You may be surprised to learn that Russell Peters is a blue belt under Jean-Jacques Machado and has even trained up to four times per week at his peak. Not only is he a funny guy but he is also quite handy when it comes to grappling and once he even used his BJJ skills to stop a thief from stealing a ring.
This isn’t just his take on things either, there’s literally CCTV footage of the incident which shows Russell Peters control the thief with his BJJ. Here, he grabs the aggressor by the head and then switches to his arm and shoulder. Due to the pressure on the shoulder he forces the opponent to the ground. Whilst on the ground he controlled the thief with a wrist lock until authorities came to issue an arrest.
Speaking to Joe Rogan, Peters said “He thinks he’ll get up and walk away with the ring. He takes a swing at my friend so I go to get his neck, I was trying but I had three layers on. I then went to go for the arm. I get the arm and push it down. You can see I lock the wrist there. As soon as I get the arm he says ok, he stops moving.” So, even though wrist locks may be considered low-percentage in BJJ, but in the case of Russell Peters it worked perfectly to control an opponent. Funnily enough, there were no strikes during the confrontation which once again proves the effectiveness of BJJ for control.
