bjjproblems.com — every take, since 2013
Every snarky take on real BJJ news.
Jun 10, 2026, 03:33 PM
UFC Freedom 250: Topuria vs. Gaethje at the White House
Professional combat sports stopped being sport and became pure spectacle. UFC Freedom 250 at the White House is the moment that stopped being subtle.
Jun 10, 2026, 03:03 PM
Nicholas Meregali Steps Back From Galvao Plea — 'Many Of Those People Are Also Part Of It'
Nicholas Meregali — three-time IBJJF World Champion and the loudest name in professional BJJ pressing on the Melqui Galvão case — made a very public plea. On April 28, he posted an Instagram video asking victims to come forward with a specific ask: contact him directly and he'd r
Jun 10, 2026, 02:33 PM
ADCC Worlds Tickets Stuck 63% Empty Four Months Out — How Yuri Simoes vs Kaynan Duarte Quietly Became The Main Event
When May rolled around and ticket sales data started leaking, ADCC's Kraków event was already showing signs of serious trouble. When this went down recently—roughly 27 days before the time of writing—the organization found itself in a position that few major combat sports propert
Jun 10, 2026, 02:02 PM
Buchecha's UFC Collapse: How the BJJ GOAT Went 0-2-1 in Just Three Fights
Ryan Spann delivered what might be the final punctuation mark on Alexandre "Buchecha" Ribeiro's mixed martial arts experiment. A left hook and straight right in the second round at UFC Vegas 116 sent the 13-time IBJJF World Champion to the canvas, and he didn't beat the count.
Jun 10, 2026, 01:32 PM
UFC BJJ 9: Eight Submissions, Fowler Dodges Rodriguez
Eight of nine matches ended in submission. That's not a grappling tournament—that's a technical beating handed out by one format to another.
Jun 10, 2026, 01:02 PM
SUG 30 Happened in Florianopolis — Chael Returned, Mason Fowler Stayed Home, and Brazil Had Plenty to Say
Submission Underground finally came back from the dead. SUG 30 went down on May 17 in Florianopolis, Brazil — a comeback event that felt equal parts inevitable and bizarre when you stopped to think about the full context.
Jun 10, 2026, 12:31 PM
When Ngannou Revealed His Son's Death Changed Everything—And Why He Kept Fighting Anyway
Francis Ngannou stepped into the Netflix spotlight to face Philipe Lins on a card headlined by the Rousey-Carano fight—a matchup that had dominated combat sports conversation for weeks. But if you'd tuned into the DC Show in the days leading up to that fight, you would have heard
Jun 10, 2026, 12:01 PM
When Kade Ruotolo and Diogo Reis Both Fought Through Inflection Points on the Same Bangkok Card
Two ADCC champions shared a ONE Fight Night 43 card in Bangkok. The coincidence seemed minor at the time.
Jun 10, 2026, 11:30 AM
Nate Diaz's Return
Nate Diaz stepped back into an MMA cage for the first time in nearly four years. On May 16th, the 40-year-old Stockton native faced Mike "Platinum" Perry at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, in what turned out to be one of the more legitimate fights on a Netflix card that
Jun 10, 2026, 11:00 AM
When Rousey Called Chimaev a 'F***ing Cleft-Lip Lincoln'
When Ronda Rousey's Netflix comeback against Gina Carano was supposed to be the story of fight week, nobody had Khamzat Chimaev on the bingo card for creating actual chaos. But on May 15 — just six days before her big return — Rousey said something at the MVP MMA 1 press conferen
Jun 10, 2026, 10:29 AM
Kade Ruotolo's First MMA Knockout Changed the Conversation—Just 6 Weeks Before His Grappling Title Defense
When Kade Ruotolo stepped into the ONE Championship cage in Bangkok, the narrative around him was still settling. But something was noticeably missing from his highlight reel—and when that hole got filled on May 15, it shifted how people were talking about him entirely.
Jun 10, 2026, 09:59 AM
Diogo Reis's First Fight Without Melqui Galvão's Team — ONE Fight Night 43 Became a Test Nobody Planned
Diogo Reis stepped onto the mat in Bangkok on May 15 for what should have been a routine title defense. Instead, it became something far more complicated: the first real glimpse of one of submission grappling's brightest talents operating without the institutional scaffolding tha
Jun 10, 2026, 09:28 AM
Buchecha's 'Friendships Over Titles' Message Hit Different After His Second UFC Knockout
About a week after Ryan Spann's left hook and straight right sent Marcus Buchecha Almeida to the canvas at UFC Vegas 116, the legendary grappler shared some philosophical reflections on what actually matters in life. "Everything that you build, everything that you conquer as an a
Jun 10, 2026, 08:58 AM
Kade Ruotolo's May Fight Against Tetsuka Was The First Real Test — And It Mattered
When Kade Ruotolo stepped into the cage against Hiroyuki Tetsuka at ONE: The Inner Circle in Bangkok on the 15th, it marked something genuinely different from what had come before. The announcement didn't exactly break the internet — Tetsuka isn't a name that drives mainstream cl
Jun 10, 2026, 08:27 AM
Kody Steele's UFC Perth Heel Hook Win Proved Combat Jiu-Jitsu Translates to the Cage
Kody Steele walked into UFC Perth and settled an argument that never stops being recycled through fighting podcasts. On May 7th, he submitted Dom Fan with a heel hook at 3 minutes and 56 seconds into round one—the kind of finish that forces people to reckon with what they actuall
Jun 10, 2026, 07:57 AM
Mica Galvao Broke His Silence — Condemned 'Violence Against Women And Children' In General But Did Not Address His Father By Name
When Melqui Galvao turned himself in to Manaus police on a São Paulo arrest warrant referencing alleged sexual crimes against minors, his son Mica posted a statement about seven hours later. The statement was short.
Jun 10, 2026, 07:26 AM
Melqui Galvão: How A Tenured Police Instructor Allegedly Abused Three Students — One Just 12 — While His Federation Stayed Silent
The headline detail that no story about Melqui Galvão could seem to top was almost absurd in its specificity: the man was on the Amazonas state payroll as a sworn Civil Police investigator with a sub-specialty in teaching other officers personal-defense techniques. That alone wou
Jun 9, 2026, 07:45 AM
Jinri Park on Training Discomfort: Why Women Stay Silent in BJJ
Jinri Park has spent over a decade rolling. She's trained long enough to know the difference between a good training session and one where she leaves the mat feeling small.
Jun 8, 2026, 04:11 PM
UFC 327 Had Three Submissions And The First-Ever Finish Of Loopy Godinez — Nobody Noticed Because A Man Won The Title On One Leg
UFC 327 at Kaseya Center in Miami delivered one of the most grappling-rich cards in recent memory. A first-ever stoppage of a fighter who had gone 19 professional bouts without being finished.
Jun 8, 2026, 03:41 PM
Hype Brazil Results: Both Sub-Only Headliners End in Draw — Miyao Submits Oliveira by Scottish Twister
Hype Brazil ran three grappling matches on Wednesday night in São Paulo. One ended with a 33-year-old berimbolo specialist cranking a man's spine in a direction spines aren't supposed to go.
Jun 8, 2026, 12:15 PM
Ben Askren's New Lungs, Old Habits
Ben Askren got new lungs. And his first instinct is to go back to wrestling.
Jun 8, 2026, 09:23 AM
A Black Belt in a Jiu-Jitsu Shirt Stopped an In-Flight Emergency. CNN Acted Surprised.
When a passenger attempted to open the emergency exit door at 30,000 feet, the man sitting nearby didn't freeze. He didn't yell for help.
Jun 8, 2026, 08:52 AM
Roger Gracie's Heel Hook Myth Is Older Than MMA Itself
Roger Gracie, the Gracie family patriarch and defender of traditional lineage, recently restated a claim that's been bouncing around BJJ circles since before the Fertitta brothers bought the UFC: heel hooks don't work in real fighting because the moment you grab someone's foot, y
Jun 8, 2026, 08:22 AM
RAF Takes Dvalishvili vs Cejudo and Snyder vs Sadulaev to Tbilisi — First International Event Remakes UFC 298 in a Country That Worships Wrestling
RAF is taking its first international card to Tbilisi, and if you've trained anywhere in the Caucasus region, you already know why that's not a random choice. The Resurrection Athletic Federation — the wrestling promotion that spent the last two years quietly rebuilding after Rya
Jun 8, 2026, 07:52 AM
Trump's White House UFC Card Just Got Sued for Corruption. Yes, Really.
Let me walk you through something that actually happened today: a federal lawsuit was filed — formally, in court, with lawyers and everything — alleging that a White House UFC event is an illegal corrupt scheme because the sitting president is personally profiting from VIP ticket
Jun 7, 2026, 07:51 PM
ADCC 2026 Was Selling 4 Tickets a Day With 15,030 Seats and Four Months to Go
As ADCC 2026 approached with four months remaining, ticket sales painted a bleak picture: 2,880 seats sold over five months of presale, averaging just four per day. The 15,030-capacity venue was only 19% full.
Jun 7, 2026, 07:21 PM
When ADCC Ran Five Simultaneous Opens Across Five Countries—And Revealed Its Real Problem
ADCC pulled off something ambitious—or desperate, depending on your read on it. On May 30, the organization coordinated qualifier events across Portugal, the United States, Wales, Moldova, and Slovakia, all happening on the same calendar date.
Jun 7, 2026, 06:05 PM
Livia Barasine Emerges as First Named Competitor on Record in Galvão Case
When Livia Barasine released her statement on May 4, the jiu-jitsu community got its first named adult face attached to the allegations against coach Melqui Galvão. She didn't emerge from anonymity because she'd been hiding.
Jun 7, 2026, 05:35 PM
Mikey Musumeci Announced He Was Going Full Dagestani—Then Finished His Title Defense the Same Way He Always Does
Mikey Musumeci made one of the stranger career announcements in recent grappling history. Sixteen days before his title defense against Kevin Dantzler on May 16th, the world's most dominant leg locker went on record saying he was essentially retiring from leg locks.
Jun 7, 2026, 05:04 PM
JCI 3 'The Dominion' Had 25 Submission-Only Fights and Five Title Bouts — It Was Free on YouTube and Nobody Noticed
Something genuinely unusual happened in the Midwest grappling world, and almost nobody noticed. When JCI 3: The Dominion went down on May 9 at The Vixen in McHenry, Illinois, it represented exactly the kind of event that should have been generating serious conversation across the