These might be the biggest trials of all time. The east coast North American trials usually attract top level talent and this year was no exception. This was a great event that had everything. We got new champions for the men's divisions and we got to see who will be in which division for the women. There were a lot of surprises and I never would have guessed who won. Let's take a look at the results down below.
It is hard to argue this wasn't a great event. With a 62.1% submission rate, you can't ask for much more. It is also great to see there weren't many decisions. The event follows the usual pattern and as you can see attacks on the neck came in first, followed by leg attacks and finally arm attacks. We got a large variety of submissions, which you can see below. The athletes came out of grapple and really went for the finish. In the beginning rounds almost every match ended in submission, which is common. I thought this would slow down in the later rounds, but there were still lots of subs even there. There were submissions from beginning to end here.
Above you can see the total submissions from the trials. As you can see there were a lot of submissions, lead by the rear naked choke. The inside heelhook came in second with 83 instances. The armbar and outside heelhook tied for 3rd. Overall we had a great variety of submissions and even quite a few rare ones. There were 8 smoothers, but I should note that 1 was from covering the mouth from the back. Another 2 were actually kesa gatame crushes, which perhaps should be a separate category. There were also surprisingly 4 gogoplatas. Check out all the rare subs that occurred.
Halfguard passes came out on top followed by bodylock and north-south passes. The later 2 passes have become more and more popular over the last few years. Many know about the bodylock, but north-south passes have been getting less attention. Many people such as the Ruotolo brothers have been using them to great success and here Dorian Olivarez used them to secure his ticket to ADCC.
The single leg was the most common and most attempted. With 12 completions, it proved to be a reliable tool. The double leg came next and it had an impressive 50% completion rate. There are a number of other takedowns as well and it is always nice to see variety. However it is important to note that in some cases people wanted to be taken down due to ADCC's finals rules.
The back had the most and highest percentage finishes. We did get finishes from all positions though. As I've said before the mount is becoming more and more popular. After years of people dismissing the mount in nogi, we are now seeing it being a pin people are using to control their opponents and submit from. People are still having problems submitting from there, but they are able to maintain it and/or transition to the mount.
I think everyone was happy to see Jacob Couch win trials. He seems like such a nice person and I think most people have been following his career since purple belt. He not only won, but beat everyone by submission.
Results
Men's
-66kg Dorian Olivarez (2nd Dominic Mejia, 3rd Ethan Crelinsten)
-77kg Elijah Dorsey(2nd Nicky Ryan, 3rd Oliver Taza)
-88kg Jacob Couch(2nd Elder Cruz, 3rd William Tackett)
-99kg Paul Ardila(2nd Alex Grandy, 3rd Devonte Johnson)
+99kg Dan Manasiou(2nd Damon Ramos, 3rd John Hansen)
Women's
-55kg Alexandria Enriquez(2nd Jasmine Rocha, Cindy Ung)
-65kg Morgan Black(2nd Helena Craver, 3rd Sofia Delgado)
+65kg Amanda Leve(2nd Bridget McEliec, 3rd Jason Foster)
How People Won
It is hard to argue this wasn't a great event. With a 62.1% submission rate, you can't ask for much more. It is also great to see there weren't many decisions. The event follows the usual pattern and as you can see attacks on the neck came in first, followed by leg attacks and finally arm attacks. We got a large variety of submissions, which you can see below. The athletes came out of grapple and really went for the finish. In the beginning rounds almost every match ended in submission, which is common. I thought this would slow down in the later rounds, but there were still lots of subs even there. There were submissions from beginning to end here.
Stats
Above you can see the total submissions from the trials. As you can see there were a lot of submissions, lead by the rear naked choke. The inside heelhook came in second with 83 instances. The armbar and outside heelhook tied for 3rd. Overall we had a great variety of submissions and even quite a few rare ones. There were 8 smoothers, but I should note that 1 was from covering the mouth from the back. Another 2 were actually kesa gatame crushes, which perhaps should be a separate category. There were also surprisingly 4 gogoplatas. Check out all the rare subs that occurred.
Below are some extra stats. For large tournaments I usually don't do indepth coverage of every match. Here I covered the finals and semi finals only with full stats.
Here are the submission Attempts from the finals and semifinals of every division. The RNC and guillotine both had 2 finishes and a variety of others were hit once. There are a surprising number of armbar attempts, but none landed.
There were only 3 sweeps, a single leg, a single leg X sweep and a submission sweep. A submission sweep is when someone goes for a submission and uses it to come on top.
It seems sweeps weren't having much success and perhaps athletes on the bottom should have explored other options.
Thoughts
I don't think anyone expected these champions. Many lesser names were able to overcome ADCC veterans to punch their ticket to the big show. How many people picked Elijah Dorsey or Morgan Black to win? Although Couch is a name and was expected to do well, I don't think many people picked him to win. These competitors showed that they belonged to be there by going through a gauntlet.
Wrestling is still important. Many matches were lost because of a deficiency in the wrestling department. -66kg favorite Ethan Crelinsten was taken out by Dorian Olivarez due to a guard pull penalty. Most also Had Helana Crevar easily winning her division and she lost because of the same thing. It seems the era of relying on your guard is over when it comes to ADCC.
Big Dan and Paul Ardila got it done again. Big Dan had a somewhat disappointing showing at the European trails, but he got things done here with submissions in every match. That must have been a nice birthday present for him. Paul on the other hand won with submissions in 5/6 of his matches. This will be Paul's 5th ADCC appearance, which is extremely impressive, especially considering he is a full time lawyer.
Youth is key. It seems that everyone who managed to win is under 27 years old except Paul Ardila. Dorian Olivarez is the youngest at 17 years old. Some people might think that this is due to athletics, cardio, etc, but actually don't think that is the case. We are seeing more and more people that are starting as children and by the time they are in their late teens they have years and years of mat time under their belt. These young people aren't just faster than other atheles, they are also very technical and used to competing in grappling competitions.
Pulling guard does not seem to be a reliable way to win anymore. Out of the winners, only Jacob Couch won by mostly pulling guard. Everyone else wrestled in their matches. Submitting people from your back and/or sweeping them seems harder than before as submission defense has gotten better and people will fight hard instead of conceding sweeps. As I said Jacob Couch made this work, but Nicky Ryan, and Helana Crevar cost themselves their matches by starting from their backs.
Leglocks aren't going anywhere. If anything they have become even more prominent. One thing that has changed is the variety of leglocks we see. A few years ago it was just heelhooks and even then many people didn't want to do outside heelhooks. Things have done a 180 and now we see ankle locks, estima locks, kneebars and other submissions that weren't generally used a few years ago. Even in competitions like ADCC where hellhooks are legal, many people are opting for other leg submissions in order to throw off their opponent's defenses.
This was an amazing event with tons of submission and big names. I'll need to rewatch a lot of the matches, but I was really happy with the quality of the event. The production itself was good and it even started on time. However it was very long. On the first day I had to tap out during the play-by-play after 5 hours. The next day I was up until 5AM. In the future I will only be covering matches from the round of 32 on as it is just too many matches.
Overall
I hope all of the other trials are this good. This is usually the biggest trials event, but it did live up to the hype. It was surprising to see some of the underdogs win the trials, but it was also heartbreaking to see some favorites not quite make it. These and the European trials are certainly a great way to start the ADCC season and I hope other trials can follow suit.
Due to the large number of matches, The North American trials had a huge impact on the stats for this year.
Year to Date
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