Last night at UFC 81 might be a blast from the past in regards to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Remember back when you only had to be good at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to beat up guys in the UFC? With all the talk about the importance of being a well rounded MMA fighter over the past few years, UFC 81 may have come a shock to some. We saw two heavyweights take a serious beating from their opponents, only to submit them. Lets take a look at both of the heavyweight fights from UFC 81.

Brock Lesnar came in powerful as ever as he had to cut weight just to make the 265 lb. limit for the heavyweight division. Mir weathered the storm and started fishing for submissions, going after the arm bar first. He couldn’t get it locked in due to the shear size of Lesnar’s arms. Mir said that wrestlers were prone to leaving themselves open to foot locks. Well, he was right, because even with Lesnar’s impressive wrestling background, he left himself wide open for a knee bar.

Everybody was saying that Nog was training hard for this fight and he looked to be physically in great shape. When the fight started, Sylvia proved to push the pace and pick Nog apart slowly with strikes. Tim got out of every guard Nog had him in. Nog got him down in side control, but it was at the very end of the round as the bell rang. Tim clinched well and really left the fight out in the open utilizing his strikes. Nog’s face was really a bloody mess. Nog tangled Sylvia in his guard and never let him out and worked for a couple of submissions until Tim made one mistake, that was all he needed to catch Tim in a Guillotine. Nog hasn’t ever been knocked out, even fighting the greatest in MMA history. Nog proves that if you can’t take a good BJJ guy out he will catch you sooner or later if he is given enough time.

I am not saying you don’t need all the tools to be a MMA fighter. Alberto Crane and Marcelo Garcia have learned this early in their MMA careers. The MMA evolution has appeared to have early fighters great at one and hardly knew any other arts. Then fighters became great at one and practiced the other arts just to be familiar with them. Still, a lot of fighters these days are able to know all of them, but be great at only one. If I had to pick the one, it would be Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. As you can see after last night, it still proves to be one of the best out there in MMA today.