History UsefulNotes / BrazilianJiuJitsu

* DavidVsGoliath: Many of the early challenges in Brazil went this way.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'' goes into lenghts to show semi-realistic BJJ-inspired grappling on it's fights. The primary style of Cosmo Imai, a small 19-year old boy genius who uses chokes and joint lock to defeat opppnents double his size, and MMA fighter Okubo Naoya uses extensive BJJ grappling, mixing with his extensive striking abilities in his fight against Kanoh Agito. Later, fighter [[World's Strongest Man Wakatsuki Takeshi]] is shown training BJJ to complement his power full-contact Karate striking.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'': The primary style of Cosmo Imai, a small 19-year old boy genius who uses chokes and joint lock to defeat opppnents double his size.

** Supposedly, the Triangle Choke was adapted in BJJ after Rolls Gracie found it in a Judo book.

* DuelingDojos: Many, many examples through the art's history. Frequently, it amounted to "Gracie Academy vs. everybody".
** One of the most famous events of BJJ vs Luta Livre - which led to the popularity of Luta Livre to fall - was the ''Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs Luta Livre'' in 1991. The event started when Hugo Duarte, a practitioner of Luta Livre and notable rival of Rickson Gracie (with one famous incident of a street fight between both in Copacabana beach), was going to invade a Gracie BJJ gym with his friends but he was convinced to take into a vale tudo event that was going to be broadcasted. The result was victory of jiu-jitsu fighters in all of the bouts, which was transmitted in national television by Rede Globo, Brazil's largest broadcast company to everyone to see.

* BoringButPractical: What BJJ endorses is basically what Creator/BruceLee said: use everything that works and descards everything that does not. Whether the art is coherent to this philosophy in its most competition-oriented forms is a heated debate.

** The movie even makes use of Main/BoringButPractical in Fujio's use of jiu-jitsu in the zombie fighting area; the crowd boos at how quickly he ends his fights. Most likely emphasized because of Brazilian jiu-jitsu's real life reputation of being highly effective yet boring to watch (at least for those who don't practice it themselves). So pretty realistic ... for a zombie-jiujiteros fight movie.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Eren fights using a style that resembles Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his fight against the Armored Titan/[[spoiler:Reiner]], since striking is useless against his armor, Eren does a good exhibition of a triangle choke into an armbar, attempts (and fails) to do a leglock, and then does closes his guard and applies a guillotine. The author is a [[AuthorAppeal huge MMA fan]] so he likes to use actual MMA styles for his "Titan Martial Arts".

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Eren fights using a style that resembles Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his fight against the Armored Titan/[[spoiler:Reiner]], since striking us useless against his armor, Eren does a good exhibition of a triangle choke into an armbar, attempts (and fails) to do a leglock, and then does closes his guard and applies a guillotine. The author is a [[AuthorAppeal huge MMA fan]] so he likes to use actual MMA styles for his "Titan Martial Arts".

* ''Film/LethalWeapon'': CowboyCop Martin Riggs ends FisticuffsBoss Mr. Joshua by putting him in a triangle choke. One of the first movies to feature BJJ (and before BJJ was big), this was a result of technical advisor Cedric Adams wanting to show how deadly Riggs was by "having mastery of a form of martial arts never before seen onscreen." As by this time Rorion Gracie was slowly building his Holywood connections by appearing as an extra in movies and promoting BJJ in magazines, he ended up as one of the movie's choreographers, and would make an appearance in ''Lethal Weapon 3''. UsefulNotes/{{Capoeira}} and Jailhouse Rock[[note]]a self-defense system supposedly developed in American prisons[[/note]] were also used.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Eren fights using a style that resembles Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his fight against the Armored Titan/[[spoiler:Reiner]], since striking us useless against his armor. The author is a [[AuthorAppeal huge MMA fan]] so he likes to use it as a style of fighting.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Eren fights using a style that resembles Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his fight against the Armored Titan, since striking us useless against his armor. The author is a [[AuthorAppeal huge MMA fan]] so he likes to use it as a style of fighting.

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Eren fights using a style that resembles Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, most famously in his fight against the Armored Titan.

** Between BJJ academies, there was the rivalry between the Fadda and Gracie schools. Fadda got his black belt through Luiz França, and trained with the poorer folk in the outskirts of Rio while the Gracies focused in the richer strata. In a famous challenge between both schools in 1955 and 1956 resulted in victory in the majority of Fadda's students through leglocks. Although later the relationship between both academies would be better, leading to the founding of the Jiu-Jitsu Federation of Guanabara in 1968.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: BJJ is traditionally practiced barefoot, and shoes are usually not allowed at the mats. There are a few no-gi gyms that classify themselves as "submission grappling" allow people to wear wrestling shoes, or most famously the ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) doesn't have a dress code, so wrestling shoes are allowed.[[note]]Some contestants also fight barechest and even with t-shirts! Instead of the rashguards seen in no-gi training, and even more interesting, the traditional Gi is allowed! Even though is never worn as the fighter with gis will be in a disavantage. The ADCC is "Submission Wrestling", so all kinds of grappling based Martial Arts compete, such as Catch Wrestling, Luta Livre, Judo and Sambo.[[/note]]

* HandicappedBadass: Jean Jacques Machado was born with amniotic band syndrome, which left him with only the thumb and the little finger on his left hand. Didn't prevented him from starting grappling, winning major titles in championships in Brazil from 1982 through 1992. He was one of the pioneers in BJJ on the United States, arriving in 1992 after his student, '''''Creator/ChuckNorris''''', helped him to set his academy. Eddie Bravo and Creator/JoeRogan would also get their black belts under him.

* DoesNotLikeShoes: BJJ is traditionally practiced barefoot, and shoes are usually not allowed at the mats. There are a few no-gi gyms that classify themselves as "submission grappling" allow people to wear wrestling shoes, or most famously the ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) doesn't have a dress code, so wrestling shoes are allowed.[[note]]Some contestants also fight barechest and even with t-shirts! Instead of the rashguards seen in no-gi training. It's mostly because the ADCC is "Submission Wrestling", so all kinds of grappling based Martial Arts compete, such as Catch Wrestling, Luta Livre, Judo and Sambo.[[/note]]

** The Gracies had a rivalry with judoka Georges Mehdi, one of Brazil's top Judo instructors. He claimed that BJJ was not a separate art from Judo, critized their lack of honesty and unwillingness to train lower class students, and also claimed that the match between Hélio Gracie and Wrestling/MasahikoKimura might have been a [[WorkedShoot Work]] due his background on ProfessionalWrestling. Despite that, Mehdi would never held his knowledge with anyone who wanted to train with him, including many BJJ fighters such as José Mario Sperry, Rickson Gracie, and Wallid Ismail.

* DeceptiveDisciple: Carlos Gracie to Donato Pires dos Reis, whose academy he hijacked while the latter had to travel abroad.

** One of the most famous events of BJJ vs Luta Livre - which led to the popularity of Luta Livre to fall - was the ''Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs Luta Livre'' in 1991. The event started when Hugo Duarte, a practitioner of Luta Livre and notable rival of Rickson Gracie (with one famous incident of a street fight between both in Copacabana beach), was going to invade a Gracie BJJ gym with his friends but he was convinced to take into a vale tudo event that was going to be broadcasted. The result was victory of jiu-jitsu fighters in all of the bouts, which was transmitted in national television by Rede Globo, Brazil's largest broadcast company to everyone to see.

** The art is called "Brazilian jiu-jitsu", but its history contains virtually no traditional jujutsu influence, unless you consider Kodokan judo as another jujutsu branch. The usage of this term instead of "Brazilian judo" comes from the interchangeability of those words at the time and place the art was developed (namely Brazil in TheThirties, where few made distinction between judo and other jujutsu schools altogether) and from a desire to differentiate itself from the late judo competition rules, which many Brazilian practitioners rejected (mostly the Gracie family, although the Fadda and Franca schools weren’t fans of judo competition either).

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Very popular in the United States, as the Gracies to take to the US as a way to expand the popularity of the art.

->''"The ground is my ocean, I'm the shark, and most people don't even know how to swim."''