These were the last trials before ADCC 2022 and now most of the spots have been filled for the tournament. I think we went out with a bang with these trials. The Asia/Australia/Oceania trails had the date and location changed and because of that many competitors didn't come. That is of course a shame, but the athletes that were there went all out and made this a great event, even though it had less coverage than the other trials.
You could also call this "uke-fest" since these trials featured many of the people you've seen in Craig Jones and Lachlan Giles instructionals. Craig and Lachlan were both there, but this time purely in a coaching capacity. Enough chit-chat, let's see who won.
Winners
Men
-66kg Jeremy Skinner def David Stoilescu via kneebar
-77kg Kenta Iwamoto def Siraj Soufi via points (2-0)
-88kg Roberto Dib Frias def Ben Hodgkinson via points (2-0)
-99kg Izaak Michell def Anton Mineko via points (2-0)
+99 Josh Saunders def Daniel Schuardt via decision
Women
-60kg Adele Fornarino def Nadia Frankland via points (3-0)
+60kg Nikki Lloyd-Griffiths def Case Sanita via points (3-0)
How People Won
Women +60kg
This division didn't have many people in it and in fact there were only 4 submissions in total. 2 of them were Americanas from the kesa gatame position using the legs. This submission seems popular with women recently for some reason.
Women -60kg
This was an interesting and exciting division with more submissions that points victories. I feel like the variety of submissions also made this division interesting and when watching it you didn't know what to expect. The RNC was king as always, but people were also attacking the legs and arms.
Men's +99kg
The big guys played as you'd expected and they used their weight to pin their opponents and submit them. The most common sub was the RNC, but the kimura and arm triangle weren't far behind. This is par for the course in this division.
Men's -99kg
This division was a bit strange. The stats are a bit surprising actually. This is one of the few times I've seen the RNC isn't the most common sub. The variety here was really nice and I know some people like to see only basic submissions, however I prefer to see a variety of submissions. People were going after subs from many places and taking chances which made things interesting IMO.
Men's -88kg
Once again the RNC misses the number 1 spot. The inside heelhook ruled the day at - 88kg.I could see the influence of Lachlan Giles and Craig Jones here as people were aggressively going after the legs. Of course there were a lot of other submissions too, but it's surprising that there were more heelhooks than all of the other submissions combined.
In this division the RNC once again came out on top and it was followed by other neck attacks such as the triangle. There were a lot of people at this weight class, but not only did it have a large number of people it also had a myriad of styles. This was a fun division with very few point or decision wins.
This is where all the leg lockers are apparently. The -66kg division had heelhook finishes in the double digits as well as multiple ankle lock, kneebar and aoki lock finishes. This division had a lot of fast paced action, but not a ton of wrestling as you'd expect. It did have a lot of technical leg lock exchanges.
Totals
This was actually a great trial and one of the few where there were more submissions than points or decisions. One interesting thing that we saw here is the fact that the amount of leg finishes and neck finishes is almost equal. This is fairly surprising. Many of the people were actually students of Lachlan Giles or Craig Jones, so I guess its to be expected. There were very few arm submissions which seems to be a trend, at least for the last 2 years. There seemed to be a wider variety of submissions than what we've seen from other trials even though there weren't many people here. Even though these trials didn't have tons of big names, you might want to give it a watch just because the number of finishes.
Trends
One thing that seems to be a constant over all of these trials is the wrestling to back transitions. These seem to be the easiest way to finish in the ADCC ruleset. The rules of ADCC cause people to turtle rather than lay on their back. I'd argue the soundest strategy for ADCC is to take your opponent down, take their back and then apply a RNC. To go along with this something I've been seeing less of in all of the trials is long, protracted, passing/sweeping battles. Many people are using passes to make their opponents turtle or attacking submissions from the top. From the bottom, people are trying to wrestle up or force their opponent down to their butt. This often happens when the bottom person tries to go for a berimbolo or a leg lock. No matter how it starts the end result is usually a scramble that leads to points or a submission. I was seeing less clean sweeps to top and more, sweeps to scrambles to guillotines to mount, etc. The passes and sweeps were acting as a catalyst to longer sequences that got people into the positions they wanted rather than ends in and of themselves.
Again I noticed women don't seem to like heelhooks. I saw a few women go for them, but there were fewer attempted than in the men's matches. Other leg submissions were much more common. In general there have been more leg lock counters than before. Either from counter leg locks or back takes. It was nice seeing people switch to other leg locks when the heelhook wasn't working and it shows that the grappling IQ in these events are going up. The bodylock pass has now become very common and seen in almost every weight class.
A bad trend I've been seeing more and more is hand fighting ad infinitum. To be fair this has been around for a while, but I feel more people are doing this now and it is serving no purpose other than slowing down matches. Many people are interlocking hands, getting collar ties or Russian ties and then just standing around and doing nothing. Sometimes they wait for the other person to push them off and other times this disengage themselves for no reason. I don't know if this is a stalling tactic or people think it will fatigue their opponent, but in the matches I've seen it hasn't been effective. I've seen the Ruotolos and Gordon Ryan use this strategy effectively, but they are much more active, which saps their opponent's gas tank. The way I see many people do it only drains time off the clock. I'd prefer to see more stalling calls to stop this.
Breakout Stars
Kenta Iwamoto
Kenta is the winner of the 2019 trials at -66kg, so of course he is very good. What I didn't expect is how much he would improve since we last saw him. His wrestling went from nonexistent to looking very sharp. His submissions were very good as well and his overall game looked very complete and aggressive. He looks to have put on quite a bit of muscle and seems to have helped him in the wrestling department.
Jozef Chen
Jozef competed again here at the Asia trials after competing at the European trails a while back. He looked great here too showing a well rounded game. His wrestling looked surprisingly good and of course his back and leg attacks looked sharp. He's young and if he gets any better he'll be in ADCC in a few years.
Izaak Michelle
Izaak has been looking good for the last few months and here he showed a very complete game. His wrestling looked very good and combined with his already impressive leglock game, he was able to dominate most of the other competitors. He is now being featured on the "Who's Next" flograppling show and with this trials win he now has an impressive achievement to go with his new found exposure. The fact that he's fighting up 1 weight class makes it even more impressive.
Nadia Frankland
Of course the winner of the division Adele Fornarino was also impressive, but Nadia really came out of no where and dominated her opponents at only 19 years old. 2 of the people she beat were favorites for this division. The win over Margot Ciccarelli was especially impressive.
Adele Fornarino
Adele was someone I wasn't familiar with, but she looked very good. she got 3 submission and they came very quickly. She was aggressive and technical with her jiujitsu which is a bit surprising coming from an unknown competitor. If she keeps this up she won't be unknown for long.
Jeremy Skinner
Jeremy has been around for a few years, but recently he seems to have turned the corner and level'd up. He was the only winner to have all submissions in his matches. His leg locks were very very sharp and it looks like his competition IQ has increased. He was the favorite for his division and he showed why with his performance.
Burak Sarman
I wasn't familiar with him before this event, but he impressed me with his wrestling and aggressive BJJ. He used a quick and nimble passing game to keep his opponent's confused. His overall BJJ was very sharp and showed that he could play from any position confidently.
Overall
I was a bit disappointed more competitors from different countries didn't show up, but the Australian fighters showed great grappling skills and were all game. There wasn't a ton of stalling or trying to game the rules. There was a ton of action and as you can see by the stats there were lots of subs. I believe these are the only trials where there were more subs than points, which is refreshing. I'm hoping these athletes bring that same attitude to ADCC.
This region has been one of the weakest regions historically and to be honest I can't say it's the strongest region now. However the level seems to have improved quite a bit. The gap is closing and it seems that this region is looking to push to greater heights. One thing that is interesting is that this region seemed to have some of the greatest diversity in styles, with wrestlers, berimbolo artists, pressure passers, leg lockers, etc. The level of leg locks here seems to be at roughly the same level as the North American trials. I saw a lot of good back and forth exchanges and in general the defense was pretty solid. The wrestling and guard passing however might be behind the other regions. There were some wrestling standouts who looked amazing, but there were others who looked very uncomfortable on the feet during the OT. It seems like many people realize this and have already started working on it. That said, its hard to complain about anything when an event this big has an over 60% submission rate. The only thing left now is to see how things translate when they are matched up with the best in the world.
Year to Date Stats
Let's take a look at the submission this year so far. We're halfway through now, but we already have an impressive amount of data and stats. 2022 is turning out to be a good year for grappling.
Comments
Post a Comment