This is the grappling event everyone has been waiting for for the last 3 years. There has been a lot of hype around this and this was supposed to be the event that launched grappling to the next level. If you want to read my play-by-play of the event, check it out here. I believe this is the most coverage and advertising I've ever seen around ADCC and the production is certainly an improvement. However we all know hype doesn't matter. Let's take a look at what actually happened.
The show itself was good. The performances lived up to the hype for the most part and I have to applaud most of the athletes for giving it their all. There were some exceptions, but I felt like most people were trying to go out and make the matches exciting as well as win.
The overall hype was good and I liked that it looked more professional. It was a big step up from previous events where it looked like they were in a high school gym. It seemed like the place was packed and when something happened on the mats the roar of the crowd added to the excitement. The commentary was also very good this year. I felt like no matter which mat I watched I could hear interesting breakdowns of the matches.
However there was a big problem. The length of everything was just too long. I love ice-cream, but I don't want to eat 6 gallons of it. The intros at the start were interesting at first, but once I saw they were doing it for every athlete I knew it was going to take way too long. Please don't have any event intros longer than 15min. I feel the same way about the hall of fame. I loved that they had it, but it shouldn't be during ADCC. Have it before or after the matches. Making everything tighter would have made the event much more enjoyable. Also please have the announcers pronounce the names correctly and use the correct counties for the athletes.
Gordon Ryan def Andre Galvao by RNC
This ADCC was filled with great matches. I'll list a few here and try to explain why you should watch them.
The -66kg division was fun and exciting to watch however it seemed hard for people to finish here. The neck attacks and leg attacks were even, with the arm attacks trailing slightly behind. This is a trend I've seen over all no-gi grappling events over the last 2 years. I don't know why, but my guess would be that at the lighter weight classes passing the guard is harder making arm attacks less available. However leg attacks can be hit from top and bottom without passing the guard and neck attacks can come off of back attacks or the front headlock. Overall this was a good division, but I would have liked to have seen less decisions.
I predicted that this would be the most exciting division. I feel that I was actually right about that and -77kg was a pleasure to watch. There were upsets, back and forth matches and of course a 56% submission rate. Anything over 50% at this high level is amazing. This is the only division where arm attacks were the most common submission. In fact it is almost a reverse of the trend, with arm attacks being the most common, followed by legs and then finally the neck. A lot of this is due to Kade Ruotolo who hit armbars against Lachlan Giles and PJ Barch. Even the matches that didn't end in submissions were good. If you only have time to watch one division this is the one I'd watch.
This division had a 41.2% finish rate with the majority of those coming from chokes. This division wasn't as exciting as some of the others, but it still had some great action. The most subs came from chokes which were followed by leg and arm attacks which were tied. There were good matches in this division, but also some boring stalling. There were also quite a few upsets, which kept things interesting and unpredictable.
This division outside of a few people wasn't all that exciting to be honest. Only 25% of the matches ended by submission. Of that 25%, 50% of the finishes were by Craig Jones. Of course there are some good matches such as Meregali vs Ceconi, but overall it could have been better.
This division was actually much better than I thought it would be. 53% of the matches ended in submission with the majority being chokes. Gordon Ryan was driving this sub trend, but there were quite a few people in this division going out there and really going after the finish here. The big guys really went out and tried to prove they had technique this year.
This division had a more slow and grinding style, which I didn't expect. A lot of the women were evenly matched and that made for a lot of point victories. The sub rate for this division was 37.5% which isn't terrible, but it isn't great either. It wasn't as if they weren't trying, but I feel that the styles clashed in a way that wasn't conducive to submissions. The RNC by Bea Mesquita on Bianca Basilio was brutal.
This division had a 42.9% submission rate, but that is a bit deceptive since it has the same number of subs as the smaller women. The missing 3rd place match boosted this above -60kg. To be honest I didn't expect much for this division, but I thought the matches were pretty good. There was a good amount of action and a lot of back and forth. I'd say it is a division worth watching.
The absolute division had a 25% submission rate(I'm counting the super fight in this), which isn't that good. There were great matches, notably ones featuring Tye Ruotolo, but there were a lot of terrible matches as well. I'm happy people did it, but this division had almost all of the competitors gassing out. The ends of most matches usually consisted of sloppy wrestling and people almost falling over because of exhaustion. As I said there is some good stuff in there, but also some matches that are almost unwatchable. The absolute division always seems to to create a mixed bag of matches like this and I hope they find a way to fix it in the future. The "David vs Goliath" matches are fun, but many of these giants end up creating boring matches when they go against each other.
Submissions targeting the neck made up the largest chunk of the finishes. This is consistent with what we're been seeing over the last few years. This ADCC armlocks just barely outnumbered leglocks which usually doesn't happen, but those 2 categories are always close. There were a lot of points victories this year, but I don't mind those so much as many of them were good, evenly contested matches. Amy Campo vs Rafaela Guedes, PJ Barch vs JT Torres and Sam McNally vs Gary Tonon were all fun to watch and kept me on the edge of my seat. The decisions on the other hand are another story. There were far too many boring decisions that resulted from people either not doing much or sticking to a game plan that wasn't working. I understand not wanting to lose, but I hope the refs do more to stop this in the future. Perhaps I shouldn't complain so much though since overall we got tons of great submissions, takedowns, sweeps, etc.
Hassim Rida got an armbar early against Cyborg causing the crowd to erupt. This was one of the first matches and gave us a taste of what was to come.
The arm saddle position was used quite a bit in this tournament. Most of the time it was used to set up a choi bar, but Craig Jones used it to hit an inverted armbar as well. Even when people couldn't get the submission, it often opened up other opportunities. I saw more and more people using it at this tournament. Eoghan O'Flanagan looked very dangerous with this technique(all of his techniques looked sharp actually).
Of course I'll have some stats down below for the event, but I'll be doing more a more detailed breakdown with more in depth stats(takedowns, passes, etc) a bit later. It might take me a while to gather those, but hang in there with me until I can get those done.
The Show
The overall hype was good and I liked that it looked more professional. It was a big step up from previous events where it looked like they were in a high school gym. It seemed like the place was packed and when something happened on the mats the roar of the crowd added to the excitement. The commentary was also very good this year. I felt like no matter which mat I watched I could hear interesting breakdowns of the matches.
However there was a big problem. The length of everything was just too long. I love ice-cream, but I don't want to eat 6 gallons of it. The intros at the start were interesting at first, but once I saw they were doing it for every athlete I knew it was going to take way too long. Please don't have any event intros longer than 15min. I feel the same way about the hall of fame. I loved that they had it, but it shouldn't be during ADCC. Have it before or after the matches. Making everything tighter would have made the event much more enjoyable. Also please have the announcers pronounce the names correctly and use the correct counties for the athletes.
Results
Men's
-66kg
1st: Diogo Reis 2nd: Gabriel Sousa 3rd: Deigo "Pato" Oliveria
-77kg
1st: Kade Ruotolo 2nd: Mica Galvao 3rd: Dante Leon
-88kg
1st: Giancarlo Bodoni 2nd: Lucas "Hulk" Barbosa 3rd: Vagner Rocha
-99kg
1st: Kaynan Duarte 2nd: Craig Jones 3rd: Nicolas Meregali
+99kg
1st: Gordon Ryan 2nd: Nicky Rodriguez 3rd: Roosevelt Souza
Absolute
1st: Yuri Simoes 2nd: Nicholas Meregali 3rd: Tye Ruotolo
Super fight
Women's
-60kg
1st: Ffion Davies 2nd: Brianna Ste-Marie 3rd: Beatriz Mesquita
+60kg
1st: Amy Campo 2nd: Rafaela Guedes 3rd: Gabi Garcia
Best Matches
All of Kade Ruotolo's matches are worth watching. Not only did he win every match by submission, but he was also very active and creative. His matches were a pleasure to watch and he is one of the few people that I think even non-grapplers could enjoy.
Nicolas Meregali vs Ceconi was a really fun one. It had wrestling, submissions and a high pace. It was definitely one of the fastest and most explosive matches with a lot of good back and forth.
Mica Galvao vs Renato Canuto was a good match with a quick finish. At first I didn't even realize what happened, but once you see it you'll understand how slick that armbar was.
Gordon Ryan vs Roosevelt Souza was also a quick finish. I believe Gordon finished with an outside heelhook in 11 seconds. Don't blink or you'll miss it. It might be the fastest sub in ADCC history.
Deigo "Pato" Oliveria vs Kennedy Maciel was also a fun one if you like leg locks. You have some work from the saddle, some false reaps and it ends with a Z-lock. What more could a leg locker want?
Josh Cisneros vs Ethan Creslinsten was a really cool back and forth match that ended in a submission. It had subs, takedowns, transitions, ect. It was a really fun match with a ton of action.
Craig Jones vs Kyle Boehm was also a good one that showed off some of Craig's top game and ended in a submission. Craig's first match was great too, which he finished in 18 seconds.
We can't forget the other Ruotolo and mention Tye in the absolute division. His 3 matches were all good, but I believe his match vs Pedro Marinho was the most interesting. A very gritty match with a great finish.
There are many other great matches, but if I list them all we'll be here all day.
Here are the finishes from the all the divisions. I'll actually be doing more stats for this ADCC and go into more detail about everything from sweeps, takedowns, etc. I'll split those into separate posts for each division and try to go into more detail about the various stats, but for now let's look at the finishes.
How People Won
-66kg
-77kg
-88kg
-99kg
+99kg
-60kg
+60kg
Absolute & Superfight
The superfight was pretty good. It wasn't an action backed back and forth or a quick submission, but if you like technical grappling and you're looking for something to study, it was very interesting.
Total
Upsets
Sam McNally was the lowest seeded competitor in his division and took it to #1 seed Gary Tonon. It wasn't even a boring, stalling victory. Sam took the fight to Gary and proved he is a force to be reckoned with.
PJ Barch was a late invite after failing to win the trials twice. Although he has looked very good recently, nothing would have given anyone a reason to suspect he could beat Mr Perfect, JT Torres. PJ came out fearless and pressured JT on the feet until he was able to take him down and get the back.
Amy Campo looked great at trials, but she was still relatively unknown. She shocked the world in the 2nd round by defeating Gabi Garcia on points and then winning the whole tournament.
Giancarlo Bodoni has been showing steady improvement, but nothing that would indicate he could submit Matheus Diniz. Well he did and then he followed that up by defeating Lucas Barbosa to win the -88kg crown.
Trends
One of the reasons I think the arm saddle is gaining popularity is because of how well it works with K-guard. I also saw a lot of that in this tournament. I not sure if I saw any finishes from there, but it always seemed to put the top man on the back foot and open up opportunities for the guard player. I think Lachlan turned a lot of people on to K-guard and it seems like in 3 years it has gone from something obscure to a bread and butter no-gi technique that everyone is using.
Something else that seemed to be effective was the false reap entry. Craig Jones almost caught Meregali with it and Pato did catch Kennedy Maciel with it. Like a lot of the things here, these aren't new techniques, but things that people took another look at and decided they were useful techniques.
Another move that came from ADCC 2019 is leg pin passing. Of course the Rutolos were using this, but it seems to have been adopted by almost everyone in the lighter weight classes.
It wasn't only leg pin pass that was popular though. Bodylock passing was also popular this year. It seems to have been slowly increasing every year and at this ADCC we saw quite a few people pass with it.
Domination from the top position continued this ADCC with most of the submissions coming from the top position. All of the champions were doing most of their work from the top with perhaps Gordon Ryan being the only exception. Of course there was still good guard work, but it seemed like playing from the top was the key to victory this year.
One of the keys to getting on top is wrestling and that proved to be the decider in many of the matches. Those who worked on their wrestling seemed to have a big advantage over those that hadn't. Many of the champions owe their victories to their standup skills just as much as their ground.
Another trend was scoring/submitting in the transition from standing to the ground. This seems to be an underdeveloped and studies area, but many of the points came from people getting taken down and then losing position or getting subbed in the scramble. This really is where a lot of people won their matches.
Hand fighting and especially hanging on the head is becoming more and more popular to gas people out. It seems to work well, but it can get a bit boring when both people do it. This turned some matches into battles of attrition, but neither side wanted to switch to another strategy. I hope this trend is short lived, but I'm worried more people are going to start doing it.
In the wrestling realm the uchimata seems to have become very popular. It is mostly being used as a single leg counter, but it has proved to be very effective. The single leg is one of the most, if not the most, common standing attack and so far the uchimata seems to be a reliable way to counter it in submission grappling. In fact other Judo style techniques such as foot sweeps were popular as well.
First of all this event was very very good. Was it the best ADCC of all time? I don't know, but if it isn't it has to be pretty close. There were a lot of exciting matches and cool finishes. I think it lived up to the hype as well as it could have. That isn't to say the event wasn't without issues, but I think the action outshone the length of the event. I think the idea that this event would transform grappling into a spectator sport is reaching a bit too far, but I think it will push grappling further. There was a lot to like about this ADCC and I think it will grab some new fans. I feel like this event will help energize the no-gi grappling scene a get people hyped for interesting and new match ups.
Overall
As I predicted this was a changing of the guard with the only old champions able to repeat were Kaynan Duarte and Gordon Ryan. We got to see a lot of new talent and we saw that the newer generation is more than ready to take on the veterans. On top of that the newer generation seems more exciting than the majority of the older competitors. People like Sam McNally, Eoghan O"Flanagan, Brianna Ste-Marie, Giancarlo Bodoni, Diogo Reis, Amy Campo, etc were somewhat unknown, but I think they all made a name for themselves at ADCC and I want to see more of them. They proved they could not only hang, but beat the best in the world.
One of the things I talked about in my meta musing blog was the historical dominance of Brazil at ADCC. For years it seemed like the other countries were all lagging behind Brazil. Recently I noticed that many of the top competitors around the world were not only matching the Brazilians, but many times beating them in no-gi. However I wasn't sure the other countries would be able to overtake Brazil at this ADCC though. It turns out they did. Only 3 of the 8 divisions were won by the Brazilians. Americans won 4 out of 8, and Ffion Davies brought 1 home for Wales. It isn't just a race between America and Brazil though. I think Europe showed that they can hang as well. It seems that in no-gi things are starting to even out and people from all over the world are becoming competitive.
I think this event had the best possible outcome. Not only was it exciting, but it generated new stars. Gordon Ryan and Craig Jones are great, but we need more names. I think a lot of people have some momentum now and I hope they keep up the exciting matches in the future. If we have more matches like what we saw in the -77kg division the sport's future will be very bright.
Please be on the lookout for the deep statistical breakdowns I'll be doing in the near future.
Who do you think had the best performance?
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