First of all thank you for giving us this plattform, I think most of us have to get used to it a little. I've just seen that you posted in the forums already :)

I think the lines have been blurred inofficially a long time ago when a lot of the good and well known lutadors transitioned to some of the BJJ schools, affiliations and so on.

In our school, Fightschool Hannover, we offer both. BJJ and Luta Livre. In our Luta Livre lessons we encourage BJJ practitioners to wear their BJJ colourbelts, because it does not make any sense to disguise a BJJ purple for example as a Luta Livre whitebelt, especially the white belts should know who they have in front of them when it's time for sparring :D
But I don't wear my blackbelt in the BJJ Gi classes :) because I don't know all the stuff I should know about choking with the Gi for example , I wear white, which maybe is too low ;) due to the philosophy we show in our Luta classes..... sometimes my BJJ collegue tells me to put on a blue or purple but i stuck with the white so far :D

If I was allowed to compete in BJJ No Gi tournaments as blackbelt. I would. 100%
I wouldn't bother if my "real" BJJ graduation was lower.

Thomas Loubersannes, who is leading the IBJJF rankings for years is a great example for a LL Blackbelt, that blurs the lines perfectly. But i think he needed to join ATOS before he was allowed to compete in IBJJF. HE was directly given the blackbelt in BJJ as far as I know, please correct me, If I am wrong.
So i think that Luta Livre needs to be acknowledged more. There are good and not so good Lutadores, same as jiu jiteiros in BJJ, and they will do good or bad in BJJ tournaments, but they definitely earned their belts (which a lot of us wear without gis by the way ;) get used to it :D )
So neither them or their beltcolours should be underestimated.
We are definitely fewer but I think our number grows and with the growth of sub only and no gi we have hopefully a better future than our past :)

That is in fact, a very interesting and controversial topic.

Luta Livre and BJJ basics are very similar. But a few years ago BJJ developed some characteristics,that are very different from Luta Livre.

When was a fresh purple belt I rolled with a bjj (only gi) purple belt. He was in a Gi, I wore spats and a rashguard. We agreed on using the gi was fine. I had no problems with passing and sweeping. Just using dominant top-game (as taught by you). The pressure was right, submissions followed. But every now and then I got caught in some fancy gi-chokes.
If I would've worn a gi that day, I'd get wrapped like a present for sure.

I'd say up until blue-belt both sports are very similar. But after that, it's like comparing a Bear and a Shark. Both know how to chase things and bite stuff, but their game-plan is different.

Like already said up until blue it's pretty similar, but I wouldn't translate a belt directly. For me the belt shows your skills but also your dedication to an art. So in order for a Luta Livre blackbelt to even earn a bluebelt he needs to practice Bjj for quite some time.

First of all, let’s not mix up the style ranking by belt for each art, with the competition ranking.
IBJJF approves ranks in a way that’s considered very political to preserving their oversight. Let’s not use them as a general role model or measuring stick please, however they do require “white belts” with MMA experience, grappling medals... judo blackbelts - to compete in blue and not white. This still doesn’t give the mentioned competitors a blue belt, it’s like competing in intermediate.

I have seen many judo/JapaneseJJ/MT/Karate/wrestlers black belt level in their respective sports, come to Bjj but didn’t get any belt for free or without learning and adjusting into the art. I think this is pretty obvious to understand and distinguish when you’re an experienced teacher or black belt in your art. It’s usually the less experienced that argue or overthink it.

The arts do not translate directly. Possibly LL to a No-Gi Bjj school and vice versa would have a shorter adjustment time. Still, who wants to get the belts “faster” and skip steps, and for what reason?

In fact i think also that the problem is that some BJJ school are doing something closerie than LL, when you look at the Danaher guys, 80% of the submission came from LL and where forbiden in BJJ back in the days... i really think that LL must preserve his integrity and must be separed like judo and sambo... takedowns with a gi on but each one got his own history and technical approche. That's my point of vieuw.