The year in nogi grappling 2022

 2022 was a great year for nogi grappling. Of course we got ADCC, but there were a number of other shows that were interesting as well. Of course we had WNO and Polaris, but we also got the return of EBI. There were quite a few upsets that happened this year and overall it looked like the newer grapplers have taken over. Many solid veterans lost to young up and coming talent, which makes thing interesting. Let's hope that 2023 can be just as good, but let's take a look at what happened.

Submissions

Let's take a look at this years stats for finishes. We got 48.3% of the matches ending in submission, which is pretty good in my opinion. This is slightly down from last year, but I don't think there is much of a difference overall. Overall the percentages we are seeing for everything is about what I would expect. Neck submissions being the most common, followed by legs and then arms. This is pretty much the same as last year and I imagine the same pattern would hold for the year before that(if there are stats for that). 

Above you can see the totals for this year(from summer), but keep in mind the number of events here is limited. I only have stats for about half of the year for failures, but I believe it is statistically significant although they are skewed by ADCC. 

As always the RNC is king with a 34.7% completion rate making it not only the sub that got the most finishes, but also the highest percentage out of those techniques that had more than 10 attempts. The inside heelhook also did pretty well with a 30% completion rate. It was also nice to see the triangle choke make a comeback. 

As you can see here there were the neck was the biggest target for people last year, followed by legs and then arms. 22.1% of neck attacks, 16% of leg attacks and 12% of arm attacks were successful. This has been a pretty consistent trend over the last few years, which #1 being chokes followed by leg locks and armlocks. For a while people said leg locks would go away once people improved their defense, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 

New Trends

There have been a few submissions that I've seen this year that I hadn't seen much before. The buggy choke is perhaps the most infamous, especially after Jay Rod winning ADCC trials with it. For a while people were really getting killed with it, but lately it hasn't been hit much. Despite that you see it thrown up a lot after people get their guard passed, which can help them regain guard. 

Another popular submission was the choi bar. This slick looking armbar has been around for a while, but this year we have seen more people attempting it and adding it to their arsenal. That wasn't the only lock that has been trending lately. The Z-lock has also been talked about a lot since ADCC. Since then it has been hit about 4 times and I imagine it will become even more popular in the future. The last submission I've seen more and more this year is the side & rear triangle. For years these triangles were ignored, but now people seen to have realized how useful they can be.  

Takedowns

The single leg takedown leads the pack here followed by the double leg and then de ashi barai. Overall the types of techniques were quite varied and people were having success with shots, hip tosses, foot sweeps, etc. 

New Trends

It seems more people are trying to work footsweeps into their arsenal recently. Due to the long length of many grappling matches, competitors can't stay in a bent over wrestling stance the whole time. This opens up opportunities for foot sweeps. We'll see if this continues next year. 

Sweeps

"John" here is the John Wayne Sweep

Wrestling up from a single leg takedown was the most successful way to sweep people this year. This came in various forms and sometimes they were pure wrestle ups, but many times they started as other sweeps and then finished as single legs. Half guard sweeps also seemed to work fairly well although many times people got stuck in half guard and couldn't get their games going. On top of all that more people were taking advantage of submission attempts to get on top and sweep their opponents. 

New Trends

More and more people have been wrestling up from the bottom and I think this will only increase next year. This seems to help people who like to push the pace and find that their opponents can stall them from top position. 

Passes

There were a lot of successful passes this year, but the number one was the bodylock. However if we look down at some of the less commonly attempted passes you can see that the smash pass had a 39.1% completion rate.  Overall it seems that pressure passes where much more effective than speed passes this year. 

New Trends

The bodylock has become one of the most popular and effective passes and we are seeing a number of people using it now. However it is hard to call it a new trend since it started a few years ago. 

The biggest trend I've seen recently is passing from north-south position. Years ago the bottom player would invert and use this type of upside down guard to trap their opponents in submissions. Recently this has changed and people under stand the submission danger from that position. Now the top player can keep the guard player stacked and wear him down using pressure and speed. The Ruotolos are perhaps the best at this, but I've started to see others use it as well. 

2022 Complete Submission Totals

Here I have the submission stats  year. Unlike the other sub stats I posted above, here I have almost all the big events this year such as the various ADCC trials and Nogi worlds. These are a bit more complete although I don't have the failure stats for them(before I started compiling those stats). Here you can see that the top 10 submissions from this year are

1. RNC
2. Inside heelhook
3. Armbar
4. Outside heelhook
5. Guillotine
6. Triangle
7. Ankle lock
8. Kneebar
9. Arm triangle
10. Kimura

You can take a look down below, but you should notice that the RNC had more finishes than the number 2 and 3 combined. 

Overall

I think this was another great year for nogi grappling. However I'm a little worried. After ADCC things slowed quite bit. Once ADCC finished there didn't seem to be much in terms of matches despite the IMO high demand. Some of this was due to injury, but I was surprised there was only 1 WNO and not many people trying to take advantage of the post ADCC hype some of the athletes had. I'm hoping this is just a momentary hiccup and not a trend. The level of the competitors seemed to have increased and luckily there were fewer boring matches. 

It seems the younger competitors are trying to make the matches more interesting and exciting. It is often assumed that 2 high level people will stalemate each other and make the match boring. This year proved that, this situation doesn't have to happen. You can have top level talent compete against each other and have good matches. I'm hoping that this becomes the norm in the future.