In a recent episode of The Grapplers Perspective Podcast, Steven Henshall, founder of Henshall BJJ and Ikigai Submission Grappling, revealed how his promotion is now offering blue belt competitors prize money that surpasses what ADCC paid to their female world champions.
Henshall, a former MMA champion and BJJ black belt under Andy Aspinall (father of UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall), has created a tournament format that focuses on blue belts with surprisingly lucrative prize money.
Why Blue Belts?
When asked about why he’s chosen to showcase blue belts rather than higher-ranked practitioners, Henshall explained it was an organic decision based on competitor interest.
“If we go through my inbox now, I’ll have 20 black belts maybe putting their name forward for a show and 600 blue belts,” Henshall noted. “It just made sense to go with the blue belt tournament.”
This approach targets what many consider the most enthusiastic segment of the jiu-jitsu community. Blue belts typically maintain high intensity in their training and competition schedules, making them ideal candidates for an entertaining submission-focused event.
“The last belt when I was 100% into my training and was considered really good for the belt was blue belt,” Henshall reflected on his own journey. “After that, I kind of fell off as much intensity in training.”
The Prize Money
What’s truly revolutionary about Ikigai Submission Grappling is the prize money structure. The upcoming blue belt tournament offers a $5,000 prize to the winner—an amount that exceeds what ADCC has historically paid female champions.
“It’s a lot of cash,” Henshall emphasized. “The most amount of time that you’re going to grapple if you win is under 30 minutes I think… You might do less than 30 minutes work for five grand.”
Beyond the tournament, regular matches at Ikigai events offer competitors $250 for a win, with main event grapplers potentially earning $1,000. This financial incentive drives competitors to pursue submissions rather than play it safe.
The Format
The 16-competitor blue belt tournament features six-minute submission-only matches. If no submission occurs, a decision is made by a referee and three judges, with greater emphasis placed on submission attempts rather than simply positional dominance.
“If someone’s going for, say, four subs on you and he gets mount… get to work,” Henshall explains about the judging criteria. “There’s like a minute left, you need to get a finish. He’s been on the attack most of the round.”
For the final match with $5,000 on the line, there’s no time limit. “We want a clear winner,” Henshall stated, eliminating the possibility of controversial decisions in the championship bout.
Making BJJ Entertaining for Spectators
Henshall acknowledges one of the sport’s biggest challenges: making submission grappling entertaining for casual viewers.
“Don’t show them a jiu-jitsu match, whatever you do,” Henshall advised about introducing people to the sport. “Two fully grown men sitting on their ass and scooting towards each other… they go, ‘Oh, this is really good? This is what you do for a living?'”
Instead, Henshall focuses on creating an entertaining event atmosphere, similar to how darts competitions have become popular spectacles despite the sport itself not being inherently exciting to watch.
“I love the darts, but take away the crowd, the atmosphere—it’s two fat blokes doing that. It’s the worst spectator sport in the world,” Henshall said. “But if you make everything the atmosphere, people coming out, then people enjoy it.”
The Future of Competitive BJJ
By focusing on submission-only formats with financial incentives, Henshall believes he’s onto something that could change the competitive landscape of BJJ.
“I’ve gone obsessed about this,” Henshall admitted. “This is the first thing that I’ve been like, ‘I want to be the best at this.’ I think I can do something really big here and be the best at this in this country.”
The implications extend beyond just entertainment value. As Henshall points out, creating a viable economic model for competitors could transform jiu-jitsu as a career path:
“You can now maybe at 18-19 go, ‘I’m gonna sack this job off and just train jiu-jitsu and go win money every single week at some different comp.'”
With blue belt competitors now earning what ADCC once paid female champions, the economic structure of competitive jiu-jitsu appears to be evolving. Whether this model will be sustainable or spread to other promotions remains to be seen, but Henshall’s Ikigai Submission Grappling has certainly disrupted the traditional approach to competition payouts in the sport.
