Tweet
I just watched this dvd last night. It's done documentary style, looks pretty low budget. It's not produced as well as Choke, but the element of creating Jean-Jacques out to be a superhuman being (as Rickson was in Choke) is similar. It has some very good footage of JJM in grappling-only matches. His sport bjj match against Yuki Nakai is featured, Nakai basically gets owned by JJM and taps around 5 minutes in. JJM says that Yuki Nakai was the #1 fighter in Japan, to furthur glorify his win. It also shows him competing at Abu Dhabi the year he won, defeating Mach Sakurai among others. My issue with the way this is presented is that they act as if JJM is going up against the #1 guy in the world and winning. Though Sakurai was the #1 lightweight at the time, he was never a grappling wizard, he was one of the best MMA fighters. Yet the dvd presents this as if JJM has just toppled the best by saying that Sakurai had never been defeated and now he has. Then the dvd takes advantage of the Wallid-mania, it shows the famous match between Wallid and JJM. Wallid was a brown belt at the time and JJM was an experienced world class black belt. Wallid does a good job in the early going, maintaining top position and nearly passing guard. But of course he gets tired (as he usually does) and JJM turns it on to make Wallid play defense for the second half. JJM casually and cleverly mentions in his interview that Wallid recently became famous because of his win over Royce Gracie. They show him teaching his students, they interview his students, and also interview some local police who have trained with him. JJM seems like a very nice guy, a great teacher, and amazing grappler. The highlight of the dvd is the match with Wallid, they are both very active withe Wallid going for position and JJM relentlessly looking for subs.
A documentary should have some kind of interesting story, which I don't think this dvd does. It's great watching match footage though. My problem with this and Choke is that it seems to ignore any challenges the person has faced and treats the subject like a demi-god. Watching the dvd about Mark Kerr was more interesting because it showed him winning, it showed him losing, and also dealt with his love and drug problems. Also they didn't make Kerr out to be the champ of anything, they showed other fighters and even showed Coleman winning the Grand Prix. Both Choke and this JJM dvd ignore other great competitors to act like their fighter is the undisputed #1 in the world, I don't quite like that. Choke must have been a higher budget operation as JJM's dvd seems amateurly produced. But again, the footage in there is amazing.
A documentary should have some kind of interesting story, which I don't think this dvd does. It's great watching match footage though. My problem with this and Choke is that it seems to ignore any challenges the person has faced and treats the subject like a demi-god. Watching the dvd about Mark Kerr was more interesting because it showed him winning, it showed him losing, and also dealt with his love and drug problems. Also they didn't make Kerr out to be the champ of anything, they showed other fighters and even showed Coleman winning the Grand Prix. Both Choke and this JJM dvd ignore other great competitors to act like their fighter is the undisputed #1 in the world, I don't quite like that. Choke must have been a higher budget operation as JJM's dvd seems amateurly produced. But again, the footage in there is amazing.
Comment