Now that the WNO tournament is over let's talk about some of the surprises and trends. There were a lot of good matches and a few bad, but overall it was a fun event with matches that really surprised me. I don't think anyone expected these results and many favorites didn't do as well as expected. There were a few new people who made names for themselves and I think this will be great for the pro grappling scene.
Upsets
Surprisingly many of the favorites didn't perform as well as people predicted. The biggest upset was Amanda Leve beating Gabi Garcia. Everyone thought Gabi was going to smash her into dust, but it was actually the other way around and Gabi almost got choked out twice. The 2nd biggest upset is Mikey Musumeci getting submitted by Gabriel Souza. Souza was all heart and never got discouraged. He went for pass after pass until he got it and then finished Mikey with a north south choke. Everyone was counting him out, but it just shows believing in yourself can take you a long way. Jacob Couch beat Roberto Jimenz after coming in on short notice. Couch is a leglocker and didn't waste time and went directly to the legs. After a few attempts he submitted Roberto with an inside heelhook. Tim Spriggs also ended up heel hooking Kaynan to win the heavy weight title. Kaynan was the heavy favorite, but Spriggs, who said he was basically retired, used the leg lock knowledge he's learned over the last 3 months to take out Kaynan in impressive fashion.
Top position
For years in BJJ the bottom position has been king, but in this tournament the top position was clearly better. A small part of it was the judges seeming to favor top slightly, but a larger part is passing is making a comeback and its dangerous to be on bottom now. In this longer format people couldn't stop the guard pass for 15 min. The Ruotolo bros melted quite a few of their opponents with constant passing attempts and once they were worn down the Ruotolos subbed them. The women's heavy weight was primarily decided by who could keep top position. The tide seems to be shifting and the top position seems to be more effective right now with the exception of a few people. I don't know if it's this format or people are just getting better at passing, but very few people were winning from bottom.
Wrestling
Takedowns seemed to make a big difference in these matches. As I said above the top player won in the majority of the matches and wrestling facilitated that. The people who were able to outwrestle their opponents were able to take the lead and just build momentum from there. It wasn't just from the feet though, many people were doing it from the guard. A really nice strategy was wrestling for the takedown, trying to pass, dropping for a leglock or flying kimura and then wrestling back to top. The old game of just passing from top seems to have given way to this type of strategy in this sub only format. Of course this only works if you're the superior wrestler, but in many matches this type of strategy allowed the top player to stay active even if they couldn't initially pass. Also more people were just standing up if their guard wasn't working which was a welcome change. This brings things more in line with MMA and more importantly stopped things from getting boring with constant pass/defense cycles.
Submissions
There were a number of nice submissions, but I think the best of the night was Grace Gundrum's twister on Jessa Khan. Its amazing she was able to hit it on such a high level opponent.
This format seems to have really changed how people are approaching the matches and people are becoming more aggressive. Of course there were boring matches but in general people were opening up more and trying things like rolling kimura's, leg locks, etc.
Let's look at the break down of subs.
I'm not sure about the percentages from other events, but there seems to be more subs than the typical events I've seen. The neck was the most common target, but keep in mind that about half of the neck submissions are from the Rutolo brothers' darces. The leg locks were fairly varied also with inside & outside heelhooks, as well as kneebars, toeholds and calf slicers. Kaynan Duarte also claims he broke Kyle Boehm's foot, but he didn't tap so that's not included here. The neck subs included guillotines, darces, RNCs and a twister. The arms subs were armbars and a kimura I believe.
Leglocks
Some people were predicting leglocks were going to go away as soon as people started learning the defense for them, but based on this event the opposite seems to be happening. More people are learning leglocks and then using them to attack. Those that aren't learning them are starting to get left behind as they're becoming more and more prominent. No points formats are really changing how people do BJJ and instead of the number of leg lock attacks slowing down once more people learn them, it seems like the setups are getting even more complex. Multiple people won by leg lock and the people who weren't leglock savvy got submitted. In this format if you're ignoring leglocks you're going to lose. I was quite surprised at the variety of leg locks people were going for and it shows there are techniques besides heel hooks that work on the highest level.
Conclusion
At the end of the day I think we learned that anyone can beat anyone with the right mindset. There were tons of upsets and the thing they all had in common was the winners believed in themselves and didn't let the hype of their opponent deter them from attacking. I never would have believed Tex Johnson could triangle Orlando Sanchez or Tim Spriggs could heel hook Kaynan, but these people believed in themselves and made it happen. This should shake up the rankings quite a bit and also build up some people's names. The women really put on a good show and after this I think a lot of people will be asking to see more of these women on big cards. Overall I think the event was an 8.5/10. There were a few technical difficulties and not every match was great, but most were good and a lot of them were great. The athletes took this seriously and most of them tried to put on a show. The "losers" bracket was also a great idea because we got more subs and let people really showcase their skills. This was one of the best grappling events of the year and I was happy to see people finally getting paid well for their BJJ.
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