Every MMA fan has watched a fight end on the ground — a rear naked choke slapped on tight, a triangle locked in from the guard, an armbar cranked until the tap came. In almost every case, what they were watching was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is the single most decisive martial art in the history of mixed martial arts, and understanding it is the key to understanding the ground game that shapes every professional fight today.
What Is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, known as BJJ, is a grappling martial art that focuses on ground fighting, positional control, and submission techniques. The core philosophy is simple but radical: a smaller, weaker person can defeat a larger, stronger opponent by taking the fight to the ground and applying joint locks or chokes that force a submission.
Unlike striking arts, where size and power translate directly into damage, BJJ is built around leverage, technique, and control. A well-positioned fighter on the ground can neutralise a significant physical disadvantage. That principle turned BJJ from a regional Brazilian curiosity into the most important combat sport on the planet.
The Origins: From Japan to Brazil
BJJ’s roots trace back to Judo and the Japanese art of Jiu-Jitsu. In the early 20th century, Mitsuyo Maeda — a Japanese judoka and prizefighter who had toured the world competing in submission bouts — arrived in Brazil. He became a friend and teacher to the Gracie family, most notably to Carlos Gracie, who passed the art to his brothers and his son, Hélio.
Hélio Gracie, physically weaker than most training partners, refined the art further around leverage and positional control rather than raw strength. The Gracies developed their own system — what we now call Gracie Jiu-Jitsu or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — through decades of challenge matches against other martial artists across Brazil, testing and refining techniques against real opponents who wanted to win.
By the time the UFC was founded in 1993, the Gracie family had been pressure-testing BJJ for over 60 years.
The Night BJJ Shocked the World
UFC 1 in Denver, Colorado, November 12, 1993. Eight fighters entered a single-night tournament with no weight classes and virtually no rules. Royce Gracie — not the biggest, not the most athletic fighter in the bracket — submitted three opponents in one night using a series of chokes and armlocks that none of his opponents had any answer for.
He did it again at UFC 2. And UFC 3. And UFC 4.
The message was unmistakable: a fighter who could control the ground and apply BJJ submissions would beat almost anyone who couldn’t do the same. For the full story of how that tournament changed combat sports, see our history of the UFC.
The sport would never be the same. Every fighter who watched those early UFCs understood one thing immediately: if you didn’t know BJJ, you were vulnerable the moment the fight hit the mat.
How BJJ Works: Positions, Sweeps, and Submissions
BJJ is fundamentally about positional hierarchy. Not all positions on the ground are equal — some give one fighter control and submission opportunities, while others force the other to defend and escape. The core positions, from most dominant to least:
Mount — sitting on an opponent’s torso with both knees on the mat. From here, chokes and armbars are available. This is the most dominant position in BJJ. Back mount — controlling an opponent from behind with hooks in. The rear naked choke is applied from here, and it is the single highest-percentage finishing submission in MMA history. Side control — controlling the opponent’s upper body from the side, chest to chest. Not as dominant as mount, but a strong pinning position. Guard — on the bottom with legs wrapped around the opponent. Despite being on the bottom, guard is not a losing position in BJJ — it is an active attacking position with numerous submissions and sweeps available.
The submissions themselves fall into two categories: chokes, which cut off blood flow or air supply to force unconsciousness or a tap, and joint locks, which hyperextend or rotate a joint — typically the elbow, shoulder, knee, or ankle — to the point where the fighter must submit or sustain injury.
For a closer look at what BJJ looks like when it works at the highest level, our list of the top UFC submissions of all time shows the art at its finest.
BJJ vs Wrestling, Judo, and Sambo
Modern MMA is a collision of grappling arts, and it’s worth understanding how BJJ compares to the others that shaped the sport.
Wrestling prioritises takedowns and top control — getting the fight to the ground and staying on top. Elite wrestlers like Khabib Nurmagomedov combined wrestling’s control-dominant positional game with BJJ submissions to create an almost unchallengeable ground game. Judo, BJJ’s direct ancestor, focuses on throws and takedowns but has a less developed ground game than BJJ — in competition judo, the ground phase is limited. Sambo, the Russian combat system that produced fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, combines wrestling’s takedown game with a submission system that partially overlaps with BJJ, with a particular emphasis on leglocks.
What separates BJJ is the depth of the ground submission game — the number of attacks, transitions, and sweeps available from virtually every position. Modern MMA fighters tend to train all of these arts, but BJJ remains the submission language everyone speaks.
The Champions Who Defined Ground Fighting in MMA
The lineage of BJJ in MMA runs through some of the sport’s greatest champions. Royce Gracie is the obvious starting point. Anderson Silva, one of the greatest UFC champions in history, held a black belt in BJJ and used it to set up his devastating striking by controlling distance and angles. Conor McGregor, despite his reputation as a striker, held a brown belt under John Kavanagh and used movement and guard work to survive ground exchanges in his prime.
Charles Oliveira, arguably the most accomplished submission fighter in UFC history, is the clearest modern example of elite BJJ translating to championship-level MMA. Twenty-one submission victories in the UFC. Rear naked chokes, guillotines, triangle chokes, arm triangles — Oliveira’s game is the fullest expression of what BJJ can look like in the cage at the highest level.
The art also shaped how fighters approach the striking game. Knowing a dangerous BJJ practitioner is on the mat shuts down certain attacking options for opponents — you can’t load up on combinations if a failed shot puts you on the ground against a black belt.
BJJ Belts, Ranks, and the Learning Curve
BJJ uses a belt system with five adult ranks: white, blue, purple, brown, and black. Progress is slower than in most martial arts — it typically takes 10 to 15 years of consistent training to reach black belt, making it one of the most demanding rank progressions in any combat sport. Many professional MMA fighters compete at the highest level holding purple or brown belts. A BJJ black belt in MMA is a genuine credential, not a participation trophy.
This long progression reflects the depth of the art. Unlike striking, where fundamental techniques can be learned quickly, BJJ’s positional complexity and the sheer volume of attacks and defences mean that practitioners are still discovering new dimensions of the game decades into their training.
BJJ and Modern MMA: Where the Art Stands Today
In 1993, BJJ was a secret weapon. By 2000, it was a necessity. Today, every professional MMA fighter trains BJJ — the question is no longer whether a fighter does BJJ, but how good they are at it.
The art continues to evolve inside the cage. The leglocks revolution — driven largely by the ADCC submission wrestling community and fighters like Gordon Ryan — has pushed into MMA, with heel hooks and kneebars now appearing at the highest levels. Fighters who can threaten from bottom guard positions, attack submission transitions mid-takedown, and defend chokes while striking have taken BJJ to places the Gracies in the 1990s could only theorise about.
Understanding Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is, ultimately, understanding why fights end the way they do. The tap is often the last thing you see — but the position that forced it was set up ten moves earlier. That depth, that chess-game quality beneath the violence, is why BJJ remains the ground game of mixed martial arts.
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