BJJEE: Rafael Lovato Jr., 43, Says His Plan Against Younger Grapplers Is to Pin Them and Stop Moving

Rafael Lovato Jr. told Bernardo Faria his plan against younger grapplers: get on top and stop moving, BJJEE reports. That's it. That's the strategy.

The line, from the conversation with Faria: "I just want to pin you down and stop moving."

Lovato says "I'm in my 40s." Wikipedia lists his birth date as June 25, 1983, which makes him 43. It also has him as the second American, after B.J. Penn, to win the World Jiu Jitsu Championship as a black belt, and says he runs his own academy in Oklahoma City.

The "half-his-age" framing is BJJEE's.

Why it works

Lovato's reasoning is about who sets the tempo. He says: "I'd much rather be on top... Because you can control pace and speed much easier when you're the one on top."

Of being flat on the bottom, he says: "If you're flat, you have to press, you know, and you're really carrying the weight. And that makes you tired over time."

He's not describing a sweep or a fancy entry. He's describing a gas tank. The person underneath carries the weight.

The BJJEE piece also touches on Lovato's bottom game (closed guard, butterfly guard, omoplata) and on his wrestling.

The takeaway

In a sport sold on speed and scrambles, the pitch here is that pressure and wrestling beat athleticism. Pin you down, stop moving, let you do the tiring work.

Sure, it's not highlight-reel stuff. It's just a very heavy way to spend your afternoon.

Image: AI-generated image (Higgsfield), based on photos from BJJEE. Not a photograph of the events described.

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