2021 was a good year for No-gi grappling. The IBJJF started allowing heelhooks and reaping in No-gi for adult brown and black belts. The ADCC trials returned and Flo grappling's "Who's Number One"(WNO) shows really started to hit their stride. Let's talk about the events, trends and submissions this year. Let's go over each event and look at the stats.
Major Events
This card was headlined by Roberto Jimenez vs Gordon Ryan and Craig Jones vs Ronaldo Junior.
Overall it was a good event despite the lack of submissions.
This was headlined by Gordon Ryan vs Vagner Rocha. We got lots of submissions in this one and some exciting matches. This also featured Mikey Mucumeci's first no-gi match in years.I think a lot of people were wondering how he would look no-gi and he seems to have erased any trace of doubt with this performance.
This card was headlined by Gilbert Burns vs Raphael Lovato Jr. This was a mix of good and bad. The main event was a bit full, but the Ruotolos' matches were great and Kade vs Ethan Crelinsten might be the best match this year. This one of those matches you show to non-grapplers to get them interested.
This card was headlined by Craig Jones and Luiz Panza. Matches I'd recommend are Lucas Pinheiro vs Mikey Mucumeci and Jones vs Panza. Both of these showed modern entries to leglocks as well as how to overcome common defenses. They can also both be watched in under 4 min. This card was great except for Vagner Rocha vs Josh Hinger, which is one of the worst matches I've ever seen.
This card had 3 matches for titles at Men's 135lbs, Women's 135lbs & 125lbs. This was the debut of the Mikey lock and we got some other nice subs as well. Even the matches that went to decision had some nice entertaining moments. It also had Gordon Ryan's return with an exhibition match that was fairly entertaining.
This was a fun card that promised the winner invites to the 2022 ADCC championship. It was really fun to watch and it was nice seeing some ADCC rule matches. Matches I'd recommend are Mateus Diniz vs Kaynan Duarte, Nicky Ryan vs Dante Leon and Roberto Jimenez vs Kade Ruotolo. There was a lot of good stand up, so if you like takedowns, go back and watch this event.
These trials were great and featured a lot of submissions as you can see above. Most of the matches were good and if you just randomly picked one I doubt you'd be disappointed. Matches I'd recommend are Gianni Grippo vs Keith Krikorian, Kade Ruotolo vs William Tackett, Kody Steele vs Placido Santos.
This was a much better event than previous years and I think the inclusion of heelhooks made things much more dynamic. Estavan Martinez really put on a show and Gianni Grippo showed an improved game.It was also nice to see some people competing that previously haven't because of the leglock restrictions.
Total
As you can see there were a lot of submissions this year and as someone who enjoys watching no-gi BJJ, this was great. We've heard people say "I always go for the finish", but this year people proved it. Hopefully this will bring more people into the sport. The WNO matches have been improving in quality and I think the WNO championship was the best event this year. I really hope they do something like that every year, but perhaps they can change the weightclasses.
Chokes remain king, especially from the back, but the death of leg locks has been highly exaggerated. People are attacking the legs more and now people aren't afraid to attack them from the top. Within the no points format many people have been going for them from the top and they using them to set up a sweep or just wrestle back up if it doesn't work.
Arms seem to be lagging behind somewhat, but I don't know what that is due to. It could be people aren't going for them as much. Or people's technique isn't as good. Or maybe people are more focused on getting the back or the leglock, so they're overlooking armlock opportunities. What do you think?
Let's now compare the 2 ADCC events we go this years with previous year's ADCC trials. I got these stats from the very interesting instagramer, schoolofgrappling. Check out their others posts too, they're very interesting.
Let's make things a bit more easy to understand by doing a more direct comparison.
As you can see this year we got a few more subs, which is always nice. Overall it is largely the same however. There doesn't seem to be much of an increase in chokes, armlocks or leglocks. I don't know if this is just a coincidence or if this is a stable pattern that will persist for a while. I'd like to see statistics from older ADCCs, but I don't know if that info is available. Overall I think generally things stayed the same percentage wise, but it seems like the actual techniques changed a bit with fewer people going for inside heelhooks from the saddle/inside sankaku. Other leg submissions such as the ankle lock and perhaps the kneebar seem to have increased. The darce seems to have made a bit of a comeback too, but perhaps that is just because of the Ruotolo brothers. It seems like the moves are generally the same, but there are move setups and the finishes are becoming more refined. Overall it seems like more people are focusing on No-gi grappling and pushing forward it's evolution, which is encouraging.
From what I've seen, more people are going for submissions and the overall finishing ability of the grappling community has increased. The best part is that is seems to be driven by younger athletes, so hopefully the days of stalling and riding out points wins are over. Maybe that is overly optimistic, but I think in the last 3 years we have seen a lot of improvement. The next generation of athletes are looking very good. I'll be talking about them as well as showing some specific technique trends in part 2.
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