The 2021 East coast North American trials have just wrapped up, so let's look at what happened. I believe this was the largest trials event of all time with over 700 participants. Since the big tournament was cancelled last year people have been dying to get some of that sweet ADCC action. This was a great event to watch and I recommend going back and watching it if you haven't already. Now let's get to the winners.
66kg Cole Abate, 77kg Kade Ruotolo, 88kg Giancarlo Bodoni,-99kg Mason Fowler, +99kg John Hansen, -60kg Brianna Ste-Marie, +60kg Kendall Reusing
How people won
Since this tournament had so many people I'll break it down by weight class. Before we get into it I have a disclaimer. I looked at many of the matches, but to save time I simply counted points and decision wins without watching all of them, so these may not be 100% accurate. Also for some submissions such as triangle armbars I can't be certain if they tapped to the choke or the armbar. I took my best guess on some of them. Of course I might have also miscounted or made some other mistake, but these shouldn't be too far off and can be used to give a general overview of what happened(I didn't count 1 match because the video wouldn't play) .
Men 66kg
This division had a lot of movement and people hunting for the back and leglocks. As you'd expect there were a lot of double guard pulls and leg spaghetti, but as you can see there were lots of submissions, so don't think these matches are boring. There was a lot of scrambling and movement in this division and people catching things in transition. Many of the submissions in the early round were quick. If you want to learn about guard work in no-gi, study these matches.
Men 77kg
I think this division had the most talent and the best matches. You had the subs and scrambling of the lower divisions along with lots of wrestling and takedowns. This is also the only division with more leg finishes than neck. As you can see by the number of finishes, this division was action packed.
Men 88kg
Here we started to see more wrestling, but the number of subs seems to have decreased. There were still a lot of finishes, but people weren't quite as hungry as in some of the lower weight classes. This could also be due to the lower number of competitors as well.
Men -99kg
Men's -99kg was more exciting than I expected. To be honest I thought there would only be a few subs at this weight, but they exceeded my expectations and went for the finish. The shorter time frame really helped to prevent cardio trouble in this division.
Men +99kg
Just like -99kg, +99kg also did better than I thought they would have. I think the 6 minute matches helped them the most. I didn't see many people gassing out and not many people were stalling to conserve energy. Give these matches a watch.
Women -60kg
Women +60kg
Total
Trends
Its interesting to see how things are changing and the techniques people are choosing. It seems like a number of people have adopted techniques that have been successful since the last ADCC. I saw a number of people going for heelhooks from K-guard and using 50/50 to heelhook. I think some people were assuming the saddle/cross ashi would be replaced by the 50/50, but that doesn't seem to be the case. What is happening is that, as I predicted, the variety of leg attacks is increasing. It wasn't only inside heelhooks, although there were a lot of those. I saw a number of anklelocks, kneebars, toe holds ,a Z-lock and even a dog bar or 2. The variety of attacks helps keep people on their toes. The false reap seems to be gaining steam too. In the last year people have been using it more. Kieran Kichuk utilized this position quite a bit.
At this level you can't have bad leg lock defense. In the first few rounds of the tournament people were getting crushed with leg locks. If you can't defend leg locks you might as well skip the ADCC trials. The only thing you're going to win at this point is a torn MCL. People don't seem to mind dropping back for leg locks on top and certainly aren't scared to go for them from bottom. The first 2 rounds seemed like a leglock test with a number of people quickly failing.
Wrestling and top position was very important in these matches. Many of the champions used top pressure and passing to win their matches. Of course there were people who used the guard effectively, but overall it seems passers are starting to get the upper hand. People are wrestling up from the guard position, using it to avoid sweeps or avoid losing points after a leg lock attempt.
The body lock pass is increasingly being used and it seems to work well to stop leglocks, flexible guards, scrambles, etc. A number of people used it and even if it didn't work it allowed the passers to slow their opponents down without putting themselves in trouble. Lachlan Giles must be a psychic. He predicted the 50/50, wrestling and the bodylock were going to be come future no-gi trends. Hey, Lachlan give me next weeks lotto numbers.
Arm triangles were popular also. Gianni Grippo was using the katagatame quite a bit and Kade Ruotolo turned it into a no-gi ezekiel choke. The darce and anaconda chokes were also quite popular. It was nice seeing some of these things coming back after falling out of favor for a while. Kade was giving out darces left and right in the first couple of rounds. In this rule set people often turn belly down to avoid points and that sets them up perfectly to be darce choked.
I don't know why, but triangles came roaring back. In previous events this year I was surprised by the lack of triangles, but I guess they were just saving them for the east coast trials. I saw a number of triangles and in fact, about half of the arm submission wins came from triangle armbars. There were also a number of side triangles and reverse triangles. I'm happy to see these techniques becoming more popular over the last 2 years or so.
Standouts
There were a lot of great performances and to be honest this was a really exciting event with lots of subs, but I'll try to highlight a few people to watch if you don't have enough time to watch everyone. At 66kg Gianni Grippo showed much improved submission skills. Keith Krikorian also looked very sharp. He's improved his passing and overall game. The real attraction is the teenage phenom Cole Abate, who has looked almost unstoppable. He won his bracket and looked very very sharp.
At 77kg Kade Ruotolo has looked almost invincible while running through his opponents with darce chokes. PJ Barch also looked very solid with his passing and submissions skills. Cody Steele made a highlight out of someone by suplexing them 3 times in a row. His teammate William Tackett has the opposite demeaner, but the same results, hitting submission after submission.
At 88kg Giancarlo Bodoni made a name for himself by winning. He looked like the complete grappler with a dangerous guard, wrestling, back takes and leg locks. Elder Cruz showed impressive wrestling and top game. The ADCC rules really suit his style.
Mason Fowler looked impressive even after moving up in weight. His wrestling and top control were only matched by his surprisingly flexible guard work. He used that EBI rule practice to hit a few RNCs.
At +99kg John Hansen looked very very good. I wasn't familiar with him before this, but he had a great guard game that he used to sweep and submit his way into the finals. In the finals he hit a quick inverted armbar to capture the win.
Women's -60kg was the Bri Ste-Marie show. She showed solid fundamental grappling that either got her the points victory or in many cases the submission. She's very solid on top with wrestling to go along with it. Her guard isn't bad either. She's been on a roll these last few months.
Kendal Reusing dominated the +60kg women's bracket with wrestling, leading to heavy top pressure and finally the submission. At this weight class she's going to be hard to beat with her wrestling pedigree along with her solid BJJ fundamentals.
There were some other people who looked really good too. Junny Ocasio, Alan Sanchez, Daniel Maira, Fatima Kline, Devonte Johnson, John Calestine, and Estevan Martinez also really impressed me. Check out their matches.
Nope
Since around 2010 I've heard that in no-gi it's too hard to maintain side control and mount and you should just go for the back. In these trials there were a number of passes to side control and mount. Many people were going to 3/4 and then to the mount. If anything the mount is making a resurgence and people should start training it more no-gi. This year we have seen people abandon this old theory and put work into their mount/side position control and attacks.
After every ADCC I hear "If you give a high level wrestler a year of training they'll easily win ADCC". There were a number of high level wrestlers such as Hudson Taylor, Geno Morelli, Pat Downey and John Marsh. Their wrestling certainly helped them, but as they faced tougher competition it wasn't enough and they all succumbed to the BJJ based players. I think wrestlers can certainly win, but it will take a lot more than a year or 2. I think it might be better to take a high level BJJ athlete and give them 2 years of wrestling training. Even thought they lost, I'm happy to see them join grappling competitions and I hope they continue training until they make me eat my words.
Something else I've been hearing is "Now that everyone knows leglocks, they won't work anymore". From what we saw at these trials nothing could be further from the truth. People have been pushing the offensive side of leg locks just as hard as the defense(maybe harder). At the very top level people have incredible defense, but below that it doesn't seem to be up to snuff. The old days where there would only be one or two leg lockers in your division is over. People that aren't known for their leglocks such as PJ Barch, Giancarlo Bodoni, etc are catching people. If you want to do no-gi BJJ or submission grappling you need to learn leg locks.
"You don't need technique, just slam your way out of submissions". At ADCC you are allowed to slam your opponent if you're caught in a sub. The question of whether it is a good idea or not is another matter. We saw several slams during this tournament, however I'm not sure any of them worked. One caused a DQ and the others caused the "slammers" to tap out immediately afterwards. Slamming is no substitute for submission defense.
Overall
I thought this was a really good event. There were tons of finishes and to be honest there weren't many boring matches. The pace was high and the 6 minute format kept things moving. I'd like to see more ADCC events. Perhaps smaller tournaments instead of 2 really large ones. Also, please give some of these competitors who didn't win invites. People like Keith Krikorian and William Tackett left it all on the mat and I'd love to see the compete in ADCC. Also let's make sure Kendall Reusing and Brianna Ste-Marie actually get into ADCC. I know there are a limited number of spots, but come on. This event has me hyped for the actual ADCC tournament. I hope the other trial events can live up to this, but that is a very very high bar.
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