When it comes to martial arts to fight larger opponents, not all are created equally. Striking based arts for instance aren’t going to be as effective as grappling based arts. That’s not to say you can’t beat a larger opponent with striking techniques, it’s just not the most efficient way to do it.

Grappling, particularly the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu is the best for defeating a larger, stronger opponent. That is because there is a lot of technique involved in BJJ and it focuses on using leverage and skill instead of brute strength.

In the following video we see how a BJJ practitioner does against a much larger opponent who has a 42lb weight advantage. Now what is interesting about this video is that the BJJ guy is only a white belt with 1 year experience.

At that level, his skills may not be enough to overcome a big size advantage so let’s see how he does.

He ends up on the bottom initially and goes for an armbar, but his opponent is able to slam his way out of it using his strength.

Important to note here however is that they do not have the same objectives in mind here. The BJJ guy is obviously trying to submit him but all the bodybuilder is trying to do is immobilize him and not get submitted. Now this is because the bodybuilder probably doesn’t know how to properly apply submissions but it’s important to point out.

The BJJ guy ends up getting his larger opponent in a few submission holds throughout but it quickly cuts to the next scene so it’s uncertain if he tapped out or not to most of them. Towards the end he does end up getting a nice triangle choke which does in fact result in a clear tap.

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Though the BJJ player’s skills were pretty rudimentary, it still was enough to overcome the big size advantage the bodybuilder possessed. Though the bodybuilder was able to power out of a few things, the BJJ guy clearly got the better of it here.