Ash Williams, a UK based BJJ competitor and veteran of the sport, recently shared his candid thoughts on The Grapplers Perspective Podcast about the amateur reality behind professional jiu-jitsu.
“The truth about jiu-jitsu is that at the end of the day we’re just amateurs playing at being professionals,”
Williams stated bluntly.
“We’re just jokers. We act as if we’re professional athletes, but we’re not.”
Williams, who has competed at the highest levels of the sport including ADCC, pointed out the stark economic reality for even top-tier grapplers:
“There’s very few people in this world that earn enough money through their sports they can call themselves a professional athlete. It’s so minuscule. To say that I earn enough money to pay my mortgage from competing—I don’t. It’s not possible, nowhere near.”
This honesty comes from a competitor who has faced the best in the world and maintained a position in the top rankings for years. Despite his success, Williams highlighted the multitude of roles BJJ athletes must take on to make ends meet:
“We’ve got to teach, we’ve got to teach privates, we’ve got to teach seminars, we’ve got to sell material online, we’ve got to produce material for online, we’ve got to continuously produce content for Instagram otherwise the algorithm just absolutely shafts you. It’s just relentless.”
The contrast with traditional professional sports is striking. Williams recounted a conversation with a young rugby player:
“I go to the Scarlets and there’s like an 18-year-old signed for them. He’s not on big bucks at all, but he’s on enough money to live, get a house and get a car. I ask him, ‘So what do you do?’ He says, ‘I just turn up to training at 7am, finish at 3pm, and then do what I want the rest of the day.’ They have guaranteed matches, a season, an offseason, and time off where they’re getting paid to just be an athlete.”
The BJJ lifestyle stands in stark contrast to this structured professional approach. Williams pointed out that jiu-jitsu’s training methodology often lacks scientific periodization:
“Over-training is the issue. Athletes just want to spar. How does that not scream amateur to you? We’re like little crack addicts for it—we just love our fix every day.”
He emphasized that professional athletes in other sports don’t participate in full-intensity competition daily:
“Professional players aren’t playing a full game every day. They’re lifting, running, doing fitness, running drills, studying. But jiu-jitsu athletes—we just love sparring.”
Williams also highlighted the sport’s lack of professional coaching infrastructure:
“Until we get a band of coaches that just want to be coaches and develop younger talent genuinely, for no personal gain, athletes aren’t capable of it. It all comes down to money. As soon as the sport gets picked up by someone massive like Sky Sports or UFC and money is bumped into it, then people can go professional. Then sports science can get involved and periodization, and we can look at it in a far deeper level.”
Despite these realities, Williams remains optimistic about the future of BJJ, noting that younger athletes coming into the sport today have significantly better opportunities than when he started.
“The opportunities coming your way are incredible. The exposure is so much more. The ability to earn money through the sport is just getting better year on year.”
For now, though, Williams continues to juggle being a high-level competitor with teaching and other revenue streams, embodying the reality of BJJ’s current state: passionate athletes pushing the sport forward while navigating its amateur economic landscape.
