I’ve been a fan and supporter of Metamoris ever since it began back in 2013 and have paid to live stream all 5 Metamoris events.

While I know that somehow the matches are pirated and find their way onto youtube almost immediately after it’s done broadcasting, I still feel compelled to support them.  The bigger they get, the better it is for everyone in the jiu-jitsu community, so I’m more than happy to do my small part.

They released released a subscription based, on demand feature called Metamoris All Access, with hours of new and old content.

Signing Up

Here’s a look at the sign up page:

I know things are a little small, so here’s a close up of the package options and what is included in each package:

I was hoping that I could just pay for 1 month and use that month to go through all of the content.  Since I’m generally one of those guys that can binge watch something in the course of a few weeks, I thought that paying for a minimum of 3 months was more than I needed.  While I’m willing to support them… I also don’t paying for something I’m not going to use the entire time.

Of the options, I chose the 3 month plan for a total of $25.47.

If this package truly includes the Metamoris 6 pay per view, then as you can see, it’s more than worth it, since the PPV Broadcast by itself is going for $29.99.

My review is being written on 5/7/15 so I can’t comment on anything that comes up after this.  As of this writing, this is what is currently available:

• All matches from Metamoris 1, 3, 4, and 5.
• Road to Metamoris – Season 1
• Deleted Scenes
• Seminar with Keenan Cornelius
• Match Breakdown with Josh Barnett
• Fitness and Training with Mike Saffaie

Metamoris 1-5

Since I’ve already watched these matches and they’re available on youtube, I didn’t spend much time going through them.  I just scanned through a few of them to make sure they were accurate, which they were.

Did you notice Metamoris 2 was left out?

I guess the whole fiasco with using judges and the poor showing by Brendan Shaub caused Ralek to pretend it never existed…

Road to Metamoris Season 1

In the lead up to their latest event, Metamoris 6 this Saturday May 9, they decided to try something different.  They created a mystery super heavy weight slot that people could try out for.  It was their own version of The Ultimate Fighter, where a group of guys would compete against each other in a tournament to fill the mystery slot.  This was called, “The Road to Metamoris,” and I think was meant to be the main meat and potatoes of the All Access offering.

Here’s how Ralek describes the rules it in an interview with Fightland:

What are the rules?
There are four four-men brackets. And each of the four-men brackets fights each other.

It’s not about the number, per se. It could be five-man brackets. In this case, there are four, four-men brackets. The idea is that each man will fight everyone in their bracket but it’s not a traditional round robin. It’s a “Death-Trap” round robin… Basically, if someone has more submissions than you, but you beat them, you move on and you inherit all their wins for yourself. It’s “King of the Hill” style so the brackets will close out very fast.

If one guy ends up winning three matches in a row, and the other two guys are losing (or they just draw) they are not going to be able to catch up with him, they haven’t done their submissions, and they don’t deserve to move on at that point. We also told them that if every match in a bracket ends in a draw they all go home… Needless to say, they were going all-out.

There are a total of 5 episodes that are anywhere from 10-15 minutes each.  I thought that the production quality was top notch as with most of what Metamoris puts out.

If you really want a sense for what these episodes are like, they published first episode on youtube for free:

Even after watching all the episodes and reading Ralek’s interview, I had a hard time understanding the system and what a ‘death trap’ actually is.  It seemed like at times people would still have a match even if there was no way they could catch up to someone else in their group who had the lead, making the match completely irrelevant.

Aside from the wonky system, the thing that caught my attention was how out of shape a lot of these super heavy weights were.  I’d say maybe 60-70% of the guys could be considered obese, while the remaining were in decent shape.  Needless to say, this lead to a lot of big boy BJJ and watching a lot of these guys sucking wind.

As you can see from the pilot episode, the matches are edited, and presumably only the highlights and points of action are included…

The footage from the matches themselves looked a little hazy, like there was a smokey sheen over everything.  I wasn’t sure if this was due to actual smoke and an effect they were trying to achieve, or if it was just a weird artifact from the lighting.

My biggest complaint is that these episodes just seem to fly by without an real background story about the competitors.  A lot of times they don’t even list the school these guys are coming from.  There’s a brief 15-20 second pre-fight interview and then another brief 15-20 second post-fight interview from each fighter and that’s it.  There was no reason to get attached and root for one guy over the other.

I guess I was expecting the typical Metamoris promotion type thing where they go into the background of each competitor and do a good job of introducing them and really building things up to the actual match.  I wanted just a bit more story/narrative to hook me and compel me to root for somebody.

Maybe this is something they can address in Season 2.

The footage of the entire matches without edits are also available… which I wasn’t motivated to watch at all.

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Deleted Scenes

These were just some short 2-5 minute clips from the prior Metamoris events.  Without giving away too much, here were some clips that I particularly enjoyed:

• Jean Jacques Machado doing barbell lifts with a special bionic apparatus for his malformed hand.
• Kron Gracie rolling with Jeff Glover
• Ryan Hall teaching a student and then going to a firing range

They also provided some footage of the Gracie room from Metamoris 1 with scenes of Roger and Kayron Gracie watching Jeff Glover warm up with a kid…

And Kron Gracie rolling with Ryron…

I just wish these clips were longer!

Seminars

Currently the only seminar they have is with Keenan Cornelius, and it was absolutely fantastic.  Keenan gives a no gi seminar on some of his favorite techniques.  Each video is 8-12 minutes long, and they do a good job of filming it as if you’re actually there.  They call this a ‘virtual seminar’ and deliver on that.  Keenan spends a few minutes showing the technique, then lets the small group of guys try out the technique as he goes around answering questions and troubleshooting issues.

The troubleshooting is great because it allows him to point out common mistakes that people make and explain how to fix them.

The topics he covers include:

• Heel hook from the guard, transitioning to a toe hold, moving into a calf slicer, leading to a sweep and back take, all of which can be chained together.
• The open guard pass he used on Vinny Magalhaes
• Kneebar from guard

They really did a good job with the production of all this.  The final part is a Q&A segment where he answers questions from Twitter and Facebook.  You learn:

• Who he thinks is harder for him, guys that are 20 lbs heavier vs 20 lbs lighter than him
• How many days he trains vs rests
• What strength and conditioning stuff he likes to do
• Why he doesn’t like guillotines

All in all, this in itself was worth the price of admission.  In their announcements, it seems like they plan to add seminars by other guys.  If they manage to deliver on that, then I can really see the value in paying for this.

Match Breakdowns

Currently, the only breakdown they have is with Josh Barnett.  Ralek and Josh are sitting on the mats discussing the match between Josh and Dean Lister.  Josh delves into the techniques he used and what his thought process was at the time, and then demonstrates these on Ralek.

It eventually turns into a Josh Barnett seminar which I thought was great!  He goes into detail on the guard pass that he used on Dean with an over and under grip on the opponents thighs and hips, which is incidentally a pass that I’ve been working on and been having a lot of trouble with recently.  Hearing and seeing how Josh worked through the pass really helped me in my own game, and I was actually able to hit the pass the following day in class.

Josh also goes over a ‘bull dog choke’ which causes Ralek to giggle gleefully when learning this because he had never heard of it before.

Then Josh shows Ralek the head and arm choke he used to submit Dean Lister, and they discuss the 4 different ways to escape the choke, and the ways that Josh counters those escapes.

At a few points Ralek actually asks Josh to put pressure in order to see if he can get out, and after struggle where he tries to chain a few of the escapes together, he manages to get out!  Ralek’s BJJ is legit!

Throughout this breakdown, you can really see how much love and passion these guys have for grappling.  They really get into it and their faces just light up as they discuss and demonstrate the various techniques.

If they can continue to add more content to this section, you’d more than get your money’s worth.

Fitness & Training

This is a series of 10 videos that are 1-3 minutes in length with a guy named Mike Saffaie, who I’ve never heard of before.  This dude is seriously jacked.

The thing is, I didn’t think these videos were very helpful.  He spends a few seconds going over various workouts.  Some of which I thought were useful, some of which I thought only applied to serious athletes because I doubt that 95% of the population could do the movements (like a planche), and many of which didn’t need any video at all (for example, one video was dedicated to him running 4 miles and another of him running stairs).

Of all the content provided, I thought this was the most useless.

Final Thoughts

In the end I think I got great value for the $25.47 I paid for the 3 month subscription, given the amount of content they’re providing:

Access to LIVE Metamoris PPV Broadcast – Since this goes for $29.99 and I was already planning on purchasing it, I actually SAVED money by paying for the 3 month subscription

Road to Metamoris: Exclusive web series – Meh.  If you’re into big boys sucking wind and going at it, then this may be your cup of tea, but I found it underwhelming, largely because I didn’t have a reason to get attached to any fighter in particular.  Hopefully Season 2 will be better.

NO Time limit matches (coming soon) – Not available, so I can’t comment on it.

All past Metamoris events & matches – I’ve already seen these so I didn’t get much out of these.  Most of these are already on youtube, but if you want a place where they’re all collected together, then this might be for you.  Except for Metamoris 2, which is not available.

Deleted Scenes – I enjoyed these a lot and just wished they were longer.  2 minute clips are not enough.

Match breakdowns from Metamoris Athletes – The breakdown with Josh Barnett is fantastic.  If they keep adding then you’ll definitely be getting your money’s worth.

Virtual Seminars from Metamoris Athletes – Keenan Cornelius’ seminar is fantastic.  As with the match breakdowns, if they can continue adding to this then it’s totally worth it.

Fitness for Grapplers – I didn’t find this very helpful.