Exclusive | Inside the strange world of Carjitsu – the sport where seat belts choke and limited fights drive fans wild

Road rage may be in the mainstream.

Carjitsu, where professional fighters battle each other inside the confined space of a sedan-sized car, is the latest quirky combat sport to make its way to success, featuring four-wheeled fighters allowed to use anything inside the car to their advantage – including seat belts. to choke an opponent.

And while the claustrophobic concept might sound a little crazy, Carjitsu is burning virtual rubber on social media – already boasting a reported average of 5 million views per week. Celebrity fans include Keenan Thompson and Kevin Hart, New Jersey has already approved it for gambling, and ESPN aired the phenomenon for the first time at Ocho, the network’s annual weekend celebration of obscure sports, on Sunday.

“There’s something incredibly natural about watching these guys and girls do it,” Mike Salvaris, co-founder of Pro League Network, which owns the rights to Carjitsu, told The Post.

“If you watch some of the footage, you see some of the camera guys saying to the director, ‘Holy shit, this actually happened,'” he said.

The sport was created by a Russian graduate student at Kansas State University, named Vik Mikheev, in the United States to earn his Ph.D. in mathematics. A black belt in Brazilian judo and jiu-jitsu, he first came up with the idea of ​​competing inside a vehicle in 2020.

The league, where fighters are placed in seats and pressed against tables, was made official two years ago. It’s been full speed ahead ever since, with 30 regular contenders.

Early games were typically filmed inside a 2005 Toyota Scion — the Scion was chosen based on safety, size and affordability, according to a league source — inside a warehouse in Branson, Missouri, but other locations and cars are now being used.

Apply wax, remove seat belt

The rules of engagement are pretty straightforward. The sport operates using a two to three round system where both fighters must start slouching in their seats – a coin flip decides who gets the driver’s side and the shotgun before alternating in round 2. The match starts when the contenders de-clicks simultaneously.

If a winner is not determined after two rounds set at three minutes, the third begins with both fighters stuck in the back row.

Carjitsu follows the rules of Brazilian jiujitsu, which does not teach punches or kicks. Instead, the focus is on painful chokes and bone-bending arm bars, among other slamming techniques.

“The notion of being in an enclosed space like this opens up a whole different flow of strategies than you would normally see,” Pro League Network co-founder Bill Yucatonis told The Post, adding that the security modifications like removing the airbags are made for it. Car.

Anything inside can be picked up to use as a crowbar – although ripping anything to use as a weapon is prohibited.

Yucatonis admitted that “each round requires quite a bit of repair” for the vehicle.

Many times, fighters quickly push the front seats all the way to create a level environment.

And it’s quite common to see seat belts deliberately wrapped around an opponent’s neck as a way to knock them out. Such was the case in a recent showdown between Rihanna Cardiel and Miranda Rae.

“Some of them aren’t even jiujitsu — they’re just surviving out there,” fighter Kyron Bowen, who also headlines, told The Post.

In a recent showdown with CJay “Groundshark” Hunter, Bowen recalled scrambling “from the front seat to the passenger seat, back to the driver’s seat, then the back seat, all the way out the window.”

Fighters are allowed to swing from the car – the match starts with the windows open – as long as they don’t touch the ground outside the vehicle. The two referees would then reset the match.

There are also many unexpected things that athletes have to adjust to during the flight, such as the lack of air flow – no air conditioning allowed.

“Eighty-five degrees outside is a lot worse inside the car,” Hunter, who beat Devon Johnson on Sunday, told The Post. “It is a difficult situation, but I love the difficult battle.”

A seat belt can also buckle at the worst possible time, trapping a fighter. Getting hit and boosted by internal vehicle features is fairly common, such as grab handles that detach mid-battle.

When it comes to the brutality of car art, no one has yet suffered a debilitating hip injury at the mercy of a stationary gear shift. However, once a fighter had his uniform caught in the PRNDL, which forced the referees to stop and reset the match.

Another challenge? There is no real specific training you can do to get ready for a fight.

“My mindset going into this is that I’ve been doing jiujitsu for years — I’ve pretty much nailed it,” said Hunter, who is now the No. 1 contender after Sunday’s win.

After all, it’s still “just squeezing someone in a way they don’t want to be squeezed.”

Bowen agreed — for the most part.

“The biggest difference is being in a seat as opposed to having a flat ground,” he said. “So it’s really about understanding how that changes things. Once you really understand that, it’s pretty much downhill from there.”

A real hit

Of course, such a strange concept comes with shock and entertainment value.

Commentator JT Tilley certainly has fun with the play-by-play, throwing in joke commentary about backs flying out of windows to give viewers a kick. But Carjitsu is not an amateur watch, he asserted.

“We have a lot of UFC veterans who are interested,” said the buzz man about active strongmen as Carjitsu looks to continue its success.

Joining Tilley in the booth is UFC legend Mark Coleman, who balances soft-spoken commentary with real-world insight into the particular fight.

Coleman loves Carjitsu – and will even hold quick talks with participants to motivate them to bring out their inner warrior. A warrior’s ordinary skills could only get them so far, he noted.

“It’s not about your belt ranking,” he told The Post.

And since the concept is so new and out there, it’s not yet known what the best formula for victory is — or which seating position gives a fighter the advantage.

“It’s about how you can adapt, adjust and think outside the box and find ways that will work to win this game,” Coleman said.

There’s another aspect Bowen said makes car combat such a “raw” experience: a touch of reality.

Growing up in a not-so-great area, he explained, meant always looking over your shoulder when you got into a car.

Citing the recent rash of carjackings around the country, Bowen said that aside from theatrics, there are valuable self-defense lessons in combat.

Coleman, in full agreement, called the sport a “useful skill” for anyone who drives for a living.

“Uber drivers and taxi drivers,” he said, “They should look into this.”