Mario Sperry has spoken out about how American martial arts culture reshaped the traditional essence of BJJ, driving its commercialization and pulling it away from its original combat-focused foundations.
The ADCC Hall of Famer and three-time world champion, who trained under Carlson Gracie, drew a contrast between how jiu-jitsu was taught in Brazil during his formative years and what he encountered upon arriving in the United States;
I remember when I came to America, and you know the Americans, they are very successful in generating wealth and success, but sometimes it becomes too commercial, right? And then you lose the essence.
He recalled visiting a karate gym in San Diego as a purple belt in the 1980s that claimed to teach jiu-jitsu:
When I got there, you know, you feel the energy, right? I said: “Oh my god, I put myself in the wrong spot. They want to try to end me here.”
The discrepancy in terms of the American culture, the vision, the knowledge that the American culture had about martial arts in terms of reality.
They thought something totally different.
Sperry explained that under Carlson Gracie, training was always grounded in real combat scenarios:
When you start learning jiu-jitsu, you always think about the real scenarios, real situations, like in a brawl on the streets. We were laughing when we saw the first UFC. This guy came with one glove, one boxing glove. We were laughing. This was in 1991.
We were laughing saying: “What is this guy doing, right?” We were so ahead of our time because of Carlson as well.
Sperry contrasted that era with today’s landscape, where practitioners can build entire careers through gym ownership, seminars, and content without ever competing in combat sports:
Back in the day, we didn’t have much options to survive out of jiu-jitsu, right? So we had to focus on MMA and ADCC.
But not now. You can have a gym in America and be successful. You can do seminars, you can do videos, you can do privates. You can survive out of that.
So what happened is that jiu-jitsu kind of went to a different direction.
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