UFC BJJ is following their MMA formula, and have decided to be more strict with their exclusive contracts for Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) athletes.
According to UFC BJJ executive Claudia Gadelha, their grapplers won’t be allowed to compete in future ADCC events anymore. The former UFC title contender states that there will be a few exceptions for ADCC 2026, but they’ll enforce complete exclusivity moving forward.
“There are some of our exclusive athletes that we’ve given the ADCC to this year, but from next year on, they can only be an athlete of the UFC BJJ,” Gadelha said in an interview with Mundo Da Luta (transcript via BJJEE).
Despite the ban, Gadelha claimed they’re somehow not treating them as rivals.
“We don’t want to compete with anyone. We believe in what ADCC is doing, what IBJJF is doing, we believe that these are different products from what we have and what we are doing here,” she claimed. “But we also believe that for an athlete to be able to build a professional career in Jiu-Jitsu, this is the place he or she has to be, because we have consistency. Last year we did six events, now there are ten events this year.”
The current list of ADCC 2026 competitors doesn’t seem to include any exclusively signed UFC BJJ grapplers, but the promotion are still set to release more invites in the coming months.
Mikey Musumeci backs UFC BJJ’s decision to block athletes from joining ADCC
Mikey Musumeci, who recently signed a new exclusive deal with UFC BJJ, unsurprisingly continued to back the promotion.
“How dare UFC not want to spend millions of dollars investing in jiu- jitsu events, building their athletes to get maximal exposure just to donate their athletes to help other events,” the UFC BJJ bantamweight champion argued on Instagram.
“ADCC – 1 event (every 2 years) winner makes 20k,” Musumeci wrote with two laughing emojis. “UFC BJJ – 20 events (10 per year).”
UFC’s decision to block athletes from competing in organizations like ADCC and Musumeci responding to support it both come as no surprise. From Day 1 of his signing, Musumeci already revealed how UFC plans to adopt the exact same strategies that worked in MMA into BJJ.
While those controversial business practices led to multiple class action lawsuits against the UFC, that hasn’t stopped them from looking to adopt these to both their UFC BJJ and Zuffa Boxing ventures.
The flaw with Mikey Musumeci’s argument
While Musumeci supported UFC BJJ’s decision, the argument he made actually illustrates why they should allow athletes to compete in ADCC.
Banning athletes from similarly structured BJJ orgs like WNO or Polaris is understandable, but as Musumeci himself outlined, ADCC does not operate in the same space or pose a threat to UFC’s business model. With just one world championship event every two years, ADCC is clearly not their competition.
UFC BJJ also doesn’t have a monopoly (or monopsony) in jiu-jitsu like UFC currently has in MMA, and many of the top pound-for-pound grapplers currently compete outside the promotion. If anything, UFC BJJ has everything to gain at ADCC, and sending athletes over to an incredibly popular one-off event could have them ending up with much bigger stars overnight.
