Eddie Bravo - who has trained both to varying degrees - weighs in:
But it was very surreal teaching JZ what to do against Aoki, considering I was the one who showed Aoki how to play rubber guard in the first place. I mean the guy even wore pants because I suggested it, so how could I ever root against him. I am definitely Aoki's biggest fan.
But Dan Lambert, the owner of ATT, is a real good friend of mine and asked me to come down to ATT and show JZ and the rest of the crew the rubber guard and how to stop it. I was very flattered yet conflicted at the same time.
It was very weird because like I said, Aoki is proving that the rubber guard is very effective in mma, and showing JZ how to stop could be very counter productive to what I'm trying to accomplish with the 10thpjj system.
But in the long run, after the fight is over, whatever happens, I feel that my trip to ATT is gonna help way more than hurt my quest to make the rubber guard standard in mma. Jz's training partners and coaches are really gonna study, disect and tear apart the rubber guard machine in hopes to stop it. So I feel that when it's all said and done, they will all see how effective it is for mma and really start to impliment the rubber guard into the ATT training program.
JZ is not just interested in how to stop the rubber guard, according to him, he wants to master the rubber guard himself. Marcus Areilio was also very down to learn the rubber guard as well. Whether or not they will have the patience to actually put the reps and numbers in to master the rubber guard, well..... we'll just have to wait and see.
All the guys at ATT were ultra super cool and very receptive to my philosophies and I really believe that the rubber guard will grow from this even if JZ stuffs Aoki's rubber guard. I even gave JZ the mastering the rubber guard dvd.
Who will win??????
Who the fuck knows, but I love both fighters so I'm hoping for a draw with alot of rubber guard action :)
Aoki can be bullied with proper guard neutralization. If JZ can work inside Aoki's guard (the rubber guard isn't the only threat), JZ's ground and pound should be more than sufficient.
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