How long did it take to understand BJJ?

[IronFist]

I remember like in the first UFCs it was style vs. style, and no one knew wtf was going on when they fought a grappler. How long after UFC 1 did it take for non-grapplers to have an idea of what was going on, start training in grappling, and start learning how to deal with it?

Just curious.

[SevenStar]

96, maybe? before that, you had random guys like shamrock, mezger and hackney, but around 96 and 97, mo smith, frank shamrock, vitor belfort, tito, etc. So, I guess around UFC 12.

[backbreaker]

Yeah, there's Bas Rutten, and for a while there was this team they called the alliance with Frank Shamrock, Maurice Smith, and Tsyuyoshi Kosaka.

[SevenStar]

Bas didn't hit UFC till 1998. He had been competing in events like pancrase since back in 93 though.

[LEGEND]

Within 5 years there were schools everywhere and numerous lower level blue belts( the 2nd belt in BJJ ) teaching.

[PHILBERT]

I find it funny that when you watch the first UFCs, they sit there and say things like "This man is a Tae Kwon Do point sparring champ, and his opponent has been doing Judo for a number of years." Yeah, real fair match up there. 5 seconds after it begins, it is over.

Though I do remember back in UFC 6, a TKD guy was beating the crap out of one guy for about the first 15 seconds, just wailing on him with punches and kicks, and then got hit in the back of the head and knocked out. His opponent was too beaten to continue into the next match.

[Pork Chop]

That was Paul Varelans who won with the elbow shot to the back of the skull on Cal Worsham (I believe). He went on to get the cr@p kicked out of him by Tank in the next fight. Paul's one of those guys that just doesn't know how to admit he's getting his azz whipped. He complained about the stoppage to Tank. I think he also complained about the stoppage to Kerr, one of the most 1-sided azz beatings ever.

[SevenStar]

I thought he was JKD, not TKD...

[SevenStar]

I just checked - he's got his style listed as trapfighting.

[IronFist]

Where's a good place to get old UFC's on DVD? I can't find them anywhwere. New ones, too.

[Pork Chop]

I have that one and the guy that Varelans elbowed in the back of the head to KO after getting his bootie kicked for a good minute or two was definitely TKD. Not that he threw that many kicks or was even successful mind you...

sherdog.com sells a bunch of that kinda stuff, maybe try there.

EDIT: I mean he was listed as TKD on the tape. I'm not sure what he is now because I think he's since opened up another school that was more exclusively MMA. Varelans wasn't TKD, Worsham (or whatever his name is) was.

[SevenStar]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=42851&item=4181918334&rd=1

[Judge Pen]

I understood BJJ the first time I had my elbow hyperextended from an armbar.