This might be the last big event before ADCC and it featured the long awaited rematch between Gordon Ryan and Felipe Pena. Unfortunately the event was marred by the passing of Leandro Lo, but overall I still think it was a pretty good event. There were no terrible matches and all the fighters came to put on a show. For this breakdown I also tried experimenting with some new stats, so let me know how you like them. If possible I want to collect stats like these again, but it is a bit troublesome. If many of you like them however I'll try to do them for events without too many matches in the future.
Results
Gordon Ryan def Felipe Pena via forfeit
Nicholas Meregali def Rafael Lovato Jr. via dec
Mica Galvao def Alan Sanchez via RNC
Beatriz Mesquita def Elisabeth Clay via dec
Jacob Couch def Jay Rodriguez via dec
Fabricio Andrey def Fabian Ramirez via dec
Diogo Reis def Estevan Martinez via dec
How People Won
To be honest this really didn't deserve a chart. Mica was the only person to hit a submission in these matches. He submitted Alan Sanchez with a RNC. All of the other matches ended in decision and the Ryan/Pena match ended by forfeit, so I lumped that in with Dec/DQ/Injury. The matches weren't bad and people were certainly trying, but they just couldn't submit their opponents. Don't worry though, I actually have more stats than usual and you can check those out below.
Trends
The bodylock pass has continued its popularity and we saw more and more people using it to pass. Standing wrestling is becoming more popular and this might be due to ADCC coming soon. Not only were more people attempting to wrestle, but the winners of the wrestling exchanges won their fights. The only exception is Jacob Couch who pulled guard and then swept. I'm also seeing a trend of the top person winning the matches most of the time. In all of the matches the person who spent the most time on top won and I think this might continue in no gi grappling for at least another year. Passing and pinning has looked better and better, while submissions from the bottom or even sweeps haven't kept up. Wrestling up still appears to be effective and more athletes are doing it and blending it with traditional sweeps.
More people seem to be taking the mount seriously now and they are going to the arm triangle as their primary attack. Unfortunately they weren't able to finish it and I wonder if more people will aim for the armbar in the future. However this did show that people can control the mount for long periods of time against high level athletic opponents. A few years ago people wanted to avoid this position altogether, but there seems to be a shift where the community is acknowledging its strength again.
As far as wrestling and standup go we're starting to see more Judo style techniques. My guess is because they are less susceptible to guillotines and don't require you to bend over, which can be tiring. By "Judo style" I mean foot sweeps and hip throws instead of shooting for single and double legs. Of course not everyone is doing this, but It does seem to be more popular than it was a few years ago. I'm just speculating that the reasons above are why more people are utilizing these techniques though. Maybe people are just being influenced by Justin Flores' Instagram account.
What To Watch For In Each Match
Nicholas Meregali vs Rafael Lovato Jr. had some nice passing and wrestling from Meregali. Lovato showed some nice guard recovery at times as well and was remarkably tough, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't sure if Meregali would be able to take down Lovato, but the fact that he was able to do it twice shows his hard work is paying off. Meregali seems to have found a standup style that works with his natural attributes.
Mica Galvao vs Alan Sanchez was pretty much all Mica. Once he got the takedown he went to pass into mount. He seems to be working a similar game to Gordon Ryan from mount, but doesn't seem to be quite as smooth with it yet. Eventually he went to the back, trapped the arm and then finished with an RNC. He looked in control the whole time.
Beatriz Mesquita vs Elisabeth Clay had a bit of everything. Bea hit a few takedowns and her wrestling looked to be much better than before. Her passing looked good as well. Clay couldn't really get anything going for 2/3rds of the match, but then started picking up when they got into some leg entanglements. She wasn't able to catch Bea, but she was very close at the end. Bea showed she wasn't scared to be in leg entanglements and stayed right in there with Clay. This was a nice passer vs guard player battle.
Jay Rodriguez vs Jacob Couch turned out a bit different than I thought. After some hand fighting Couch pulled guard. J-Rod tried a bodylock pass, but ended up in closed guard. Unfortunately he kept his hands locked too long and Couch caught him in a kimura. It was all down hill from there and Couch got on top and started doing to J-Rod what Gordon Ryan did to him months before. Eventually Couch got to the back, but wasn't able to finish. Watch this match to see some good mount control.
Fabricio Andrey vs Fabian Ramirez was fairly one sided, but interesting. Fabian made it interesting by showing great defense and almost catching a heel hook. Fabricio had some amazing takedowns however. He showed not only impressive shots, but also foot sweeps and even one of the best hip throws I've ever seen in a no gi match.
Diogo Reis vs Estevan Martinez was a great match that had lots of scrambling. This is great to watch if you want to see how to get out of tight spots. Diogo was attacking relentlessly, but Estevan was escaping everything like a magician.
New Stats
This time I tried adding a new set of stats going over passing, sweeping, takedowns and of course submissions. Not only did I want to record what succeeded, but also what failed. As always, I'm sure I didn't capture everything perfectly and I missed a few things. Also I used my own system for recording these and didn't go by IBJJF, ADCC, etc rules. I'll try to explain what I called a success and failure for each category, but in general I was a bit more liberal than ADCC or IBJJF. Anyway, the successful attempts are in red.
As you can see from the data there was only 1 sub, but it wasn't due to a lack of trying. Jacob Couch and Mica Galvao tried over and over for arm triangles, but couldn't get them. The 2nd most attempted submission was the outside heelhook, which some people might find strange. The reason this was tried so often was that the people losing went for this when they were in a bad position and had no other offensive choices. I don't think any of them were set up particularly well, which is why they failed.
Overall I think there was a lot of variety in the types of submissions. I think this is actually due to positioning and when people are able to get into more positions more interesting submissions become available.
For the passes I counted passes that went straight to the back or into submissions. I didn't require opponents backs to be flat or anything like that, so there are perhaps some counted here that ADCC for example wouldn't count.
The most common was the kneeslice. The main reason for this is that it is used to escape halfguard. It was often used when chained off of other passes and the opponent latched onto a leg at the last moment. Perhaps in the future I should separate these passes from the standing kneeslice. The toreando was next because you don't need special grips and can just spam it. It was tried a lot, but wasn't very successful. I should note that when people did a "toreando blitz" and moved side to side trying to secure the pass on the left or right, I counted the whole sequence as 1 move.
The bodylock worked well, but J-rod showed the dangers of what can happen to you. It's a powerful technique, but things can get nasty for you really quick if you aren't careful.
If you're wondering what the Galvao D.Half killer is, it is this. I guess it could also be called the hippoplata.
For these I didn't count times when the top player fell to their back purposefully or in order to do a move of some sort. I also didn't count long double pull sequences where one person comes up after 3 min a sweep. I only wanted to count instances where the top person was forced to be on bottom against their will.
Wrestle ups were the most attempted, but there was only 1 successful sweep I saw, but perhaps I missed something. I believe one problem is that people weren't really setting them up well and mostly used them when they had no other choice rather than using them offensively. Another problem was the lack of wrestling from the bottom players. Wrestling up is the new hot thing, but if you can't outwrestle your opponent standing, starting from the bottom may not help all that much.
The submission sweep happened in the J-Rod vs Jacob Couch match. By submission sweep, I mean someone is forced to the bottom because of a submission hold.
The double leg was more popular than I thought. It was mostly Bea Mesquita doing them as she scored 2 on Liz Clay. A few others might have tried them, but the shots were so sloppy I couldn't tell if they were supposed to be doubles, singles or high crotches, so I didn't count them. Fabricio Andre also had a nice one, but he immediately went to the back instead of trying to finish the double, so I put that under mat return.
Speaking of mat returns, there were a number of those as well. People were having a lot of success taking people down from behind. This might be a good strategy for the future of submission grappling as I don't believe anyone stopped the takedown once their opponent got behind them.
As I said above Judo style takedowns also made appearances throughout the night. Footsweeps like kosotogari, kouchigari and deashibarai were all seen. I think competitors should put more work into these as they as low risk and will work against the upright stance many other people are using. On top of that we saw some hip throws such as ogoshi and uchimata.
Overall the standup looked much better and I was happy to see people using a wide variety of techniques. It looks like the standup game is starting to evolve and improve.
Things were pretty even between mount, sidecontrol and the back, and it seemed like people weren't focused on just one position. A few years ago it seemed like everyone only wanted to attack the back, however it seems people are increasingly going for the mount again. Side control, Knee on Belly and North South seem to be used as more transitional positions though and people aren't attacking from them much. Perhaps we'll need someone to come and show how knee on belly can be used effectively in nogi like Gordon did for mount.
Overall
Overall this wasn't a bad event and to be honest all the matches were entertaining. It wasn't a great event because of the lack of subs and the weird ending of the main event. I did appreciate the amount of action in most matches and I'm happy to see the athletes shifting their games to a more professional style of grappling.
Somethings that I think should be changed however is the title matches. I don't know if the Ryan vs Pena match was a title fight or the Mesquita vs Clay fight was for the title either. If they want to make the belts mean something they need to be defended and you need challengers to work their way up. Its nice to have big matches such as Pena vs Ryan, but I wouldn't mind having smaller names on the card if they eventually make it to the title.
This was an event worth watching even though the vibe was a bit off due to the death of Leandro Lo(R.I.P.). Sometimes there is nothing you can do in a situation like this and I feel the fighters tried their best to make things exciting. I'm guessing there won't be another WNO until about a month after ADCC and I hope some new stars come from that event. I'm also hoping they give up on the no-time limit live matches.
Finally let me know what you think of the additional stats for passing, takedowns, etc. If there is enough demand I'll try to do them for ADCC.
Year to Date Stats
There wasn't much change here. The RNC is the only thing that changed, but I thought I'd post it here for those that haven't seen the previous ones.
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