Bravo is an old man - lol
Got his BJJ Black Belt from...
Bravo received his black belt from well respected Jean-Jacques Machado, one of the old school pioneers that recently was a judge in Metamoris 2. Eddie wrestled in high school for a little bit and this is where he first discovered the wrestling leg ride. This leg ride is what he later used in coming up with the Twister. In his own bio, he said that he was a big fan of martial arts growing up and then later after watching the early UFC's, he was blown away by the little skinny fellow, Royce Gracie, choking people out. And so it began.
Not just a 1 trick pony
If you are basing your idea of Bravo only upon what you hear or read online, you might be shocked to learn how diverse he truly is. And I don't mean just with bjj, but also with his entire life. Many times people confuse his victory over Royler Gracie not only as a fluke but also as a part of his anti-bjj, no gi, rubber guard crusade. This is so not true. He caught Royler with a standard triangle at a time when Royler was seemingly unbeatable. He was the Marcelo Garcia of the time. Bravo is not anti-gi, he is pro-winning fights.
The Gi vs. No Gi Garbage
I conducted an interview with Bravo a few years ago and one of the questions, of course, I asked was the whole gi vs. no gi stuff you hear about him. "So you hate the gi huh?" "Umm, no." Here is the scoop. Again Bravo got his bjj black belt after training in the gi. He was watching the UFC's and after a little while, the bjj guys weren't winning as much anymore. He tried to figure out why and the only thing he could come up with was how the gi guys trained. In mma, there are barely any clothes to grip onto. In bjj, you have all of the collars, pant legs, sleeves, whatever. He reasoned that the bjj guys were so used to grasping at those handles that when they weren't there, there were like fish out of water. And this is what lead to the twister, rubber guard, and everything else he ridiculously named. I dislike the technique names btw. So Bravo is definitely not anti-gi. In fact, in most of the still shots from Mastering the Twister, he is wearing gi pants. He says he does that for added friction though.
I kinda like his music...
More than bjj, I believe Bravo loves music. It seems like since his teen years he has been surrounded by music and quite often, it seems like his focus on bjj is so focused so that he can be free with his music. As though bjj can fund his passion for music. He has had thousands of bands, maybe not thousands but several. I have only really heard the some of the recent stuff and it kind of has a rap/rock/beat style to it. His music does get a lot of flak online but I seriously do enjoy it. Plus a lot of the chicks he gets to sing on there are hot, lol. The dude who raps I think, Compella, is also the guy who competed in Bravo's first Combat Jiu-Jitsu event.
Combat Jiu-Jitsu
Combat jiu-jitsu is basically bjj with some limited striking while on the ground. I think it's a great idea because if you're like me, you kind of want to test yourself in more of a fight than bjj provides but you don't want to get full force kicked in the grill. Combat jiu-jitsu allows for this. There is no striking on the feet, and I believe there are no elbows on the ground. I think the first event was last year and I don't believe there has been another one which is too bad. This old body at 40 was maybe considering it.
The Rubber Guard
You want to talk about a position that gets pooped on relentlessly? Now me being a bjj practitioner and somewhat flexible, I can go for the rubber guard. I don't hold it though, I use it to set up other positions. Many fighters use it to hold on though which is where I think the frustration comes from. Joe Rogan, one of his friends, used to mention it non-stop during UFC broadcasts. The rubber guard, or more specifically, mission control, is used to keep the posture of your opponent down so that they can't posture up and drop bombs on your head with way more force. Mission control is supposed to nullify those attacks in mma. The bad thing is, we've never seen it work. I know in bjj that if you go to mission control against a good opponent, your guard will get passed. In mma, I think it can be more successful due to the punches but again, we haven't seen it yet.
Hopefully, you got a little more from this article than what you could get from the generic one over at wiki. Eddie Bravo gets a ton of heat just because he didn't follow the conventional bjj path. Well he did but then branched off only in the hopes of improving bjj for mma. He wanted the bjj and grappling guys to be dominant again in mma. First and foremost I think he is a musician at heart. BJJ dude second. However this musician tapped Royler Gracie. Now - if any of this made you curious about Bravo, not in that way weirdo, or if you were on the fence about checking out his stuff, I do have a few articles up on my site.
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