best American bjj practitioners?

Americans and Brazilians definitely did not compete together as much back then, but I'm not entirely sure there was so much less parity. It just seems that way because we think of IBJJF Pans and Worlds as the top guys, and no Americans were there to even win.

But if you look at ADCC (which the Americans have always done), there is no parity gap between the current decade and the last. In the last decade the Americans had ADCC golds from Ricco Rodriguez, Mark Kerr, Jeff Monson, Dean Lister, and Robert Drysdale. In the current decade we've had Orlando Sanchez, Mackenzie Dern, JT Torres, and Gordon Ryan. It's not much different at all.

I think the Americans have always been at a high level but just weren't really competing with the Brazilians as much previously.

There are still far more ADCC winners of Brazilian origin than American. So you can say the degree of parity hasn't changed, but you can't really say there ever was or has been parity even in no-gi. What I'm saying is that by not having to compete against the best Brazilians like Americans do now gives guys like Glover and Cooper an artificially inflated record in what were the top American but globally second tier tournaments like GQ and NAGA.
 
There are still far more ADCC winners of Brazilian origin than American. So you can say the degree of parity hasn't changed, but you can't really say there ever was or has been parity even in no-gi. What I'm saying is that by not having to compete against the best Brazilians like Americans do now gives guys like Glover and Cooper an artificially inflated record in what were the top American but globally second tier tournaments like GQ and NAGA.

Of course.

But in a thread about best American practitioners, being the one of the top Americans in a given era should count quite a bit.

We're naturally adjusting for the presence of top Brazilians in the modern era as well. For example Keenan tends to lose to the top Brazilians, but he beats most other Americans. So he is ranked as a top American on the list. If Leandro Lo was an American, he'd rank above Keenan. But he's not so we just naturally adjust for that and exclude him.
 
if I may dove tail off this post, in 1995 there was no mundials. the Brazilians decided to come to Southern California and start the pan ams (which basically were the mundials back then). one reason they wanted to do it in America is to mop the floor with everyone and show the Americans how their proud countries sport is done. marcio feitosa was undefeated at the time. bob bass beat him in the finals. the Brazilians were so distraught and embarrassed with this, they did not keep a record of the '95 pan am games. their records start in '96.

Wow I didn't even know that. Is this the video?



That's an awesome story. I can't believe I never heard of it until now.

Also awesome to see Bob Bass using that kneeling guard break that is "never going to work" against Feitosa successfully. Hmm. Maybe he wasn't resisting though.
 
Wow I didn't even know that. Is this the video?



That's an awesome story. I can't believe I never heard of it until now.


yup. that's the video. it's not a well known story. I used to train at bob's place in hermosa beach. I heard the story from bob and later corroborated by rigan machado
 
yup. that's the video. it's not a well known story. I used to train at bob's place in hermosa beach. I heard the story from bob and later corroborated by rigan machado

That's awesome. Thanks for dropping some knowledge on me.
 
Of course.

But in a thread about best American practitioners, being the one of the top Americans in a given era should count quite a bit.

We're naturally adjusting for the presence of top Brazilians in the modern era as well. For example Keenan tends to lose to the top Brazilians, but he beats most other Americans. So he is ranked as a top American on the list. If Leandro Lo was an American, he'd rank above Keenan. But he's not so we just naturally adjust for that and exclude him.

I don't rate Keenan high on a list of good Americans because he beats other Americans. I rate him highly because he has wins over many top Brazilians, like Leite, Popovitch, Jackson Souza, Simoes, Braulio, Lo, Tarsis, Calansans, etc. Perhaps had Glover gotten to compete against the equivalent guys in his day he would have had as many wins, but the few times he has faced the top FWs like Cobrinha, Frazzato, Tanquinho, Yahya, Vieira, he's always lost. His only win against a top guy was the aforementioned Moura win. My supposition based on his record is that had he competed against them more often he would have lost most of those matches, but of course those image-killing losses never happened because he didn't have the opportunity to compete against those top Brazilians on a day to day basis.

I get what you're saying about eras, and if you want to say Jeff was one of the best guys in the 2nd generation of American BJJ fighters I think you'd be right, but given how much more competitive the current generation is with the top Brazilians than the majority of guys in prior generations were I'm going to pick most of my 'best Americans' from the modern crop of BBs.
 
I get what you're saying about eras, and if you want to say Jeff was one of the best guys in the 2nd generation of American BJJ fighters I think you'd be right, but given how much more competitive the current generation is with the top Brazilians than the majority of guys in prior generations were I'm going to pick most of my 'best Americans' from the modern crop of BBs.

That makes sense.

When comparing across eras though, we are always going to pick the modern crop if we don't make any adjustments for different conditions in the older era.

This would be true for Brazilians too. Let's say we want to compare Rickson and Roger. Roger would have to be on another level if there weren't any adjustments.

Back when Rickson competed in BJJ, almost all the competition was coming from the Rio de Janeiro area. When Roger competed, BJJ had spread worldwide.

So unless we adjust for eras, we are almost always going to pick the modern guys no matter what.
 
In BJJ:
Tim Spriggs

I really don't have a lot to contribute to the rest of the thread - I agree it's a travesty that people were leaving Spriggs off, and Shane will probably be on the list sooner rather than later.

The NAGA and GQ invitational brackets and superfights were a really big deal in that era. Also ADCC North American trials drew some of the best American talent.

It's kind of crazy to think back to then compared to now. People are always complaining about the IBJJF, but they have no idea how much better run things became once they entered the American tournament scene.

Those old NAGA and GQ events were nuts. It seemed like the rules were changing from tournament to tournament, if not match to match. There seemed to be no standard on whether you could grab clothing in no gi or not. That led to some people grappling in nothing but tight vale tudo shorts to minimize the effect of any potential clothing grabs.

It was kind of cool in a way, but it's a lot nicer to go to organized tournaments now versus the old school FEMA disaster camp with a mat in the middle style that ran past midnight.

I don't really have a lot else to add to this thread but (and I think I've mentioned this elsewhere), it's sad that there's a bit of a generation of guys who don't get the props they deserve for their showings in the pre-IBJJF open era (and pre social media explosion). A lot of guys nowadays are able to really build their name up as colored belt competitors (as well they should, the competition on the circuit is remarkably stiff), but guys who did similar stuff at GQs and whatnot a decade ago get written off by the kids these days. It's not particularly cogent to this discussion - I'm thinking more about guys a tier or two down from the Glovers and Halls of the world, and how they stack up to "name" colored belt competitors of today who don't necessarily have major titles to their names.

I'd also like to mention that some of those GQ brackets were nuts. Ryan Hall fought Lucas Lepri at one, and I remember there was another bracket with Marcelo and a few other notables.

Finally, having done those old tournaments, IBJJF tournaments are a revelation. You can show up an hour before your division starts, check your weight, get warm, and go home two hours later. You can literally squeeze a tournament in between things on a Saturday morning/afternoon, instead of waiting around for 15 hours to have a match.
 
That makes sense.

When comparing across eras though, we are always going to pick the modern crop if we don't make any adjustments for different conditions in the older era.

This would be true for Brazilians too. Let's say we want to compare Rickson and Roger. Roger would have to be on another level if there weren't any adjustments.

Back when Rickson competed in BJJ, almost all the competition was coming from the Rio de Janeiro area. When Roger competed, BJJ had spread worldwide.

So unless we adjust for eras, we are almost always going to pick the modern guys no matter what.

In a young sport like BJJ that's true, especially given the structural changes it's undergone since it really started to hit the US in the late 90s or so. My personal model of 'greatness' is based largely on the way boxing historians assess fighters, because it's so hard to compare across eras the best thing to do is look at how strong the competition was at a given point in time, and how many of the other elite guys a given fighter beat (weight class mobility matters too, though that's more of a thing in boxing than BJJ). It's a pretty good rubric, with one caveat: a transcendent fighter in a weak era never has the chance to prove he's as great as a top guy from a strong era. Roy Jones Jr. is the classic case of this. A skill set that probably has no equal in boxing history, but fought at a time when his divisions weren't that strong. Most boxing historians won't rate him all that highly all time P4P just because he doesn't have the quality of wins of, say, a Harry Greb to pick someone basically no casual fan knows of but who boxing historians rate very highly as being the top guy in a very tough era. Many of the American pioneers fall into that category for me: they were big fish in a small pond, and it's really hard to say how they would have done in the ocean of top guys in Brazil (though what results we do have are not generally encouraging that they'd have had much success). So I like Keenan over someone like Glover not because he's had the benefit of the additional technical development that occurred between their competitive primes, but because Keenan has been competing with success against the absolute top guys in the world for his whole BB career.
 
There are still far more ADCC winners of Brazilian origin than American. So you can say the degree of parity hasn't changed, but you can't really say there ever was or has been parity even in no-gi. What I'm saying is that by not having to compete against the best Brazilians like Americans do now gives guys like Glover and Cooper an artificially inflated record in what were the top American but globally second tier tournaments like GQ and NAGA.
FWIW me putting Cooper in my top 5 of the 00’s was based on his Worlds 2008 run at middleweight where he was in the finals against Sergio moraes and ran through a murderers row to get there including subbed otavio sousa, etc. not his GQ records. He still one of like five American men to make the adult finals at the worlds. Coop is way better than Glover.
 
I think Jeff Glover's achievements get overstated a bit just because everyone likes him so much. He's a good competitor, but I don't think he's ever won a really major tournament.

he may not have won any of the top titles but his style is much to playful he isnt a serious competitor sadly but u cant deny him back from 2007-20010 watch him vs leo viera when he was at the top from 2007-20010 he was a top 4 guy at his division by far no gi

if you are gonna include bill cooper then you absolutely have to include jeff who did alot better than bill did in his career
 
Certainly true that NAGA and GQ were a much bigger deal than people recall, but it's important to remember too that they were largely just strong regional tournaments. The best Brazilians didn't come up for them, and at the time there was even less parity than there is now between Brazilian and American grapplers. Jeff Glover won a lot of GQs, but how many elite guys did he have to beat to win those belts? If you look at his record, at least the incomplete list BJJ Heroes has, his best wins are Robson Moura and Caio Terra. Great wins for sure, but Caio's a lot smaller than him. Robson is his only win against an elite guy at his weight class. Like I said, Glover was a big influence on the American BJJ scene, but (partially for reasons outside his control with all the big tournaments being in Brazil during his competitive peak) he's nowhere near an all time great based on his actual achievements.


yeah i remember going to naga us nationals in atl 2009. it was a 2 day event adults on friday and kids on saturday. then next 2 years they did it all within 1 day. naga use to be the shit and GQ. all sudden 2011 came about and everyone fell in love with the gi and ibjjf because the standard. it was weird cause 2007-2010 was all about no gi. alot of guys hate don the gi i wonder why it just changed all the sudden
 
Yeah people forget that Americans did not do IBJJF much at all until about ten years ago. There were hardly any events in America. The Pans and Worlds were both in Brazil, and traveling there for those tournaments was pretty much our exposure to IBJJF. It was also far and expensive so not many Americans were traveling to Brazil period. It was seen as a luxury to be able to make the trip.

The NAGA and GQ invitational brackets and superfights were a really big deal in that era. Also ADCC North American trials drew some of the best American talent.

It's kind of crazy to think back to then compared to now. People are always complaining about the IBJJF, but they have no idea how much better run things became once they entered the American tournament scene.

Those old NAGA and GQ events were nuts. It seemed like the rules were changing from tournament to tournament, if not match to match. There seemed to be no standard on whether you could grab clothing in no gi or not. That led to some people grappling in nothing but tight vale tudo shorts to minimize the effect of any potential clothing grabs.

There was no set competition area either. For those superfights they'd just have people gather around the middle of the mat and sit in a circle cross legged. However big that was in the middle was the area. When competitors went to the edge they'd just keep going into the crowd. Maybe the ref would stop it or maybe the crowd would just push them back like an underground pit fight or something.

It was kind of cool in a way, but it's a lot nicer to go to organized tournaments now versus the old school FEMA disaster camp with a mat in the middle style that ran past midnight.

Man, that brings back memories. The superfights at GQ were awesome to watch live. Action stopped on all the mats, everyone make a circle and the two competitors just roll. Like you said, the match’s comp area was the crowd and sometimes beyond. We’ll probably never see that again.
 
mikey musemici is the rules-gamiest rules-gamer who ever rules-gamed. no way is he the "best" american grappler
 
you're probably right. and yeah I'm guilty of liking him a lot and probably holding him in higher regard than his accomplishments have shown. but "best American bjj practitioner" could be subjective. not necessarily ranking them based strictly off success in competition. I just really like his game, but I could swap him out for dean lister on my list.

I used to like Glover until he started to playing around during matches. He became corny.
 
I used to like Glover until he started to playing around during matches. He became corny.

Honestly I think he used "entertainment" as an excuse of not winning. I don't think he had the work ethic to grind out for years like the other guys who ended up champions.
 
mikey musemici is the rules-gamiest rules-gamer who ever rules-gamed. no way is he the "best" american grappler

He doesn't cheat. I judge "best" by actual accomplishments and not whether I like their style or not. I dislike Orlando Sanchez style but he is effective.
 
This list is about the best in BJJ right? Can I get a list of the oppnents who Ryan Hall,Jeff Glover,Gordon Ryan, and Gary Tonen have beaten in BJJ at Black belt? Not sub grappling,but BJJ.
 
if I may dove tail off this post, in 1995 there was no mundials. the Brazilians decided to come to Southern California and start the pan ams (which basically were the mundials back then). one reason they wanted to do it in America is to mop the floor with everyone and show the Americans how their proud countries sport is done. marcio feitosa was undefeated at the time. bob bass beat him in the finals. the Brazilians were so distraught and embarrassed with this, they did not keep a record of the '95 pan am games. their records start in '96.

Whoa...I didn't know this. I do remember hearing about an early Pans in the US where Americans waited for hours to weigh in while Brazilians were able to just skip the like and walk up to the scale.
 
I used to like Glover until he started to playing around during matches. He became corny.
i think it's an ego protection thing. almost like well i didn't try 100% so it's not as big a deal if i lose.
 
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