After beating a grappler of the caliber of Jon Olav Einemo at UFC 131, Herman started believing “Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t work” in MMA. Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa.
Rodrigo Minotauro’s opponent at UFC 153, coming up October 13 in Rio de Janeiro, Team Quest rep Dave Herman has two objectives for this next outing of his.
First, to make MMA history by being the man to retire the legendary Minotauro, as he himself puts it.
The other is to further rewrite the saga of the sport itself. In his own words, from a press conference held yesterday over the phone:
“I want to retire him [he said in Portuguese]. Minotauro’s an MMA legend. He’s fought everyone since the beginning, but I’m going to repeat what I’ve said before: Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t work. And after this fight, everyone’s going to realize that.”
Herman, who has three career submissions on his ledger, first made public this strong opinion of his back in 2011. Dave Herman (21w, 4l):
“I honestly really don’t think it does [work]. If you have any knowledge at all of Jiu-Jitsu, it’s just not going to work. If you literally have never heard of anything and have no idea what they’re doing, OK, kind of like the first UFC, yeah Jiu-Jitsu works. It’s kind of like trickery, basically. If you have any idea about any of the tricks, it’s just not going to work, unless you’re a complete idiot and fall for it… Maybe I should re-phrase it and just say, Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t work on me. As a wrestler I’m going to have to stick with wrestling as the best, but I really think Jiu-Jitsu isn’t that great, and even from a spectator standpoint, it’s not that fun to watch. Striking is obviously the most entertaining.”
Taking to Twitter to issue a rebuttal, Rodrigo Minotauro remarked about his rival’s statement: “Herman’s a big guy with an even bigger mouth. That motivates me a lot. The HSBC Arena is going to tremble on October 13…”
In the meantime, while waiting for the moment of truth to come, can some GRACIEMAG.com reader please show Dave the following videos?