What We Learned from AIGA 2023 Final

It is the end of the year and AIGA decided to end it with a bang, with the AIGA champions leauge final. If you haven't followed the other events, basically there are multiple teams of grapplers of various weights. The grapplers of the same weight compete against each other and the team with the most wins, moves on in the tournament. Now we are finally at the end and we have 2 Teams meeting in the finals. Unfortunately because this event is so long, I couldn't do stats for all of event because it was 5 hours long for each day. I'm only covering the final, which consists of 7 matches. Anyway, lets get to the results.

Results

83kg - Mica Galvao def. Ygor Rodrigues via RNC

65kg - Dominic Mejia def. Kuau Gabriel via points

+91kg - Dan Manasoiu def. Anton Dmitrakov via inside heel hook

60kg - Felipe Machado def. Felipe Nacib via armbar

70kg - Kennedy Maciel def. Gabriel Sousa via anaconda choke

76kg - Dante Leon def. Johnatha Alves via triangle

 

91kg - Giancarlo Bodoni def. Henrique Ceconi via guillotine

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How People Won

Before I said the FPI 5 had one of the highest submission ratios I'd seen. I think this is actually the highest. Of course these were only the finals matches, but there were 6 subs in 7 matches. That is almost unheard of. Chokes came out on top here, but we also got 1 arm and one leg attack. As far as submissions go, you can't ask for more than this. 

Stats

First up we have submissions. Everything was tied at 1 submission each. We got a lot of the usual subs, but also an anaconda choke, which is a bit more rare. I always like seeing variety.

6 subs, 42 attempts

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We had 4 takedowns here with the double leg being the most attempted. We got another sasae tsurikomi ashi from Mica Galvao. He seems to favor this technique a lot and he's very good at it. During these matches, I actually liked the fact the during the no points period, you could still score takedown points. Of course not everyone chooses to wrestle, but I think it did give an incentive for people to try.

4 takedowns, 20 attempts

Here we had a lot of sweeps off of submissions. This strategy seems to be a great way for people to sweep in nogi and I wouldn't be surprised if it is the most common way to sweep in 2023. There was also a nice double leg and half guard sweep.

6 sweeps, 27 attempts

Passes seemed to be hard to come by at AIGA. There was only one that was completed, which was a kneeslice. This was a bit surprising to me, but sometimes it happens. Many people here showed great guard work and were stifling the passers here. The kneeslice was the most attempted, followed by double under and north-south passing. 

1 pass, 20 attempts

The back was the position got the most finishes here followed by the mount and the saddle. It seems the mount has been making a bit of a comeback, but I guess we'll find out for sure when I do the end of the year stats. Big Dan also hit a nice inside heelhook from the saddle. 

 

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Action

3.5 submission attempts per 5 min

0.5 submissions per 5 min

1.66 pass attempts per 5 min

0.08 passes per 5 min

2.25 sweep attempts per 5 min

0.5 sweeps per 5 min

1.66 takedown attempts per 5 min

0.33 takedowns per 5 min

Total Action 

9.07 actions per 5 min

Total Technique(completed moves)

 1.41 techniques per 5 min

Rules & Production

Let's go over the good and the bad, starting with the bad, because there wasn't much of it. The first thing that I always hate to see, is a raised stage. I think only one person fell off, but why risk it? Even though it might look slightly better, it is much more dangerous. 

The other problem I had, was just the length of the event. It was 2 days and about 10 hours long. Each day was 5 hours and although I love grappling, that is a bit too much. Perhaps removing a weight category or 2, removing rounds, etc would help shorten the times. The matches were great, but extending the time so much IMO lessens the experience. 

Now let's get to the good. The production was top notch and everything ran fairly smoothly. The camera angles were pretty good, the commentary was decent and there were no sound problems. There wasn't much to complain about when it comes to that stuff. In the middle there were some huge guys swinging swords around, but I like swords, so if they want to show off their traditional sword techniques, I'm all for it. 

I have to say I loved the rules. I think they were based off ADCC rules, but with somethings that I think improved them. They got rid of the ADCC turtling by giving people points if they were able to move behind people after a takedown. This is more consistent with wrestling and IBJJF scoring and I believe it is more fair. They also had a no points period at the beginning, however they allowed you to earn points by taking people down. This IMO made things a bit more interesting since people that wanted to wrestle could actually earn points for doing so and those that wanted to pull guard could do so without penalty. I think this eliminated some of the rules gaming that sometimes happens in the no points period. 

The other thing I really liked was the action clock. I've be advocating for this, for a while now. Instead of a penalty for stalling, they just give you 20 sec to do something or you'll lose a point. I think this is a fairer way to penalize inactivity and it is easier to understand. I also think gives people a chance incase of ref error. It wasn't used much in these matches, but when it was I felt it was effective. I'm hoping that they continue with this and other promotions adopt it as well. 

Overall

This was a really good event. I enjoyed it a lot and I'm looking forward to season 3. It seems that season 2 wasn't really promoted until mid way into the year, but I'm hoping to get AIGA events year round in 2024. It is hard to argue with a sub ratio like we got in the finals and I think we got some good names competing, which everyone likes to see. I'm hoping even more names get involved in 2024, but it might be hard to top the action we got in these finals.

If you missed it, you can watch the finals for free on youtube now. IMO it is a must watch, so check it out if you haven't already. 

 

Year to Date Stats

Here are the final stats from 2023. I'll be putting up the year end round up soon, so keep your eye out for that.