The 66kg division was a fairly fun with a lot of movement. I was actually surprised how much wrestling there was considering this division has traditionally consisted of guard pullers. The field was mainly filled with new names and the veterans that did show up didn't end up fairing too well. Let's take a look at the big picture.
If you haven't seen the other breakdowns check them out below.
I showed these stats previously and as you can see there are quite a few decisions. Many of these matches were close and the winner couldn't be determined by score or submission. The scrambling abilities and gas tank that these smaller competitors possess allows them to go full out without slowing down. This can be fun, but I don't think anyone in here was able to exhaust their opponent and win.
To me the most impressive submission was the Z-lock by Deigo "Pato" Oliveira. I've only seen the Z-lock 2 other times in competition, so having Pato finish it on the #2 seed was very impressive.
Submissions
Through the chart above you can see the successes and failures of the various submissions. Of course I might have missed some and it is sometimes hard to tell if you should count something as a submission attempt or not, but these should be fairly accurate.
Usually the RNC is king here, but all 4 submissions were different in this division. Both leg locks were pulled off by Diego Pato, who was very aggressively going after the legs. Surprisingly both leg locks were rare moves that aren't seen much. Pato is someone to watch if you are interested in a leg lock game that isn't just heel hooks. There were quite a few ankle lock and toe hold attempts, but nobody could get a tap with those. Many of the toe hold attempts just seemed like hail marys and the stat is inflated because both people went for them at the same time. Another stat I collected, but you can't see in the chart above is where the sub came from(top, bottom, neutral). The Z-lock came from guard and the estima lock came from the neutral position. 8 leg locks came from the bottom position, 1 from the top position and 19 came from neutral positions(double guard pull, standing, etc).
There were quite a few triangles as well and those mostly came from Josh Cisneros who was jumping on them from everywhere. The armbar was also a submission people were going after quite a bit with 3 coming from the top(1 was finished) and 3 from the bottom. Overall I was happy to see the variety of submissions in this division.
Overall for the submissions there were 8(15%) from top, 15(28%) from bottom and 30(56%) from neutral positions. Overall people were attacking more from bottom, but 3 out of 8 submissions from the top resulted in finishes. Only 1 out 15 were successful from bottom and 1 sub from neutral finished the match.
Sweeps
There were quite a few sweep attempts in this division as well. The most effective seemed to be what I called a "sub sweep". This is when someone went for a submission that caused their opponent to defend and allowed them to come on top. This happened quite a few times and shows that just because you don't hit the submission doesn't mean the attack is worthless. As I said before I tried to count these carefully, but of course I might have missed a few sweeps. On top of that I only tried to record sweeps that people put effort into and came close to being completed, so I didn't count setups that went nowhere. I did however count sweeps completed in the no points period.
The next is the single leg sweep were people wrestle up with a single leg. Sometimes this started with another sweep first, but ended with the single leg takedown. This wasn't as effective as I thought it would be and I think that is mostly because the wrestling defense was good in this division. The 50/50 sweeps weren't the seesaw game that we often see in the gi. In this case I believe all of them were 50/50 entries from the K-guard that knocked their opponent over. Most of the time it seemed that people were more focused on the heel hook than the sweep and ended up back on bottom.
Although there were a lot of interesting sweeps, I have to say based on this data, sweeping wasn't an effective way to win matches. Out of 52 attempts only 11(21%) were successful. Of course "shooters gotta shot", but with those numbers, a strategy of sweeping at the last moment to win, doesn't seem viable. However things might change by the next ADCC.
Guard Passes
This was a hard division for passers. Everyone in here had a good guard and only 5 passes were successful. The bodylock was the most successful with a 50% success rate, but it was only attempted 4 times. The toreando also got 2 passes, but there were a ton of attempts. Luckily people in this weight class had the gas to keep up the pressure. It seems that the endless stamina combined with the lack of weight made passes rare at -66kg.
Just like a said before, these may not be 100% accurate and I've only recorded passes that seemed like real attempts. I also recorded passes in the no points period as well as passes that led to the back.
Takedowns
There were a number of takedowns in this division, but the most attempted and the most completed was the single leg. This takedown was used quite a bit and I was surprised how much it was used compared to the double leg. However it also failed a number of times. One reason for this is that it seems to be attempted repeatedly when people were tired and they need to score. In these situations the single legs aren't set up well and are easily defended.
Foot sweeps were also fairly popular and it seems more people were using this option at ADCC. I think these techniques might still need more work, but they do seem like good low risk alternatives to shots. Of the various foot sweeps, the kouchigari seemed the most effective. Many people were trying to hit them off of armdrags and that technique seemed to work in the lighter and heavier weight classes.
Although I usually think of -66kg fighters as having weak wrestling and preferring to pull guard, I don't think that was the case this year. Of course there were guard pulls, but I believe the majority of the athletes tried to wrestle this year. Of course there is room for improvement, but overall I'd say this division showed very well rounded skills.
I should mention when recording these takedowns, I counted them in the no points period and I was more liberal than ADCC standards. Takedowns that went to turtle were counted in my analysis just to make things easier and more in line with other promotions.
Positions
Most of the time in these matches was spent trying to take people down or pass the guard, so unfortunately there wasn't a ton of positional play. However as you can see mount and side control are starting to make a bit of a comeback and the urge to always move to the back is fading. It is good to see people exploring these positions again.
Overall
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