Make no mistake about it—Jacare is among the elite of the elite as far as Jiu-Jitsu for MMA is concerned. I’ve ranked him this high for a reason and I’m sure most die-hard MMA fans will agree with me.
No. 3- Shinya Aoki
Aoki is the current WAMMA (World Association of Mixed Martial Arts) Lightweight champion and is ranked second in the world (under B.J Penn) in the Lightweight division.
His grappling ability is simply amazing and his ability to pull of unorthodox submissions from crazy positions is border line on the edge of mythology. The guy can submit you with pretty much anything from any position and that’s what makes him so incredible.
Not only is his Jiu-Jitsu very effective but his ways of getting a fight to the ground are very unorthodox and effective as well.
He is currently 20-4 with 12 submission victories over the likes of Eddie Alvarez, Joachim Hansen, Clay French, Todd Moore, Jason Black and several others.
I believe that neck cranks, gogoplatas and heel hooks are some of the most underutilized submissions in MMA and they are also the hardest to pull off but Aoki is the exception to that because he pulls them off all the time and makes it look easy!
No. 2- Demian Maia
Demian Maia has taken his pure Jiu-Jitsu and adopted it perfectly into MMA—something that not a whole lot of people have been able to do. What I mean by that is there is a big difference between the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the aspect of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for MMA.
We see it time and time again where a high level BJJ world champion comes into MMA, gets punched in the face a few times and his high level Jiu-Jitsu turns into white belt level while in the cage. Demian Maia however has been able to adopt his Jiu-Jitsu for MMA competition and in doing so has become very successful.
Watching Maia fight on the ground is like watching Leonardo Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa—it truly is a work of art and a masterpiece.
No. 1- B.J Penn
I’m sure the B.J Penn haters are fuming with anger and ready to chase me down with flaming torches for listing B.J Penn as number one on any sort of list. “Oh he’s overrated” or “He’s a quitter”, whatever guys.
Bottom line is that B.J Penn has the absolute best Jiu-Jitsu for MMA competition and I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it.
Sure he got dominated by Georges St. Pierre at UFC 94 but if the greasing allegations are true then his Jiu-Jitsu would not have been as affective as normal.
I’m not saying GSP cheated but I do believe there was grease on him and that makes it very hard to work your Jiu-Jitsu because every time you go to grab the guy your hand will immediately slip off. I still believe GSP would have won anyway due to his overwhelming wrestling and better striking but that’s a tale for a different story.
The cool thing about B.J’s Jiu-Jitsu is his flexibility and his ability to control people’s arms with his legs. B.J is so flexible that he can use his legs like the average human uses their arms and he can bend them in very strange positions and most fighters don’t know how to deal with that.
B.J might not be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, but for Jiu-Jitsu in MMA he is definitely No. 1.
(Honorable mentions: Kenny Florian, Jake Shields, Nate Diaz, Ricardo Almedia, Matt Serra, Ricardo Arona, Gabriel Gonzaga, Jeff Monson and Nick Diaz.)
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