In a revealing interview with MMA Mania, Mikey Musumeci, UFC BJJ Road to the Title coach, inadvertently dropped some major insights about UFC’s long-term grappling strategy under Hunter Campbell‘s leadership, offering a glimpse into the future of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu within the world’s premier MMA organization.
“Hunter Campell, the head of UFC, I always talk to him and he he’s the one that instilled this in my mind. Like he’s a mentor for me as uh, for sure and he tells me, Mikey, stop thinking short term, think long term. We want to grow this program long term,” Musumeci shared.
This revelation suggests Campbell, widely viewed as Dana White‘s eventual successor, sees BJJ as a cornerstone of UFC’s future expansion rather than just a side project.
“I was talking to Hunter from UFC, Claudia (Gadelha) and Tecci, and we all got together in a room and I wanted to be a part of something the biggest it could be for my sport, right? So when I talked to them, we formulated this game plan of us making this UFC BJJ and starting everything from scratch with belts, with everything, the rules.”
“Basically it’s a form of CJI rules. Uh, shout out to Craig Jones for this rule set that he, um, created. Basically, it was a hybrid of ACB. It was like this Russian tournament back in the day and then Karate Combat’s pit.”
“Craig’s rule set uh was more about positional dominance. it wasn’t as much submissions… I kind of talked and I wanted to kind of be a hybrid of that like a little more about submissions than just positional.”
When asked about opponent selection, Musumeci emphasized:
“We have to start everything from scratch and we want to legitimize these divisions. We don’t want like all over the place different like that won’t legitimize it, right?”
Through Musumeci‘s candid remarks, it becomes clear that Campbell views BJJ not as a novelty addition but as a serious long-term plan.
If UFC BJJ is inflating viewership and engagement numbers while quietly shaping the sport’s future through corporate-backed initiatives like Hunter Campbell’s long-term vision and Mikey Musumeci’s deep involvement, the implications for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu could be deeply concerning. On one hand, Musumeci’s revelations paint a picture of UFC building BJJ from the ground up—crafting divisions, and promising professional exposure. But when paired with the investigative findings of suspicious social media growth and artificially boosted metrics, a more cynical picture emerges: a manufactured ecosystem where numbers are used not to reflect real interest but to sell legitimacy to athletes and audiences.
This matters because UFC isn’t just organizing events—it’s positioning itself as the only legitimate future of grappling. The risk is a sport governed not by merit or authenticity, but by marketing metrics crafted to secure control, not elevate jiu-jitsu.
