Joe Solecki is a BJJ black belt and professional MMA fighter in the UFC. He resides in Wilmington, NC but originally hails from Wenonah, NJ and has been training BJJ since the age of 6 years old. Joe states “I got into BJJ at age 6 by accident, I wanted to do karate like the power rangers. My parents sent my brother for a year or two at first, but we ended up enrolling in a school where the instructor had began training BJJ and he switched the entire curriculum to grappling by the time I signed up”.
Since then he has come a long way, and received his black belt in 2017 aged 24. Solecki is also something of a submission expert in MMA, winning an impressive 11 fights via submission. He favours the Rear Naked Choke as this is his favourite submission.
Whilst not submitting his opponents, his favourite guards are Butterfly and half guard. Here he enjoys the underhook/overhook sweep from Butterfly which is used commonly in MMA.
When on top, Solecki’s passing style is based on pressure, which again translates well to both a BJJ and MMA setting.
Both a regular at BJJ competitions and MMA, he usually fights at 155lbs in the Octogon and 170lbs in grappling competitions. He trains under John Salter at Salty Dog MMA for both BJJ and wrestling. He also trains under Jeff Jimmo at Gym-O for MMA and grappling. However, Solecki’s black belt was awarded to him from John Hassett who he still trains with whenever given the chance. Solecki claims these are his most influential grapplers whilst he also enjoyed watching Marcelo Garcia whilst growing up.
Solecki is fighting Austin Hubbard this weekend in the UFC where he states “this fight is the biggest fight of my career to date. Every fight truly is your biggest fight, but this fight will allow me to show I belong at this level and to continue to secure a future for my family”. Solecki considers signing his UFC contract as his biggest career achievement alongside his first win in the iconic promotion.
He is a religious man and when asked about his faith replied, “my faith is a huge factor in my training and is the most important aspect of my life. Without. My faith I would not be able to pursue the life I am living and would not be blessed with the amazing people around me” which also shows his humble nature.
As with MMA there are regular setbacks. For Solecki this included fracturing his orbital bone just 3 weeks before his first amateur fight. In terms of his hardest opponent he states “outside of my two losses which are the obvious answers, Jacob Bohn at CFFC. He scrambled really well, attacked whenever he could, and made me grind out a hard fought decision”.
When asked about the future he also claims “I want to climb the ranks in the Lightweight division and win a world title one day. Eventually I would love to be able to coach and teach others.”
Joe Solecki fights Austin Hubbard on August 22nd at UFC’s Fight Night – we wish him the best of luck in the bout and the rest of his career.
