ADCC 2022 Meta Pt.2 The Answers

 ADCC has been over for a couple of months now, but now I've finally finished the stats for all the divisions. I did the submission stats in a previous article, but in this article let's talk about the other stats and predictions that were made before the event. Did my predictions come true and were you, the reader, able to pick out the winners. I wrote quite a few things in my Meta Musings post before, so let's find out if these predictions came true. 

Stats

Takedowns

The single leg was king here. There were 30 completions and 139 failures. That gives it a 17.7% completion rate, which isn't terrible, but not particularly great either. The double leg was similar with 23 completions and 85 failures for a slightly high 21.2% success rate.

There were quite a few Judo style techniques used as well. The number of foot sweeps was fairly high and I imagine that is due to the fact they don't put you in too much danger. Overall it seemed that the standing position became even more important than before. All of the champions except, Gordon Ryan, worked mainly from top position and wrestled to get there. Wrestling was the key to most of the champions success. 

Sweeps

The single leg was also the common sweep with 12 completions and 34 failures. This was followed by half guard sweeps although they seems a bit less effective. One of the most effective ways to sweep was to try to submit your opponent and then come on top if you can't get it. This had a greater than 50% success rate. Coming up on a bodylock to sweep was also very high percentage.


Overall it looked like wrestling up was a bit more effective than traditional sweeps. I think this might be due to people wanting to play it a bit safe and not just dive into people's guards. There are a number of people who aren't good at defending these types of wrestle ups, and also they can be used over and over again with little set up.

 

Passes

Half guard passes were the most popular way to get past the guard at this ADCC, but the bodylock was actually the most effective. Lachlan was saying that this was going to be the next big thing and it appears he was right. Smash passes were actually even more effective, but attempted much less.

Overall sweeping and passing were neck and neck. There were 52 sweeps and 53 passes. 24% of sweeps were successful however and only 18.7% of pass attempts succeeded. There were a larger number of pass attempts though. 

 

Predictions

Did my predictions come true and were you, the reader, able to pick out the winners. I wrote quite a few things in my Meta Musings post before, so let's find out if these predictions came true. First lets see how good you were at picking the winners. Before the event I made breakdowns of all the divisions and let people vote on the winners. How did you do?

Your Picks

-66kg 

Predicted - Gary Tonon(51.52%), Cole Abate(14.12%), Ethan Creslinsten(10.59%)

Winners -1st: Diogo Reis  2nd: Gabriel Sousa  3rd:  Deigo "Pato" Oliveria 

-77kg 

Predicted - Mica Galvao(36.75%), JT Torres(29.91%), Lachlan Giles(6.84%)

Winners - 1st: Kade Ruotolo  2nd: Mica Galvao  3rd:  Dante Leon

-88kg 

Predicted - Tye Ruotolo(20.79%), Matheus Diniz(17.82%), Izaak Michell(17.82%)

Winners - 1st: Giancarlo Bodoni 2nd: Lucas "Hulk" Barbosa 3rd:  Vagner Rocha

-99kg 

Predicted - Craig Jones(58.97%), Kaynan Duarte(18.8%), Nicholas Meregali(11.97%)

Winners - 1st: Kaynan Duarte  2nd: Craig Jones 3rd: Nicolas Meregali

+99kg 

Predicted - Gordon Ryan(84.39%), Nick Rodriguez(5.78%), Felipe Pena(3.47%)

Winners - 1st: Gordon Ryan 2nd: Nicky Rodriguez 3rd:  Roosevelt Souza

-60kg 

Predicted - Ffion Davis(27.06%), Brianna Ste-Marie(15.15%), Mayssa Bastos(15.15%)

Winners - 1st: Ffion Davies  2nd: Brianna Ste-Marie 3rd: Beatriz Mesquita

+60kg 

Predicted - Kendall Reusing(50%), Rafaela Guedes(17.65%), Amy Campo(14.71%)

Winners - 1st: Amy Campo  2nd: Rafaela Guedes  3rd:  Gabi Garcia

For the upper weights and the women, you the readers did pretty well. The -99kg and +99kg divisions are almost perfect. The lower weight classes are very different from what was expected. At -66kg Diogo Reis wasn't even on the radar. In fact there was a Brazilian sweep at the lowest men's weight class. I could be that people were underestimating them or it could be the fact that many of the names are somewhat new. 

-77kg didn't turn out as expected either. Everyone was expecting Mica Galvao to run through everyone and become the youngest champ ever, but Kade beat him to it. Before this match I think many thought Kade wasn't on the same level of his brother and if Tye had trouble with Mica, Kade would easily be beaten. When the match started and Kade started beating Mica on the feet and then stuffing his takedowns, you could tell that Kade was very underrated. Also I think the game shifted and JT Torres wasn't expecting so many people to be able to hang with him in the stand up department. 

-88kg was also quite different than what many expected. I don't think anyone had Bodoni winning, but he showed that in 1 year you can remake yourself into a monster. Watching Bodoni 2 years ago, you'd never think he'd be able to run through people like Hulk and Diniz. 

-99kg was just as you predicted. Craig ended up losing in the end, but you were very close. Meregali was also surprisingly good. 

+99kg was also a division that you did a good job picking. Gordon was an easy pick, but Nicky Rod wasn't a sure bet. Pena ended up getting to the bronze instead of Souza though.

The -60kg women had 2 of the 3 spots predicted perfectly. Ffion is not only a fan favorite, but also showed he's at the top of the heap in this division. She looked improved in all areas and proved that her win over Bea Mesquita wasn't a fluke.

Finally the +60kg women was also fairly close. Kendall was favored, but she was injured. I'm actually surprised so many people picked Campo, but I guess there is wisdom in crowds.  

How Things Worked Out

Before ADCC I posted about things I was curious about. Let's she how those things turned out.

Submission Hunters

I predicted that submission hunters might take over this ADCC. At least I wanted them to. If we look at who won, only Kade Ruotolo, Gordon Ryan and Giancarlo Bodoni really fit the bill. These 3 were able to not only win, but do it in style. I would have liked to see more winners open their game up, but 3 isn't really a bad number. Overall I do think that most of the people who went after subs were rewarded in terms of their career and notoriety.  

I don't think this proved to be the superior strategy, but I think it proved to be a viable strategy. I think most people expected this out of Gordon as he has been walking though people for years now. Kade was a bit of a wildcard. I think most people thought that his wild style would get shut down by a more methodical positional player. That was not the case. Kade played fast and loose, but nobody was able to capitalize on his mistakes. In fact when they tried to catch him, he caught them. Not only was it historic, but it was also entertaining. Giancarlo might have been the most impressive, because I was sure that he was going to be taken down and controlled by Hulk, Diniz, etc. 

Overall this aggressive style doesn't seem to stop you from winning ADCC and in the -77kg division it seemed like the most aggressive person won. Of course more conservative grapplers won too such as Kaynan at +99kg and Yuri in the absolute, but overall the conservative points based strategy wasn't a home run. 

Brazilians

As I said before in "meta musing", this might be the year that Brazil doesn't dominate. It turns out they did lose this year. Out of 9 divisions(I'm counting the super fight), America won 5, Brazil won - 3, and Wales/Britten won - 1. Out of 26 medals 57.6% belonged to Brazil, 26.9% went to the US, 7.6% went to Canada and 3.8% went to both  Australia and the UK. 

As you can see compared to before Brazil isn't doing as well as they once did, but they are still taking home lots of medals. 

Top Position

As you can see from the chart above, trying to finish from the bottom wasn't a particularly effective strategy. I should define these terms so they are more clear. Neutral are positions such and standing, the back, 50/50, scrambles, etc. Most of the submissions came from there, followed by the top position. 

From what I saw the person with the most time on top seemed to win most of the time. The bottom certainly isn't dead and we saw sweeps and submissions from the bottom as well. However it seems that right now passing, the mount and wrestling are hot and the top position is starting to shine. 

No-gi Specialization

If we look at the champions the only Nogi specialist that won was Gordon Ryan. The others all practice gi regularly, although you could argue for Kade Ruotolo as he only l does gi about once a year. There seemed to be more strictly Nogi competitors than ever though. New Wave, B-team and 10th planet are all Nogi based and are becoming increasingly more dominant on the Nogi scene.

However the hybrid fighters still dominated. Many of the champions still do gi to some extent and some like Kaynan seem to be just as good or better at it. One good thing however is that it seems that many teams are putting much more time into nogi. Atos is now doing it full time along with the gi, so all athlete can train year round. I think these are positive steps for those that like nogi.

Experience vs Youth

Youth crushed experience here. All of the champions except Ffion Davies, Gordon Ryan and Kaynan Duarte, were first time ADCC competitors. Even then all 3 of them are under 30. Kade Ruotolo became the youngest champion in ADCC history and many of the other winners have received their black belts in the last 2-3 years.


Of course there were some veterans who did well. Vagner Rocha was able to reach the podium again at 40 as well as Gabi Garcia at 38. However on the whole, the younger athletes looked faster, stronger and just technically better. I thought things might change a bit, but I was surprised how much things changed since the last ADCC. I don't think it was necessarily all physical either though. The younger athletes don't play the same type of game that people were playing a few years ago. Many of them are much more dynamic and that seemed to help them this year.

 

 

Seesaw Sweeping

This seems to have completely stopped. I'm not sure if I saw even one match where people were trading sweeps. I think many people learned that it is better to scramble than concise the sweep which lead to 2 outcomes. The top person gets away and reestablishes top position or they get their back taken. There were only 2 50/50 sweeps and overall it seemed that betting everything on a sweep was a losing strategy. Once people got on top they fought hard to stay there. This strategy, that seemed so prevalent in the IBJJF a few years ago, has all but completely disappeared from ADCC and professional Nogi grappling.

Wrestling

Wrestling was alive and well at this ADCC. Some might say that it has a long way to go, but I think this is the best wrestling we've seen so far at ADCC. Even at the lighter weights there was a good amount of wrestling. It proved that Wrestling is not only useful in ADCC, but in some cases essential. Another great thing I noticed was that people who weren't experienced in takedowns previously took the time to practice and really improved their takedowns. Nicholas Meregali and Kenta Iwamoto come to mind as people who went from weak wrestling to surprisingly strong.

Before the event I wanted to see which would be more common and successful, wrestling style takedowns or judo. If you look at the chart below you can see the stats below. Please note that I separated the takedowns by which are more commonly seen in each sport(Foot sweeps for judo & single legs for wrestling for example) and I excluded ones that could be from either such as the bodylock, the fireman's carry and the broomstick(it looked like it could have been a kani basami).

There were approximately 132 judo style takedowns attempted and 25 successes which totaled to a 18.9% success rate. There were 378 wrestling style takedowns and 82 successes, which gives us a 21.6% success rate. Overall wrestling style takedowns were more successful, but the difference wasn't significant.  There were many more wrestling attempts however and I'd chalk that up to it being nogi and the greater prevalence of wrestling training for ADCC instead of Judo. I think this shows that both approaches have their place and it is useful try practice both.

Overall 

This is a great time to be a grappling fan. ADCC had a good mix of everything and if you're trying to learn something from the matches, there is plenty to study. Perhaps one of the most important things I've learned is that there are multiple ways to win. The winners didn't all use the same style and had varied approaches, but they all got to their destination. We got a varied approach to grappling this time and luckily most of the matches were exciting. 

I hope all of you enjoyed the ADCC breakdown. I hope this illuminated some things and showed what is really high percentage in the top level of submission grappling. I'm going to try to do a full 2022 year breakdown, so be on the look out for that.

Here is one of the best matches from the absolute division of ADCC, so check it out if you haven't already.