Bryce Mitchell Said BJJ Professors Were Teaching 'Gayness' — Also Refused to Watch Musumeci

UFC featherweight Bryce Mitchell aired strong opinions about jiu-jitsu this week on his podcast, ArkanSanity, and in Reddit AMAs, continuing a line of criticism he'd repeated since February.

Mitchell's take: some Brazilian jiu-jitsu professors were "teaching gayness." The specific target was butt scooting—the seated guard initiation where a fighter starts a roll sitting down and scoots backward to engage from guard. According to Mitchell, this was a red flag. Not just a technical choice. A red flag for choosing a gym.

Then the logic fractured. Mitchell also said he understood butt scooting, used it himself, and only deployed it "as a last-resort defensive maneuver when desperate or struggling to escape bottom position." So Mitchell used butt scooting. He just didn't think professors should teach it.

The contradiction doubled down when Mitchell went further: he said he refused to watch Mikey Musumeci, the UFC grappling superstar, compete. Why? Because Musumeci butt scooted. Musumeci was arguably the most technically gifted grappler of the modern no-gi era—two-time ADCC champion, IBJJF world champ, UFC's first grappling champion. Musumeci's guard was so complete and devastating that his opponents had to literally sit to engage him safely. And Mitchell wouldn't watch it because of how Musumeci initiated.

The Setup

Mitchell wasn't wrong that butt scooting looked awkward if you didn't train jiu-jitsu. It did. You were literally scooting on your ass backward like a dog with an itch. On a fundamental level, if you didn't understand guard offense, it looked stupid. But Mitchell trained jiu-jitsu. He wasn't a casual. He was in the UFC. He knew what he was looking at.

The language Mitchell used—"gayness," the implication that it wasn't legitimate—landed differently depending on who was listening. In the grappling community, it registered as a tired gatekeeping take. On the internet, it landed as homophobic. Both registered simultaneously, depending on context.

Mitchell softened the blow by adding: "It's only gay if you make it gay. Jiu-Jitsu is cool. It's straight, brother." A clarification that tried to separate the technique from the slur. But the damage was already done. Once you'd said a fundamental jiu-jitsu tactic was "teaching gayness," no clarification quite put that back in the box.

What Mitchell was actually arguing—beneath the inflammatory language—was that butt scooting signaled lazy coaching. That legit professors should teach standing takedowns, single-leg entries, proper guard pulls. That butt scooting was the refuge of instructors who didn't know better.

The Technical Reality

He was wrong, but not in the way the headline suggested.

Butt scooting wasn't a shortcut. It was a tactical choice. When fighting someone with an aggressive top game, a sound base, or better wrestling, initiating from guard sitting down eliminated the takedown threat. You were already where you wanted to be. Your guard was already active. You didn't need to shoot, get sprawled, and scramble from bottom. You started engaged.

Modern no-gi grappling had evolved to reward position management over traditional exchanges. Single-leg entries worked great until your opponent base-passed through you and landed in a 12-6 armlock. Butt scooting removed that risk. It wasn't lazy. It was pragmatic.

Musumeci used it because it worked. His opponents couldn't find a clean single-leg without getting swept or choked. His guard pass defense forced attackers to sit and engage rather than attack aggressively. The butt scoot was part of that puzzle, not a bug.

The core contradiction: Mitchell used butt scooting himself. He wasn't criticizing a technique he didn't understand. He was criticizing other people for using a technique he also used. That logical contradiction—Mitchell never addressed it. If butt scooting was a red flag for a professor, what did it make of fighters who employed it in the UFC?

The Musumeci Question

Refusing to watch Mikey Musumeci because he butt scooted was like refusing to watch a goalkeeper because they wore gloves. It was the sport.

Musumeci wasn't butt scooting because his coach hadn't taught him takedowns. Musumeci had learned takedowns from Roger Gracie. He learned guard passing from multiple lineages. He deliberately chose to initiate guard because his guard was better than his opponents' top games. It was a tactical preference based on proven success, not a sign of deficiency.

Mitchell's refusal to watch created an interesting paradox: he was missing the most dominant grappler in UFC history because that grappler used a tool Mitchell himself used. The gatekeeping was so rigid it circled back on itself.

What the Community Actually Thought

Within the grappling world, Mitchell's take landed with mixed reactions. Some practitioners agreed—the traditional lineage crowd that still believed in standing foot-lock entries and a strong gi foundation. Others were baffled. How did you simultaneously use a technique and argue that professors shouldn't teach it?

The real tension wasn't about butt scooting. It was about what made a "legit" gym. Mitchell's implicit argument was that legitimacy came from a specific lineage, a specific approach, a specific aesthetic. Butt scooting violated that aesthetic. But legitimacy in jiu-jitsu wasn't about looking a certain way. It was about winning, staying healthy, and producing grapplers who could execute under pressure. By that standard, Musumeci's coaching was among the best in the world.

The secondary argument—that language mattered—was valid and separable from the technical debate. You could think butt scooting was fine and still object to framing it as "gayness." The BJJ community was built on brotherhood, on welcoming people who didn't fit the traditional combat-sports mold. Using "gay" as a slur, even softly, reinforced an exclusionary culture. Mitchell's clarification helped, but it didn't undo the original framing.

The Broader Picture

Mitchell's comments fit a pattern in combat sports: athletes defending traditional approaches against technical evolution. Standing takedowns were "manlier." Leg locks were once "dangerous." Butt scooting was "lazy." Each generation of gatekeepers found a new technique to delegitimize, and each time, the technique proved itself in competition.

Musumeci had already won. He was the UFC grappling champion. He was one of the most dominant athletes in a major promotion. Mitchell's refusal to watch didn't change that. It just meant Mitchell was choosing not to see one of the best grapplers alive because that grappler used a tactic he also used.

That wasn't a technical critique. That was cognitive dissonance with a podcast mic attached.

The Punchline

So here was the real joke: Bryce Mitchell warned people away from professors who taught butt scooting. Simultaneously, he used butt scooting himself and refused to watch the most successful practitioner of butt scooting ever. If butt scooting was a red flag for professors, what flag did it wave for fighters who employed it while criticizing it? Mitchell wanted the technique both ways—legitimate enough to use, illegitimate enough to condemn in others. That wasn't gatekeeping. That was just having it both ways.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

• Bryce Mitchell's ArkanSanity Podcast Comments on BJJ Professors
• Coverage of Mitchell's Butt Scooting and Musumeci Controversy