What we learned from the 2st 2022 South American ADCC trials
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We have now finished the South American trials and crowned 8 new champions. Overall it was a successful event with lots of exciting action from new athletes. I was happy to see most of the competitors going for the finish and not trying to win by points or ref decisions(although that did still happen). I think the athletes here were more aggressive than what I saw at the North American and European trials. I don't know if they have something in the water down there or what, but it made for some great matches. Now let's take a look at who won.
This division was pretty exciting and for some reason featured a lot of arm locks, which we haven't seen much in the past year. There were more subs than points victories which is always a good sign. This is a great division to watch if you want to see lightweight women's grappling. There wasn't too much wrestling, as you'd assume, but the pace was high throughout the matches.
Women's +60kg
This division didn't have as many grapplers as other divisions, but with over half the matches ending in submission it was hardly disappointing. What was surprising was the amount of leg locks, which usually aren't seen as often in the upper weight women's divisions.
Men's -66kg
The lighter weight men are always exciting and this was no exception. Fabricio Andrey lead the way with his amazing submissions, but others were also putting on great exciting performances. I was a bit surprised at how aggressively people were going for legs in this division and as you can see it worked. The most common finish at this weight were leg attacks. This is a great division to watch.
Men's -77kg
-77kgs was fun to watch even though it didn't have the same number of finishes as the other divisions. Here we got to see a good blend of standing work and ground work without people running out of gas. Roberto Jimenez was the real stand out in this division with 4 submissions.
Men's -88kg
This division fell flat with me. Usually this weight class is very good and the matches are all exciting, but this time it wasn't great. There were good exciting matches, but unfortunately there were some boring ones too. It wasn't terrible, but if there is a division to skip, it should be this one. To be fair this division had technical problems with some of the matches, so I left out some submissions simply because I couldn't watch them.
Men's - 99kg
This division had a good amount of subs too. People were jumping on backs and necks and catching subs from everywhere. I wasn't familiar with Ceconi before this event, but he had great performances using his wrestling and passing skills to get him to submissions.
Men's +99kg
Besides the 2 finalists this wasn't a great division, but those 2 put on a show in their matches. Make sure to watch Gutenberg's matches, which were all submissions. He decided to sign up for trials last week after watching Mica Galvao. He isn't a no-gi competitor generally, but you wouldn't know that by watching his matches.
Total
Surprisingly there were more leg submissions than any other finish, which I wouldn't have expected. A 45% submission rate isn't bad at all and honestly it was probably slightly higher, but some of the matches I couldn't record. The RNC and inside heel hook stole the show, but the outside heel hook was more common that I would have thought in 2022. Overall there was a good variety of submissions and people seemed to be taking what was give instead of insisting on certain moves.
Trends
Wrestling seems to be more prominent than before and athletes who are embracing it are definitely reaping the benefits. I assumed this would be used for scoring points, but actually it seems to be used more for transitions. Many times when there was a takedown the opponent would turtle which gave an opportunity for a back take. Many of the RNCs came from situations like this. One unfortunate trend I saw was the unwillingness of competitors to protect their necks from the back position. There were multiple times I saw people using both hands to fight hooks when someone had their back, only for them to get tapped out a few seconds later.
Leg locks played a big role in these trials and I wasn't expecting that either. It seems however that there is a big divide when it comes to knowledge of how they work. Some seem to be quite comfortable with them and were diving for them from everywhere. Others seemed to have little to no experience with them. Many of the matches ended in less than a minute because of this. One person would immediately attack the legs and their opponent wouldn't defend correctly and then lose. It seems many people in these trials are behind the curve when it comes to how leg attacks work, but those that studied up were rewarded with easy wins.
Fabricio Andrey looked amazing and showed some of the slickest triangles I've ever seen. He came up short last week at the trials, but came through strong here. I heard he's only been working his wrestling for a short time, but he looked like a veteran, using duck unders, peak outs and quick double legs. Give his matches a watch.
Roberto Jimenez was on fire submitting all but one of his opponents. He was flying all over the place and sticking to people's backs like glue. His wrestling looked good and he was fearless, which helped him finish people quickly and seemingly easily.
Gutenberg Pereira looked very very sharp, submitting people with leg locks. He said he doesn't train them much, but you couldn't tell by his performance. If he puts in more time with his no-gi training he's going to be a problem at ADCC.
Mayssa Bastos looked unstoppable even though she was giving up quite a bit of weight. I've never thought of her as a finisher, but she was able to submit almost all of her opponents here. She also showed some of the best no-gi berimbolo/crabride work I've ever seen. She was very smooth and technical.
This was another great trials event that had plenty of matches worth studying. People were really going for the kill and trying to finish their opponents instead of trying to game the rules. I don't know if it was the rules, the competitors, the hunger or just the long competition lay off, but I liked what I saw. I hope this continues and the grapplers keep it up. I was also happy to see lots of newer names. Perhaps I was right and this year will be a changing of the guard.
I decided to try to keep track of the specific submissions this year for all the major events, so check below to see how things are going so far at the middle of February 2022.
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