Love him or hate him, it’s fair to say that Andrew Tate had a very successful career as a kickboxer. Here, he won world titles and even had a short stint in MMA. Ironically, one of his victories in MMA was by a guillotine choke. This is ironic because he actually doesn’t rate Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, at least for self defense in a street fight.
In one of his earlier videos, he spoke openly about BJJ and how he didn’t like it for self defense, arguing, “Newsflash, BJJ is useless outside of the cage. And when I say this, a whole bunch of BJJ players get triggered. They start going ‘you’ve never messed with a BJJ guy’. Actually wrong, I’ve been in the cage 6 times. I understand Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I’ve trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I’ve fought Brazilian Jiu Jitsu professionally.”
Later on, he continued that training BJJ was different in MMA with rules, whereas on the streets it had different connotations with a lack of safety. Here, he said, “The number one rule of the street is do not go to the ground. You don’t know if your opponent has a knife, you don’t know if he has a friend who will come along and kick you in the face. You need to be on your feet at all times, ready to run to preserve your life. Rolling around on the floor with some guy is not some good idea. A lot of these BJJ moves are ineffective against the rules of the street. An armbar is not going to work if they’re taking a chunk out of your skin.”
This argument has been made for some time and undeniably, Tate makes some very good points. At the same time, there are countless videos online that show BJJ does work in street fights which is the obvious counter-argument to his claims.
