time in college. He came up against some of the best MMA fighters of his generation during that time as well, registering wins over Justin Gaethje, Gregor Gillespie, and Michael Chandler.
Although he’d already competed in freestyle wrestling during his collegiate career, he first made an attempt at the world championship after he graduated in 2011. He won a gold medal in the 74kg division and continued his undefeated streak over the next few years, taking home a gold medal at the Olympics in 2012 and winning the world championship again in 2013. Burroughs went on to win another four gold medals and three bronze medals at the world championships over the next decade, including a move up to 79kg as of 2021.
Given the dominance that Burroughs enjoyed during his wrestling career, there was constant questions around whether or not he would make the transition to MMA. He never did of course, but that’s not the only new challenge available to him in the combat sports world either. Several elite wrestlers have made their professional BJJ debut over the years, and now it’s clear that Jordan Burroughs has a fair bit of experience training in the sport. The amount of crossover between wrestling and BJJ is huge of course, so it’s only natural that Burroughs would look great on the mats regardless of what ruleset he was training under.
Jordan Burroughs shared footage of him training in a no gi BJJ session in a post to his official Instagram account:
