^ I don't blame Eddie for being famous. I blame him for the stuff he says about more traditional bjj and the shit he talks about guys that have done way more than him (most recently he is feuding with Draculinho- then I think Eddie realized Drac is not to be messed with) and the outright fabrications he sells.
Kimbo was famous because others made him famous. Gina is famous because she was the best female fighter at the time, and was also the hottest. But you don't see Kimbo and Gina out there trying to tell everyone else that they are experts. Unlike Eddie, who is like Paris Hilton, it is all self promotion.
Eddie came up the traditional way, in a gi, under JJM. He is legit himself and used to be fairly well respected. Now he is basically a joke in the bjj community and every legit bjj trainer just rolls his eyes when asked about Eddie and/or rubber guard.
As for Eddie's actual style, it is not that bad. His half guard game is actually fairly traditional. Of course he needed something to sell the system, so he added the lockdown, which he does credit to JJM (although as you mention, JJM didn't "invent" it either).
He does claim to have invented rubber guard. Nino Schembri, who is widely known and way more accomplished in bjj, used "rubber guard" a lot to set up omoplatas and even gogoplatas. He even used it against Sakuraba in mma. This is all well before "Mastering the Rubber Guard" went to press.
But really, it is not that stuff that upsets the bjj community. It is how he puts himself forward as this revolutionary and tries to put down bread and butter bjj in order to elevate his status. He has called the gi irrelevant (even though he came up in the gi- and he is by far the best 10pl practioner). He has basically shit on all the guys that made him good.
Then he started promoting total asshats for business reasons. He infamously promoted Ari Bolden to purple shirt. Ari is the operator of the successful Submission 101 website. Basically Ari is fraud and huckster of the worst kind. He would wear his JJJ bb and claim to be an authority in bjj. He was very clearly a wb, his technique videos were wrong and horrible. Then Eddie partnered with him so he could get on teh wesite and made him an instant purple without having actually trained with him. When Eddie got called to the carpet for having the worst purple belt known to man, Eddie backtracked out of it and said that Ari rolls like a wb, but his knowledge of the 10pl system is why he gave him purple. Ari has since affiliated with a real bjj trainer in Keith Owen and was recently awarded a blue belt. Then he promoted Brandon Quick to brown. Sadly, Brandon was probably one his best students. But it turns out that he made up a lot of his history, so Eddie basically revoked his rank when the internet bjj police started to turn on Eddie again. Then there is the whole pot propoganda stuff. His "music". The staged fight in his gym (he had a guy come in and pretend to challenge him and Eddie choked him out-presumably to get some cred. It is on Youtube... everyone found out it was fake and he again backtracked out of it saying it was a joke). I could go on and on for days.
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Originally Posted by zY|
