Dear wresters who grew up to become jiu-jitsu devotees: UFC veteran Din Thomas thinks you’re uniquely primed for MMA greatness.
And that jiu-jitsu folks are potheads.
Thomas and UFC host/podcasting phenomenon Joe Rogan spent some time nerding out over the toughness and mindset of grapplers on the JRE MMA Show Podcast today, with wrestlers beating out jiujiteiros in Thomas’ eyes when it comes to work ethic and grind:
“I think it’s the way they’re brought up,” said Thomas. “Any wrestler’s brought up different. There’s a different level of toughness, a different level of competitiveness. When you go to jiu-jitsu schools the first thing you learn how to do is bow to mat and kiss the instructor’s ass. That’s it, you’re learning self defense and you’re learning respect. In wrestling it’s not about that, it’s about dominating. Winning, and dominating. So they have years of experience of doing that, just that mindset.
You go to a jiu-jitsu school and it’s a bunch of dudes smoking pot, layin’ back. They roll 5 minutes, sit and smoke for 30, roll 5 minutes…you go to a wrestling room, it’s hot and sweaty, they’re all uncomfortable, they’re all grinding, so you take THAT guy and you teach him some basic jiu-jitsu and you’ve got a champ. This is the mindset for me. They’re just brought up different. Especially if you wrestled in college? You go all your high school years and you got 50 matches a year. So you’re competing 200 times before you even graduate. And then if you wrestle in college you’re competing against the best of the best in the best room. Then you fight MMA, and it’s nothing—it’s nothing to you.”
Thomas is a retired fighter and black belt currently coaching at American Top Team. ATT works with fighters like Tyrone Woodley, Amanda Nunes, Dustin Poirier, and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
And yes, jiu-jitsu guys in their feelings, we know: Din Thomas doesn’t know what he’s talking about, you’ve never smoked weed, you’ll never smoke weed, you walked uphill both ways to school, you wrestled two bears in the motherland, etc.
But jiu-jitsu guys are the only grapplers with a sub-only competition exclusively for potheads. So. Yeah.
The full interview with Din can be found here:
