How good are Nogi- BLUE BELT champs?

JustOnce

JustOnce

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So, a while ago, I asked about how good a BJJ Brown Belt IBJJF Pan-Am Champion would be, thinking that's what Chase Hooper was. Turned out he just listed them one after another, Brown Belt, and then Pan-am champion, on bullet points. Some on here accused me of not being able to read it right, but I mean, seriously?

When it's

•BJJ Brown Belt
•IBJJF Pan-Am Champion

How many people are going to know he actually won that in blue Juvenile, and then he's brown belt now? Anyways, I digress. I mean that's cool, but some people were flaming me for that? ...

Anyways.....just wondering, how good are the world champs....at blue belt level, I mean not at Juvenile, but as an adult?
 
Right. This is an interesting question.

Usually, in order to win an Ibjjf black belt adult world title, you would need to do well at lower belts such as brown.

But yet, many up coming brown belts world champions never achieved the same at BB.

So if you use the same theory for the lower belts, you would need to at least rank on the podium at purple belt to have a chance to win at brown...etc.

The usual case is competitors that win a world title at each belt level.
 
JustOnce said:
So, a while ago, I asked about how good a BJJ Brown Belt IBJJF Pan-Am Champion would be, thinking that's what Chase Hooper was. Turned out he just listed them one after another, Brown Belt, and then Pan-am champion, on bullet points. Some on here accused me of not being able to read it right, but I mean, seriously?

When it's

•BJJ Brown Belt
•IBJJF Pan-Am Champion

How many people are going to know he actually won that in blue Juvenile, and then he's brown belt now? Anyways, I digress. I mean that's cool, but some people were flaming me for that? ...

Anyways.....just wondering, how good are the world champs....at blue belt level, I mean not at Juvenile, but as an adult?
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depends iv trained with no gi world champs they generally felt high level purple t brown its hard to group everyone into a category a lot of guys whoa re blue belt world champs are very athletic cause u can only be so technical at grappling in just a few years so they generally are gonna move very fast and be quite explosive
 
one of my old training partners back when i was a purple fought garry tonin for the no gi worlds brown belt in 2012 lost on points he just got his brown 2 months before as well was right before the bjj kumite that got garry famous

i will say that better guys are now competing at no gi pan ams and world when it first hit lots of guys were winning no gi worlds and pan ams who wernt the top guys in no gi tbh didnt bring out the best guys as most were doing adcc and super fights the last few years though its very very competitive at the black belt level
 
Tekken and Espurgote already touched on what I was going to say...

But I'd imagine that the elite blue belts winning the top tournaments are most likely going to be very athletic, maybe-probably be good wrestlers, maybe be good in something else like Judo/Sambo/whatever, and are sandbagging.

Jon Jones for example is still a purple belt. He apparently got his purple on Dec. 7th, 2019. He was a blue belt for two years prior to this, and a white belt prior that obviously. Jones submitted Bader and Machida in 2011, and Belfort in 2012. He was a national juco wrestling champion or something. He was training MMA / MMA grappling since at 2007-2008 roughly.

I'm not saying Jon Jones is competing in top level BJJ tourneys in the IBJJF or PanAms or ADCC, or whatever. I'm merely using him as the prime example of someone who isn't a [belt rank] who's way better than everyone at that rank virtually.

Obviously Jones would have absolutely raped any blue belt in a BJJ tourney, no gi without question, from ~2008-2017 as a white belt and fresh blue belt. He's the epitome of sandbagged is my point.

Get a good HS to good college wrestler, good athlete, overqualified as a blue belt probably = winning those events. Or someone who is just so technically good they could be a purple-black at another gym but are still a "blue belt".

Essentially there is no answer because they aren't going against the top levels of competition so you can't actually see how good they are. They are competing so many levels below the Gordon Ryan-Craig Jones-Danaher squad + top brazilians, etc. Also I'm not sure if there are restrictions for blue belt level competitors, in each respective tourney, like...not doing heel hooks or any lower body subs for example, which completely changes the game and what the top levels are now revolved around.
 
Obviously, better than any other blue or white belt, but not as good as any purple belt. Otherwise, the belt system would be kind of silly, wouldn't it?
 
An old training partner of mine fought Matheus Souza (who right after won double gold at blue belts Worlds a month later ), and my buddy after was in utter shock how good he was. He said it was the toughest match he ever had and we point blank asked him if hes better than out black belt professor and he laughed and said yes by far.

It's a whole other level guys . A belt is only good enough to hold up your pants
 
In 2011/2012 we had a Bluebelt Pan Am GI bronze medalist come out of our gym. I was a fresh blue belt myself with a ton of Judo/wrestling experience I tapped him out regularly and I am not shit and he didn't go on to do anything either.
I suppose some of the divisions where won by future blackbelt champs but it probably depends on the year and weight class.
I don't think nogi is much different. 2020? Shit maybe everythings changed and become more competitive but I doubt it. Most blue belts still aren't going to pay to fly out to California for a tournament.
 
Espurgote said:
You can bet your ass some or most are sandbagging.
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Yep, I'm sure most here who compete have seen it - lower belt competitors are very often held back from promotion specifically so they can win titles - or worse yet, to win MORE titles - there have been cases of guys winning the blue belt mundials two years consecutively...I mean high standards are great and all but really?!?!

I guess that's the flipside of placing such high value on lower belt competition I guess - on the good side it motivates lower belt competitors to compete and progress, but on the other side it can get a bit silly. I'm not as familiar with Judo but I haven't heard many problems relating to sandbagging there with guys who have been competing and winning for years and years yet still are not blackbelt level - it seems like once you're pretty good there and win in competition you become a blackbelt, where most of the focus of the sport happens - at least that's what I've heard
 
A lot of blue belt world champs are black belt level competitors. Roberto Jimenez was beating black belts when he was a blue still.
 
sb413197 said:
Yep, I'm sure most here who compete have seen it - lower belt competitors are very often held back from promotion specifically so they can win titles - or worse yet, to win MORE titles - there have been cases of guys winning the blue belt mundials two years consecutively...I mean high standards are great and all but really?!?!

I guess that's the flipside of placing such high value on lower belt competition I guess - on the good side it motivates lower belt competitors to compete and progress, but on the other side it can get a bit silly. I'm not as familiar with Judo but I haven't heard many problems relating to sandbagging there with guys who have been competing and winning for years and years yet still are not blackbelt level - it seems like once you're pretty good there and win in competition you become a blackbelt, where most of the focus of the sport happens - at least that's what I've heard
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Although it's been awhile since I've been formally involved in Judo, IME this is accurate. There's pros and cons to both the BJJ and Judo belt systems but the main advantage of the Judo system is that promotions are standardized and there's virtually no sandbagging or early promotes.

There are only two levels of competition in Judo: novice and black belt with the latter the only one of consequence. Winning at novice only means you're the best among true "novices," almost all of whom will have less than 3 or 4 years of training, which under USJA is white, yellow, orange and green belts. There's no such thing as a "novice" world champ because if you're good enough to compete at national level or above, you're competing at black. Browns compete at black belt division and are not allowed to compete at novice. Although technically a brown could go to the Olympics, in the unlikely event a brown was good enough to win the qualifiers, I'm sure he'd get a batsugan promotion to black.

There are also standardized test curriculum for each belt + time in grade requirements which can be reduced by winning points in competition depending on who you beat. If you're a yellow belt and you beat another yellow belt, you get 2 points toward promotion. If you beat a green belt, you get 4 promotion points. So if you compete a lot and are destroying the other novices, you get promoted very quickly. We had a former D1 guy that made brown around a year in and black in about 3 years total - and this isn't even that unusual in Judo.

The great thing about this system is that it's self-policing. If you're competing at novice, you're either new to Judo or you're not good enough to win consistently vs. other novices. Even if you're terrible, you'll generally make brown around 4 or 5 years in as long as you're in good standing. And once you're brown competing at black, you either win or you get better. There's always a fresh crop of browns and low-level blacks in the pool that are beatable as long as you've been training long enough. In general I'd say Judo shodan = BJJ purple skill equivalent.
 
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Considering that the numbers are huge at blue belt I'm gonna assume that the endurance of a world class blue belt is better than most
 
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