Ronaldo Souza: The Crocodile

 Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is a multi-sport legend in both Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed martial Arts. In the early 2000’s the man was a walking highlight reel on the mats, launching opponents with high amplitude judo throws and flying submissions. The switch to mma is not an easy one no matter what your mma credentials are, with many ADCC gold medalists entering the sport and falling short of the same greatness. Ronaldo Souza breaks the mould, not only becoming the champion in strikeforce and a top 5 ufc fighter, but also an exciting fan favourite. “Jacare” has put on banger after banger across multiple sports, still being worth rewatching long after his retirement.

Jacare made his start at 17 training judo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He excelled at the sport winning his weight class and absolute at multiple world championships and just missing out on ADCC double gold to the goat Roger Gracie. Not only did Jacare rack up a collection of titles but he did so in emphatic fashion, his judo black belt coming in handy, launching opponents with ippon seoi nagis and uchi matas in early 2000’s video camera quality. Eventually Souza would do what many jiu jitsu champions did and convert to mma, bringing his exceptional mat skills to the cage. 

One of the main transitions Jacare would have to make is his guard passing. Guard Passing in mma is a very different story to Brazilian jiu jitsu, especially in the gi. In bjj there is a mutual agreement from both parties that one man is going to play from top position and the other man is going to play from bottom, a sweep, takedown or guard pull determining this. This makes “outside” guard passing very popular, where the top man will attempt to pass guard giving as little connection to the opponent on bottom as possible, mitigating the risk of getting submitted. The addition of a gi can make this strategy even easier, as gi grips can be utilised to anchor the guard passer to the bottom man with relatively little commitment. In the cage it is a completely different story. The second you take an mma fighter to the ground their number one priority is to scramble back to their feet by any means necessary. This is helped by the uniform, where unlike a gi or a rashguard the shirtless and shorts fit removes a huge amount of friction. On top of this, the cage boundary can be used to “wall walk” where a fighter can push themselves off the fence to leverage their way up. This changes the dynamics of a top game a lot from elegantly dancing around someone’s legs into side control to “catch the greased up deaf guy”.

Jacare would mitigate this by creating a game that was heavily focused on pinning. He took what he was good at from his jiu jitsu career and refined it so that his opponents couldn’t stand up while he was doing it. Souza was big on the over/under pass, pinning down his opponent’s hips, elevating a leg and walking his way into side control. This meant that Souza could underhook his opponent's leg and simply walk into side control. Having that fixed position to walk around gave Souza a tremendous amount of mobility, to the point where he could use the stacking elements of the over/under pass in order to walk up the cage wall and over the opponent’s legs.

Jacare’s use of tripods would accomplish the same thing. From half guard Souza could move into a tripod, drive his weight into the bottom man and strip their legs away. The added hip height and ability to drive off the legs in the tripod meant that it was practically impossible for an opponent to win any scrambling situation, as Souza is always more mobile and on top of his opponent. This strategy is even better from side control, as Jacare is in a much more athletic position to step into mount than if he were simply chest to chest. The only way out is to aggressively turn in or away from Souza, offering up an easy back take or knee slide to mount. 

Souza’s submission game plays an equally important part in preventing getups. His half guard passing is made significantly better by the fact that if his opponent tries to build up he can threaten attacks in order to force them to break their own base. If the bottom man from half guard tries to wrestle up with an underhook Jacare can kill it with a kimura and break the opponent back down. If they lift their head to build height they have to deal with the threat of the guillotine. Souza creates these dilemmas of the submission and the pin in order to keep his opponents grounded, utilising submission in order to maintain position. Often in scrambling situations he will be willing to give up control in order to jump on armbars or triangles. Both in jiu jitsu or mma, if a bottom man extends themselves, for example trying to bridge, Souza is very willing to take advantage, whipping his legs up in order to try and get the finish. He famously hit this jumping triangle in the “dogfight” position in ADCC 2005, submitting Robert Sulski with it. This bravado carries over to mma, jacare attempting to jump on an armbar on Kelvin Gastelum as he tries to buck out of mount. This is a risky strategy, as Jacare can end up on bottom, but it also makes just trying to power out of bottom position significantly more risky for an opponent. While Ronaldo Souza can be seen as having an “old school” game in grappling, he was one of the best at applying it in mma due to understanding the meta shift. Grappling in mixed martial arts is different because your opponent does not consent to playing jiu jitsu. 

Ronaldo Souza may have been a jiu jitsu competitor, but most of his aura came from his crazy striking game. Jacare didn’t strike to set up takedowns, he struck to take your head off. Souza would often lead exchanges with overhand rights, swinging with enough power to put him wildly off balance. This not only got him respect on the feet against much better strikers, but also made opponents a lot more cautious about throwing back, with the potential for getting chinned with a right hand from hell constantly dangling from above. The lean from the overhand would also conveniently put him in position to land the left hook to the body or shoot a takedown, giving Jacare a triple threat that an opponent constantly had to deal with on the feet.

If the opponent managed to block the overhand it could be converted into a collar tie, Jacare hanging his hand over his opponent’s shoulder grabbing the back of their head. This would be leveraged into thunderous uppercuts to the head/body or he would yank himself into a Thai clinch, where he would pound his opponent with knees. Jacare was a very underrated body hitter, possessing a good front kick to the body to which he could stab his opponent with from mid range. Over time these body shots coupled with Souza’s relentless pace would lead them into deep waters, wearing them down until one man was knocked unconscious. Souza was not just an adequate striker, but leveraged his athleticism and built a game that made him a legitimate threat on the feet. 

Jacare Souza is a multi-sport legend and should be seen as an exemplar for any athlete looking to transition from jiu jitsu to mma. Not only was he able to utilise most of his bjj skills, but evolve them to deal with a mixed martial arts meta. While he was never able to touch ufc gold Jacare will hopefully be remembered as one of the sports most technical and entertaining fighters.