What we learned from WNO: Who's Next Finale

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 This was the end of the Who's Next reality show and determined who wins the prize money/contract. It also featured many of the other competitors from the show fighting in the undercard. Strangely Jansen Gomez isn't there for some reason and at the last minute Luke Griffith was replaced by Nicholas Meregali. Of course the main event was Gordon Ryan vs Pedro Marino. This event shaped up to be quite good with some big names and more importantly I think the match making was generally good. Really I was just happy to have WNO back. Its been a while since we had a WNO card. 

Unfortunately the co-main event was a no time limit match. Personally I'm not a fan of this ruleset and I hope it isn't used ever again for any live events. If you want to know why I feel this way, please watch the match yourself in its entirety without fast-forwarding. Luckily I wasn't able to watch it live and had the luxury of skipping parts, but I feel bad for those in attendance and the people watching live. 




How People Won

Anytime there are more subs than decisions it is a good day. The most common sub was the RNC which is what usually happens. There was also an armlock and an ezekiel choke from the back. There was actually a submission from pressure from the kesa gatame position as well. You don't see that often and I like it when we get some new submissions to mix things up a bit. Aside from the 2 hour match this was a great event as you can tell by the 75% sub rate. Even the decisions were good matches. 


Results

Max Hansen def Fabien Ramirez via dec

Dan Manasoiu def Tristan Overvig via inside heelhook 

Mike Rakshan def Spencer "sewer rat" Fossier via Kesa gatame/camel crush

Giancarlo Bodoni def Jacob Rodriguez via dec

Andrew Tackett def Rene Souza via RNC

Nicholas Meregali def Breylor Grout via Nogi ezekiel choke

Izaak Mitchell def Kyle Chambers via armbar

Gordon Ryan def Pedro Marino via RNC


Trends

Wrestling has continued its uptrend in popularity and more and more athletes are using it from top and bottom. I imagine this is partially due to many people preparing for ADCC, but also I believe more people are starting to understand its usefulness in grappling. It also made many of the matches more exciting and dynamic. Luckily people were actually trying to wrestle and not just stall from the standing position.


Another thing that we have been seeing over the last 2 years is an increased use of the mount in Nogi grappling. A few years ago many people thought the mount was useless in Nogi, but now there seems to be a resurgence. Gordon Ryan seems to be the most proficient at this position, but others are definitely gaining confidence with it and improving their game in this position.


As we have seen in previous events this year, it seems passers are now beating guard players. For a long time the guard player was almost always able to shut down the passers if they were close to the same level. This no longer seems to be the case and the passing in Nogi and gi grappling has increased across the board. Of course the bodylock pass has become popular, but another thing I'm noticing is passing from inverted guard. I've been calling this inverted Torreando passing. Recently quite a few people have been using this to great effect to pass guards and wear people out. I think as more people catch on to this tactic it will increase even more.

The buggy choke wasn't hitting the way it was a few months ago. People are aware of it now and people aren't just falling into it like they were before. Time will tell if this is just a slight pause in the raise of the buggy choke or if its reign of terror is finally over. 


What To Watch For In Each Match

The first match between Fabian and Max had a lot of great action. It had a great mix of wrestling, submission attempts and positional work. Max had some pretty good bodylock passing as well.


In the second match Dan showed some interesting leg entries vs Tristan, but you might want to skip the finish.


Rakshan vs "sewer rat" was certainly entertaining. Rakshan also showed off his kesa gatame chest crush, which is definitely something fun anyone can add to their game. It may not be so fun for your training partners though.


Giancarlo vs J-Rod might have been the best match on this card. Giancarlo's trip to the back was very impressive. He had great control too, but J-Rod had great defense and showed surprising heart and cardio. He even tried a flying buggy choke.

Andrew vs Rene was also a really fun match with tons of action. Andrew showed some great passing wrestling and control. Rene was with him every step of the way until the end, throwing up buggy chokes. I really liked Andrews attempt at a side triangle when Rene attempted the buddy choke. Eventually Andrew got the back with the arm trapped and sunk in the RNC.

Meragali vs Grout was also a decent match and it redeemed Meragali after his last WNO match. Grout was game, but just couldn't get anything going. Meragali's wrestling looked a bit better and his top game looked impressive. He seemed to want to get the armbar from mount. He was very close many times, but lost it at the last second. He eventually finished with an Ezekiel choke from the back. This was a much better showing from Meragali and he           


Izaak vs Kyle had some interesting sequences, but I'll be honestly this match isn't pleasant to sit through. Izaak showed some interesting uses of top position pressure to break his opponent and Kyle showed some good defense. I also enjoyed the variety of triangles in this match.

Gordon vs Pedro was basically a clinic on top control and pressure from mount. I learned a few things about using crossfaces and half nelsons to control that position and flatten people out when they try to turn away. Even though the match was completely one-sided Gordon showed how to isolate the arms and wear down opponents from mount which were interesting. 


Overall

Most of the matches were very good and it looks like the athletes are really going out and trying to put on a show. There were more finishes than decisions which is always good and there really wasn't much stalling. I was also happy that most of the matches didn't get stuck in one position for long periods of time. Sometimes that's unavoidable, but I was happy to see people trying new things instead of stubbornly sticking to a strategy that wasn't working. Perhaps Gordon was an exception to that, but even then his match wasn't bad. The event was great except for one thing.

I hope this is the last time we see a no time limit match in live professional grappling. I have no problems with it when it is edited, but I don't think anyone wants to watch a match like that again. For the "Who's next" show it worked well, but the match between Kyle Chambers and Izaak Mitchell was unwatchable and it screwed up the momentum of the show. It also dropped both Kyle and Izaak's stock. At a certain point I think anyone gets bored with a match no matter how good it is. In this case at about the 20min mark, I felt it was enough, but it ended up going more than 5 times longer. This was the first time I've heard people boo at WNO and there was a wall of complaints on reddit about it. On top of that it killed enthusiasm for the following match. 


Year to Date Stats





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