What We Learned from Fightpass invitational 4

UFC Fightpass has put together another event and I have to say the card looks very good. There were a lot of good names and it was nice to see UFC putting money into grappling. Hopefully this is one of the first steps into having more high level grappling events on fightpass. This event consisted of an absolute tournament and various super fights interspersed in-between. Now let's look at who won. 

Results

Dan Manasoiu def. Gabriel Arges via outside heel hook

Fedor Nikolov def. Haisam Rida via EBI OT

Vagner Rocha def. Fellipe Andrew via inside heel hook 

Nick Rodriguez def. Roberto Jimenez via EBI OT

Helena Crevar def. Emily Fernandez via RNC

Roman Bravo-Young and Alex Perez went to a draw

Dan Manasoiu def. Fedor Nikolov via Dogbar

Nick Rodriguez def. Vagner Rocha via EBI OT

Nicholas Meregali def. Roberto Abreu via EBI OT

Glover Teixeira def. Anthony Smith via dec

Nick Rodriguez def. Dan Manasoiu by EBI OT

Craig Jones def. Felipe Pena by EBI OT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NINA DRAMA (@ninamariedaniele)

Nicky Rod won the tournament and $30,000. After doing so he called out Gordon Ryan and proposed a 10 min match with drug testing. We'll see if it is excepted, but the banter should at least help promote a future match.

Stats

It is always unfortunate when an event has a low submission rate like this. There are of course times when a great action packed match doesn't end in submission, but in this case many of that matches weren't that. They implemented a "get down" rule in order to stop stalling on the feet, but I feel it didn't do much. There was a lot of handfighting that ended in nothing and not a lot of engagement on the ground. However not ever match was bad and as you can see there were 3 submissions. 

We got 2 heelhooks and a RNC. On top of those we got a dogbar, which is a fairly rare submission. The guillotine and ankle lock were the most attempted submission, but people weren't able to finish them.

The bodylock was the most successful sweep here. By bodylock I mean grabbing around someone's torso and throwing them down. This is a type of wrestle up and like the single and double leg, proved effective for those on the bottom in this event.

There were some traditional sweeps as well though. It isn't often you see scissor and hip bump sweeps. The overhead sweep was similar to a helicopter sweep where you throw someone over your head onto their back. 

  

The bodylock was king here. This was mostly due to Nicky rod as he spams this technique and he's very good at it. There were a number of other passes as well though. I was a bit surprised there weren't more halfguard passes, but to be honest, in many matches there wasn't a ton of ground work. 

There were quite a few double and single legs, but unfortunately they weren't very successful. There was only 1 single leg and no double legs resulted in a takedown. There were a number of other takedowns that scored, but overall there weren't many attempts. I was expecting a lot of takedowns with Roman Bravo-Young(2x NCAA champion) on the card, but even his match didn't have a ton of takedown attempts. I was happy that there was some variety in the attempts though.   

Side control was the most common position followed by mount and the back. This is what you'd expect from the traditional BJJ positional heirarchy. Unfortunately this didn't result in many finishes. Most of the submissions came from leglocks and the fighters weren't able to convert these positions into submissions for the most part. 

Matches to Watch

Unfortunately not all the matches were good on this card. Check out Dan Manasoiu's matches as I think they were are pretty good. He showed some nice technique and got some of the only finishes of the event.

Helena Craver's match was also interesting and she showed why she is quickly making a name for herself. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets an invite to the next ADCC.

Vagner's match against Fellipe Andrew also had a great finish that is worth checking out. The rest of the matches all had a few interesting points in them, but overall they are skippable. 

Overall

This wasn't a bad event, but with so few submissions I can't say this was a good event either. It had the correct names, but there just weren't many sparks of brillence in these performances. Often times people don't like EBI OT, but in man matches those were the only exciting moments, which is sad. Unfortunately they can't all be winners and there weren't any matches on the level of Hinger vs Rocha. In some of events that use EBI rules they have a "mollywop" rule. This rule allows a grappler to bypass OT and win if they are very convincingly beating their opponent during regulation time. I'd like to see all EBI have this rule in order to cut out some of the stalling to OT that we sometimes see. 

I am happy the the UFC is investing in grappling though and I though the production itself was fairly good. The pacing was very good, I liked the names they chose and the tournament format was interesting. I hope they do another tournament in the future, but perhaps with some of lower weight fighters.

Also Craig Jones in now the undisputed #1 grappler. 

Year to Date Stats

Although there isn't much change, I thought I'd update the stats for those that haven't read the previous one.