Widely recognized as the top grappler ever produced by Canada, Mark Bocek is a lightweight prospect currently plying his trade in the UFC. Bocek has trained all over the world amongst the best jiu jitsu practitioners in the world, and his pure grappling abilities are absolutely world class. Bocek's grappling ability and hard work ethic made the choice to train at American Top Team an easy one for the Woodbridge, Ontario native, and the depth of ATT and their set of world class coaches and trainers should only continue helping Bocek round out his game.

Among his many accomplishments, Bocek is a five-time Canadian Grappling Champion, two-time ADCC Canadian Trials Champion, three-time Pan American medalist, two-time Grapplers Quest Champion and former BJJ World Cup Champion. Before joining ATT, Bocek was trained under a number of prominent BJJ and MMA coaches including Canadian Jiu Jitsu pioneer Syl Moroney, both Rickson and Renzo Gracie, Nova Uniao (where he attained his black belt), Greg Jackson and at Team Quest. Technically sound across the board in his ground game, Bocek is equally comfortable fighting from top position or off his back and displays high level transitions, a very dangerous submission game, good sweeps off his back and a very active and dangerous guard game. To compliment those pure BJJ abilities, Bocek is also a very strong wrestler who has earned very high praise from some of the top MMA wrestling coaches that have worked with him in the past. Those grappling skills coupled with his effective takedown game and good ground and pound, and it shouldn't be difficult to see why Bocek has excellent potential as an MMA grappler. His bouts with Brazilian Top Team black belt David Bielkheden and Gracie black belt Alvin Robinson (both of whom are legitimate BJJ players) really showed the contrast between Bocek's ground game and that of an average black belt (as ridiculous as that sounds), and his game should only improve as he continues to refine his wrestling, ground and pound abilities, and overall MMA ground game.

As polished as his ground game is, the same can't quite be said about his standup abilities. Bocek does show tremendous heart on his feet and doesn't shy away from striking but his overall skills are nowhere near the same vicinity as his ground game. He hasn't displayed great footwork or head movement, does look awkward and doesn't exhibit strong natural instincts. Thus far in his career, Bocek has had a tendency to look almost immediately for the takedown, and the losses he's suffered have come against fighters who he couldn't impose his grappling game on and was outstruck on the feet significantly against. Although there is definitely a lot of room for improvement in his standup, Bocek is a hardworking, intelligent fighter who has shown steady progress throughout his career, and training with the beasts at ATT should only continue to improve moving forward.