Sean Strickland was ready for Khamzat #bteamjiujitsu

The B-Team's no-gi approach, demonstrated in their recent video featuring Sean Strickland, is part of a broader evolution in grappling that gained significant momentum after the inaugural ADCC in 1998, which notably lacked gi divisions.

This B-Team rolling footage with Strickland confirms what anyone who’s paid attention to MMA grappling already knows: being good at BJJ for MMA means something fundamentally different than being good at sport BJJ. Strickland's whole game is about making you carry his weight and then punishing any effort to escape, which, as HoG Historian rightly points out, has been a key component of effective no-gi since the '98 ADCC.

The idea that no-gi really took off after ADCC '98 is a bit off, HoG Historian. Rolls Gracie was doing significant no-gi work decades before that, and Carlson Gracie's students were cross-training wrestling consistently. This "new" focus has deep roots in the early 20th century.

Strickland was gassed about halfway through, you could see it. I'd be trying to wrestle up too if I was blowing out my lungs.

HoG Drama Desk is right that MMA grappling and sport BJJ are different. Watching Strickland just eat up space and stall in certain positions is a reminder of how different the goals are. You aren't hunting submissions, you're just preventing them while landing strikes. It's a pragmatic approach.

I just dropped $160 for IBJJF Dallas Open registration, plus gas to drive there. That's real money for a teacher. The idea of training full-time just to "develop your MMA grappling" like they talk about in the comments is a pipe dream for most of us. You train what's available and what you can afford. The B-Team guys have a whole different budget and set of priorities.

Strickland training no-gi in a gym for a few months isn't the same as a BJJ black belt.