What We Learned from EBI 20 The Absolutes(Kade Ruotolo ONEfc bonus match)

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We had a great weekend of grappling and I think it deserves a breakdown. First we had a title fight in ONEfc between Kade Ruotolo and Uali Kurzhev. Then we had EBI 20 which featured quite a few ADCC competitors. There was a lot of high level grappling on display, but more importantly the Grappling was fun and easy to watch. 

Please note that I didn't count the female combat jj match in the stats. 


Results



Kade Ruotolo Def Uali Kurzhev by inside heelhook

 


Nick Rodriguez Def Kyle Boehm via RNC in OT

Stats



As you can see this was a great weekend for those that love Nogi grappling. I didn't count EBI overtime submissions here and anytime someone won in OT, I put it in the Dec/DQ/OT category. Luckily that wasn't much of a problem because almost all the matches were won by submission in regulation. 75% of the matches ended in submission, which might be the highest I've ever seen. 

Heelhooks are back baby. For the past few months we haven't seen many heelhooks, especially inside heelhooks. They came roaring back this weekend though. Of course people still went after the neck and arms as well. For some reason EBI always seems to have a lot of leg locks,but I'd need to look at stats from more events to see if that is actually true.



The inside heelhook was the star of the show this weekend with 5 finishes. The ankle lock followed with 2 victories. There were a few others as well which you can see above. I was very surprised that there weren't more RNC victories. Usually that is number 1, but it seems many people didn't want to go that route. It wasn't even attempted much and it seemed like people were eyeing other submissions instead of focusing on the back.

 




There was a lot of wrestling up during these events. This seemed to be a deliberate strategy instead of something done out of desperation when nothing else works. Kade wrestled up on a single leg after he missed a flying armbar. I don't think Uali was expecting this and it gave Kade an easy entry to a takedown. Nicky Rod also used this strategy brilliantly. Many people were staying flat on their backs to avoid his bodylock pass. Nicky decided to pull guard and then wrestle up with a bodylock or double leg, landing him on top with the bodylock pass ready to go. Another aspect of this was the snapdown, which forced people to turtle and allowed the initiator to run around to the back. All of these are great tactics that can be used by people who are already proficient at wrestling.


The most common pass was the halfguard pass, but there is a huge caveat here with these passing stats. One of the bonus matches at EBI had someone foolishly letting his opponent pass and get into dominant positions without much resistance. IMO this somewhat screwed up the stats and more than half of those half guard passes are from that match. Also the guy still lost. 

The bodylock pass was very very successful and the main person using it was Nicky Rod. He might have the best bodylock pass in the world right now and he showed how dominant you can be with it at this EBI. 



As expected there weren't a ton of takedowns due to the EBI and OneFC rules. There are no points for takedowns and in EBI they have timer that forces you to the ground if you can't get the takedown in a certain amount of time. I believe these all contributed to the low numbers.

The takedowns we did get were very nice though. There was a good mix of different takedowns and it was nice to see people fighting for takedowns instead of stalling. In many grappling matches you see endless hand fighting that just serves to stall the matches. Here we didn't really have any of that.



As I said in the passing section the mount and side control positions are inflated because of one match. That said there was a lot of mount and side control in all of the matches. I couldn't believe how much it was being used and the way people used it was actually quite effective. I've noticed it being used more and more, but I was surprised it wasn't that popular at ADCC. In EBI it was and helped win a few matches. 

The saddle also made a come back. Most of the inside heelhooks came from that position. 50/50 has been a bit more popular recently, but this just goes to show that the saddle still has a lot of offer. 



Trends



It seems the inside heelhook has made a comeback. For the last few months people haven't been going for it as much, but perhaps it was just the athletes featured don't favor the technique. Whatever the reason, this weekend they were the most popular submission and people were hunting for them in a way that didn't happen at ADCC. I don't know if this is a trend or just an anomaly. Perhaps the lack of heelhooks before was the anomaly and now things are getting back to normal. 

Top position seemed very important in EBI at this event. You'd think that with no points, people wouldn't care about mount or side control, but we saw the opposite. People were playing much more "traditional" bjj and working up the positional hierarchy instead of just trying to hop to the back the first chance they get. There was quite a lot of mount work and I think it looked much better than the mount work we saw a few years ago. I think people have really tried to work on this part of their game and I believe in the future we will see more people winning from the mount in nogi. 

Wrestling up was also very effective, especially from Nicky Rod and Kade Ruotolo. At ADCC we didn't see it much, which surprised me, but I think that might have been due to the rules. These 2 showed that when someone with standing skills tries to wrestle up, it can be almost unstoppable. 

In general it seems like everyone is trying to become more well rounded which is a good thing. I never thought I'd see the day when Nicky Rod pulls guard, but he did several times at EBI. I'm happy to see everyone improving and making things more exciting through their growth. The direction nogi grappling is headed looks great. 



Overall



This was a great weekend for grappling and although it didn't have the hype around it ADCC did, it certainly delivered when it comes to excitement and entertainment. I'd recommend everyone watch these matches and hope both ONEfc and EBI have more events like this again in the near future.

I know people like to see the best in the world fight each other, but that doesn't always yield the best matches. I think the Kade match and the EBI matches show that having a mix of different levels and the right ruleset and lead to fun interesting matches.

 

Year to Date Stats


Below you can find the stats so far this year from hundreds of matches. Unfortunately I haven't added the ADCC stats yet, but don't worry, I'll add those as soon as I finish with the breakdown of all the divisions.








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