Sambo News

The 3 Submissions Every Purple Belt Should Drill Before Brown — And Why 2 Of Them Aren't What You Think

HoG report·2h ago

The 3 Submissions Every Purple Belt Should Drill Before Brown — And Why 2 Of Them Aren't What You Think

You're stalled at purple belt because you're drilling the wrong *version* of the right submissions

Why Diego Pato Lost His IBJJF Black Belt Over A Single Tournament Match

Why Diego Pato Lost His IBJJF Black Belt Over A Single Tournament Match

The IBJJF holds ultimate authority over its ranks, yet the prospect of stripping a black belt over a single match remains one of grappling's most debated theoretical scenarios, with almost no documented precedents

The Mendes Brothers Vs Rafa Mendes Cousin Drama — Yes, There Are Three Mendes And It's Complicated

The Mendes Brothers Vs Rafa Mendes Cousin Drama — Yes, There Are Three Mendes And It's Complicated

The Mendes name echoes through jiu-jitsu history, but understanding the family's competitive branches and their entangled legacies requires a deep dive into the sport's highest echelons

The Gracie Lineage That Stayed In Japan — Yoshiaki Yagi And The Branch BJJ Almost Forgot

The Gracie Lineage That Stayed In Japan — Yoshiaki Yagi And The Branch BJJ Almost Forgot

The spread of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu across the globe birthed many branches, but some lineages, like Yoshiaki Yagi’s, maintained a discrete and profound path largely separate from the art’s mainstream evolution

The Lost Footage: Helio Gracie's 1932 Fight With Antonio Portugal — What Actually Survived

The Lost Footage: Helio Gracie's 1932 Fight With Antonio Portugal — What Actually Survived

The search for Helio Gracie's 1932 fight footage with Antonio Portugal is less about finding a film reel and more about understanding what history preserves and what it asks us to infer

Tainan Dalpra's Cross-Collar Choke On Roberto Jimenez — Was It Locked Or Lucky?

Tainan Dalpra's Cross-Collar Choke On Roberto Jimenez — Was It Locked Or Lucky?

The BJJ Stars 15 middleweight final saw Mica Galvão secure a controversial armbar finish over Roberto Jimenez, leaving fans and officials debating the precise timing of the referee's intervention

The Buchecha Era: How One Heavyweight Dominated A Decade And Then Walked Away

The Buchecha Era: How One Heavyweight Dominated A Decade And Then Walked Away

Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida didn't just win; he carved out an entire era in the IBJJF heavyweight division, a reign of dominance that reshaped the landscape before his pivot to MMA

Rolls Gracie's Notebook: The Lost Curriculum That Modern Submission Grappling Reverse-Engineered

Rolls Gracie's Notebook: The Lost Curriculum That Modern Submission Grappling Reverse-Engineered

Rolls Gracie’s written curriculum, a synthesis of diverse grappling arts, presaged the evolution of modern submission grappling by decades

Sergio "Bolão" Penha — The Carlson Gracie Black Belt Who Built Half The Pan Ams Champion Roster And Got Zero Credit

Sergio "Bolão" Penha — The Carlson Gracie Black Belt Who Built Half The Pan Ams Champion Roster And Got Zero Credit

In the vast tapestry of jiu-jitsu lineage, some threads are vibrant and well-known, while others, equally crucial, remain quietly woven into the fabric of the art

How The Mendes Brothers Stopped Talking To Each Other — The Featherweight Schism Nobody Discusses

How The Mendes Brothers Stopped Talking To Each Other — The Featherweight Schism Nobody Discusses

The twin stars of featherweight jiu-jitsu, Rafael and Guilherme Mendes, now chart separate courses, a schism often felt but rarely discussed

The Half-Guard Lockdown Is The Most Misunderstood Position In BJJ — Eddie Was Right, Then Wrong, Then Right Again

The Half-Guard Lockdown Is The Most Misunderstood Position In BJJ — Eddie Was Right, Then Wrong, Then Right Again

The half-guard lockdown is not a stall tactic for the unathletic; it is a complex, misunderstood control system that has been dismissed, then resurrected, and refined

Mica Galvao Vs Roberto Jimenez Aftermath — The Armbar Was Clean, The Referee Wasn't

Mica Galvao Vs Roberto Jimenez Aftermath — The Armbar Was Clean, The Referee Wasn't

The armbar was clean, but the referee’s delayed intervention at BJJ Stars 15 sparked a post-match firestorm that questions the very safety standards of professional grappling

Kade Ruotolo Vs Tye Ruotolo — Brothers, Twins, And The First Mat Match Of Their Lives

Kade Ruotolo Vs Tye Ruotolo — Brothers, Twins, And The First Mat Match Of Their Lives

The Kade vs Tye Ruotolo WNO 2022 match was a clash of twin brothers and training partners, a rare spectacle with unique competitive dynamics

Why Lachlan Giles Won't Compete With Gordon — The Match That Was Never Going To Happen, Explained

Why Lachlan Giles Won't Compete With Gordon — The Match That Was Never Going To Happen, Explained

The superfight between Lachlan Giles and Gordon Ryan was once the grappling world's dream, but Lachlan's strategic refusal closed the door

Why The Belt System We Use Today Came From Japan, Not Brazil — The 1907 Kodokan Dispute

Why The Belt System We Use Today Came From Japan, Not Brazil — The 1907 Kodokan Dispute

The colored-belt ranking system, now ubiquitous in martial arts, did not originate on the sandy beaches of Brazil but in the refined halls of the Kodokan in Japan

Why Most Black Belts Cannot Pass Modern Guard — And The Drill That Fixes It In 3 Months

Why Most Black Belts Cannot Pass Modern Guard — And The Drill That Fixes It In 3 Months

Your guard isn't collapsing because you're not shrimping enough; it's because your passing game, even as a black belt, is trying to solve modern problems with an outdated algorithm

The Lapel Game Killed Berimbolo — Here's The Counter Most Coaches Don't Teach Yet

The Lapel Game Killed Berimbolo — Here's The Counter Most Coaches Don't Teach Yet

You've been told your berimbolo just needs more repetition, but the real issue isn't your reps, it's the meta that killed your entry

The 1994 Rickson Vs Funaki Fight: How Vale Tudo Almost Killed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Before The UFC Saved It

The 1994 Rickson Vs Funaki Fight: How Vale Tudo Almost Killed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Before The UFC Saved It

In 1994, Rickson Gracie stepped onto a mat in Japan, and in that moment, the raw, brutal crucible of Brazilian Vale Tudo began its transformation into a globally recognized martial art

Front Headlock Is The Most Underrated Position In BJJ History — And Marcelo Built His Entire Game On It

Front Headlock Is The Most Underrated Position In BJJ History — And Marcelo Built His Entire Game On It

Your guard collapses, you turtle, and the immediate advice is to "shrimp more" – but nobody tells you the *real* problem is that you missed the one chokehold entry that ties wrestling to jiu-jitsu and underpins ADCC dominance

The 2-Second Rule That Decides Every Guard Retention Exchange — And Most Coaches Don't Name It

The 2-Second Rule That Decides Every Guard Retention Exchange — And Most Coaches Don't Name It

Your coach told you to "shrimp more" when your guard collapsed, but that advice is a misdiagnosis of a problem that's already two seconds old

Why Your Closed Guard Is Mechanically Dead At The Top Level — And The 4 Grips That Bring It Back

Why Your Closed Guard Is Mechanically Dead At The Top Level — And The 4 Grips That Bring It Back

Your closed guard keeps getting stacked and passed, not because it's outdated, but because you're fighting position without meaningful hand architecture

The Single Grip That Separates Brown Belts From Purples — And The Wrist Adjustment Everyone Misses

The Single Grip That Separates Brown Belts From Purples — And The Wrist Adjustment Everyone Misses

You’ve been told to pull harder on your cross-collar, but the problem isn't your strength; it’s the forgotten axis of your wrist

Gordon Ryan's Disqualification That Wasn't — How The IBJJF Bent The Rule, And Why

Gordon Ryan's Disqualification That Wasn't — How The IBJJF Bent The Rule, And Why

The BJJ Stars 15 final saw Mica Galvão claim a R$100,000 prize, but a controversial armbar finish against Roberto Jimenez ignited an immediate firestorm over referee intervention and athlete safety

Why Maeda's Judo Was Already Modified Before It Ever Got To Brazil — The Conde Koma Backstory

Why Maeda's Judo Was Already Modified Before It Ever Got To Brazil — The Conde Koma Backstory

Before his arrival in Brazil, Mitsuyo Maeda, the legendary Conde Koma, had already forged Kodokan judo into a system profoundly altered by a decade of combat realism across three continents

Why The Top 10 Black Belts In The Sport Today Trained At The Same 3 Academies

Why The Top 10 Black Belts In The Sport Today Trained At The Same 3 Academies

Grappling's elite talent pool increasingly converges on three academies, reshaping the competitive landscape

The 2024 ADCC Heel Hook That Should Have Been DQ'd — And The Quiet Rule Change That Followed

The 2024 ADCC Heel Hook That Should Have Been DQ'd — And The Quiet Rule Change That Followed

The ghost of controversies past haunts ADCC, especially when the sport's most dangerous submission meets its most ambiguous rule application

Craig Jones Vs ADCC: The Showdown That Built CJI And Rewrote Pro Grappling Economics In One Weekend

Craig Jones Vs ADCC: The Showdown That Built CJI And Rewrote Pro Grappling Economics In One Weekend

Grappling's biggest weekend saw Craig Jones drop a million-dollar bomb that detonated ADCC's long-standing prize structure

The Lineage You've Never Heard Of: Oswaldo Fadda, The Favela, And The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu That Almost Was

The Lineage You've Never Heard Of: Oswaldo Fadda, The Favela, And The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu That Almost Was

The narrative of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu often begins and ends with one family, but beneath the surface lies a parallel lineage that reshaped the art's trajectory and accessibility

The Curriculum Crisis: Why Two 5-Year Blue Belts Don't Know The Same BJJ — And What A Real Standard Would Look Like

The Curriculum Crisis: Why Two 5-Year Blue Belts Don't Know The Same BJJ — And What A Real Standard Would Look Like

The "blue belt" isn't a universally recognized standard, it's a postcode lottery for competence and curriculum

The Underhook Is Doing 70% Of Your Game Whether You Know It Or Not — Mechanics + Drills

The Underhook Is Doing 70% Of Your Game Whether You Know It Or Not — Mechanics + Drills

You’ve been told to shrimp more, frame harder, or simply be stronger, but your guard collapses anyway — it's not you, it's your underhook

Carlson Gracie Invented Group BJJ Class — And Most Modern Academies Owe Him Their Business Model

Carlson Gracie Invented Group BJJ Class — And Most Modern Academies Owe Him Their Business Model

Carlson Gracie's daring decision to democratize jiu-jitsu instruction laid the economic and social foundation for every modern academy

Stop Drilling "Techniques." Drill Decisions. — The Coach's Argument Every Practitioner Should Hear

Stop Drilling "Techniques." Drill Decisions. — The Coach's Argument Every Practitioner Should Hear

You've spent years collecting isolated techniques like trading cards, yet your guard still collapses under pressure, leaving you wondering why nothing "works"

Why Wrestling Killed BJJ's Top Game — And The Coaches Quietly Putting It Back Together

Why Wrestling Killed BJJ's Top Game — And The Coaches Quietly Putting It Back Together

Your pressure pass is crumbling because BJJ never taught you how to *stay* heavy; it taught you where to go once you were already there

Helio Gracie Wasn't The Founder Of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — Here's The Lineage Story Most Academies Get Wrong

HoG report·13h ago

Helio Gracie Wasn't The Founder Of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — Here's The Lineage Story Most Academies Get Wrong

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu's genesis is often misattributed to Helio Gracie alone, obscuring a lineage that begins with Maeda and found its first Brazilian teacher in Carlos Gracie

The Rolls Gracie Mystery — The Man Who Would Have Been The Greatest Of All Time, And The Bridge To Modern BJJ

HoG report·13h ago

The Rolls Gracie Mystery — The Man Who Would Have Been The Greatest Of All Time, And The Bridge To Modern BJJ

Rolls Gracie's brief life reshaped jiu-jitsu, integrating diverse grappling arts and laying the groundwork for the sport we recognize today

The Black Belt Is BJJ's Biggest Lie — And the Data That Proves It

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the only major martial art on Earth without a standardized black belt test. The result is a system where 97% of starters never finish, the average finisher spends over a decade and tens of thousands of dollars, and no two black belts are remotely interchangeable. That's not tradition. That's a structural failure dressed up as culture.

The 'Pull Then Push' Principle: The Hidden Rule Behind Every BJJ Sweep — And Why Your Coach Never Named It

Every BJJ sweep is a two-beat motion — pull one corner of the opponent's base toward you, push another away. Helio knew it. Marcelo proved it. The Mendes brothers built a featherweight dynasty on it. Coaches teach 100 sweeps without ever naming the one principle underneath them all.

Why Your Triangle Doesn't Finish — The 4 Angles Most Coaches Teach Wrong

The triangle isn't a strength technique. It's an angles technique. Four angles separate a tap from a stalled lock — head, hip, leg, finish — and most gyms still drill the squeeze instead of the geometry.

The 3 Frames Every Blue Belt Should Drill Before Purple — And Why Your Coach Probably Skipped Two of Them

The 3 Frames Every Blue Belt Should Drill Before Purple — And Why Your Coach Probably Skipped Two of Them

Your guard collapses because no one taught you frames the way Roger Gracie, Priit Mihkelson, and Lachlan Giles actually use them. Three frames, three failure modes, four weeks of drilling — the difference between a blue belt who plateaus and one who earns the purple.

HoG report·23h ago

CJI vs ADCC — How $1M Rewrote Pro Grappling Economics

How Craig Jones' $1M purse rewrote pro grappling economics, broke ADCC's leverage gap, and reshaped what athletes can demand for the next five years.

HoG NewsroomRead more

HoG report·23h ago

The 3 Grips Every Blue Belt Should Drill Before Purple

The cross-collar, collar-sleeve, and back-control wrist pin — the three grips that separate purple belts from blue belts, with drills.

HoG report·23h ago

Mica Galvao vs Roberto Jimenez — The Armbar That Made a Statement

A position-by-position breakdown of Mica Galvao's armbar finish of Roberto Jimenez in the BJJ Stars 15 Grand Prix final.

Yesterday

HoG report·1d ago

Mica Galvão: Inside the Game of the 77kg Champion

Mica Galvão's case for the best 77kg grappler in the world: Super Grand Slam, ADCC gold, the doping year, and what his game actually looks like.

Earlier this week

HoG report·3d ago

Tóth Krisztián Elected President of the Hungarian Judo Association

Tóth Krisztián was elected President of the Hungarian Judo Association on 10 May at the Hungarian House of Sport in Budapest.

EJU MediaRead more

HoG report·3d ago

LIVE BLOG: Pan-American Championships (DAY FOUR)

Day four of the Pan-American Championships in Coralville, Iowa on May 10 featured seven freestyle gold-medal bouts as the continental championship season concluded.

HoG report·3d ago

Welker Pins World Champ Reasco to Win Pan-Am Gold

Kylie Welker pinned world champion Genesis Reasco to defend her Pan-American 76kg title in Coralville, Iowa on May 9.

ADCC 2026 Crisis As Ticket Sales Crawl And Controversy Mounts

ADCC 2026 faces low ticket sales and multiple organizational controversies four months before the September event at Tauron Arena Kraków, Poland.

BJJ WorldRead more

Helena Crevar Set To Defend Polaris Lightweight Title Against Amanda Pamela Nicole

Helena Crevar will defend her Polaris women's lightweight title against Amanda Pamela Nicole at Polaris 37 in the United Kingdom.

BJJEE1 AdminRead more

Schools In China Are Now Making Jiu-Jitsu A Mandatory Subject: “All The Way From Kindergarten”

Several schools in Shanghai and Suzhou have added Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Judo to their mandatory academic curriculum, with students graded on progress alongside subjects like math and science.

BJJEE1 AdminRead more

Brown Belts Shine at the 2026 Brasileiro

Brown belt competitors Hazel Butcher-Salazar, Rafael Gamba, Luandra Barbosa, Jeferson Tijolo, and Kellen Arraes secured titles at the 2026 Brasileiro in São Paulo.

The Dagestani Heavyweight Nobody Can Move: Ruslan Abdulaev Enters ADCC As Legitimate Title Threat

Russian heavyweight Ruslan Abdulaev has received an invitation to ADCC, per a May 8, 2026 BJJ Eastern Europe report tracking his rise through AIGA and ADCC Kuwait events.

BJJEERead more

U.S. Kicks Off Pan-American Championships with Six Greco Golds

The United States won six Greco-Roman gold medals, and Cuba earned two, on the first day of the 2026 Pan-American Wrestling Championships in Coralville, Iowa. The event began on May 8.

Fabricio Andrey Set To Challenge Kade Ruotolo For ONE Lightweight Grappling Title

Fabricio Andrey will challenge Kade Ruotolo for the ONE Championship lightweight submission grappling title at ONE: The Inner Circle on June 26, 2026.

BJJEE1 AdminRead more

After Announcing his New Team “Mika Jiu-Jitsu,” Mica Galvão Reveals Why the Project Is Now on Hold

Mica Galvão said in a video statement that plans for a new academy under the 'Mika Jiu-Jitsu' name have been paused, citing the fallout from allegations against his father and coach Melqui Galvão.

BJJEERead more

Top Purple Belts Capture Brasileiro Spotlight

Top purple belt athletes competed in the Brasileiro Grand Slam event, with Kellyson Carlos, India Risby, Lucas Yan, Mia Montesinos, Fernando Paiva, Isis Maciel, and Luca Veras securing titles.

JCI 3: The Dominion Looks Like One Of The Most Exciting Grappling Events Of 2026

Jeff Curran Invitational 3: The Dominion is scheduled for May 9 at The Vixen in McHenry, Illinois, with a card featuring title fights and a rubber match between two Pedro Sauer lineage black belts.

BJJEERead more

2026 Brasileiro | Female Black Belt Standouts

The 2026 Brasileiro black belt divisions concluded in São Paulo, Brazil. Mayssa Bastos, Ashlee Funegra, Mia Funegra, Sarah Galvão, Elisabeth Clay, Maria Vicentini, and Yara Soares secured titles.

2026 Brasileiro | Male Black Belt Masterclass

The IBJJF 2026 Brasileiro concluded on May 6, 2026, at Ginásio Poliesportivo José Correa in São Paulo, Brazil. Ítalo Almeida, Rerisson Gabriel, Meyram Maquiné, Andy Murasaki, Tainan Dalpra, and Alex Munis secured black belt titles.

Earlier

HoG report·1w ago

2026 Pan-American Championships Preview: Freestyle, Greco-Roman, Women's Wrestling

The 2026 Pan-American Wrestling Championships will take place in Coralville, Iowa, United States, from May 7 to 11. The United States enters as the dominant team, having won freestyle, Greco-Roman, and women’s wrestling team titles every ye