What We Learned From WNO 22

WNO 22 was the first big event of this year and we started out with a bang. I feel weird saying this might be one of the best events of 2024, but I think it might turn out to be true. We got a lot of exciting matches and I don't think there was one match where they had to warn people for stalling. If you are someone that watches matches for technical stuff, you'll love this event. There were passes, takedowns, submissions, etc. If you just want to see some scrappy matches where people are bumping heads and throwing the kitchen sink at their opponent, they had that too. Before we get into specifics, lets look at the results. 

Results

 Dory Aoun def. Kyle Chambers via dec

 Ashlee Funegra def. Marylin Cruz via dec

 Daniel Sathler def. Max Hanson via armbar

Elijah Dorsey def. Ivan Herrera via thunderlock

 Jacob Couch def. Sebastian Rodriguez via outside heelhook

Tainan Dalpra def. Oliver Taza via dec

 Adele Fornarino def. Amanda Alequin via aoki lock

 

 Deigo Oliveira def. Dante Leon via outside heelhook

Mica Galvao def. Kenta Iwamoto via RNC

Victor Hugo def. Nicholas Rodriguez via dec

How People Won

Any time we have more submissions than points or decisions, it is a good event. In this case we got a lot more. 60% of the matches ended in submission with leg locks leading the way, followed by arm locks and finally chokes. Usually chokes are on top, but people switched things up at this event. Everyone says they are looking for the sub before the event starts, but this time they meant it. Adele Fornarino, Daniel Sathler and Jacob Couch all finished their opponents in less than 2 min. Elijah Dorsey wasn't too far behind them either. People were looking to get their opponents out of the quick. This made for interesting matches and there were tons of highlight at this event. 

Stats

We got 2 outside heelhooks at this event as well as an armbar, aoki lock, RNC and a thunderlock. The thunderlock I put under the Americana category, because I didn't want to add another category. Anyway, as you can see people were trying everything. We got a lot of attempts and a lot of action, but I'll get into that below. 

40 sub attempts and 6 finish. 15% finish rate. 

The single leg was the most common takedown, followed by the double leg. Most of these were actually by Kenta Iwamoto, but Tainan Dalpra contributed as well. Most of the matches didn't have  any action on the feet, but those that did went all out. Surprisingly the double leg had a 100% complete rate and the single leg was right behind it. We also got a few foot sweeps with the deashi barai and kouchi gari. 

28 takedown attempts and 10 finishes. 26.3% finish rate. 

Watch one of the best matches here

There were a few sweeps at this event and we got a good amount of variety. We got a few strangle ones like the false reap(which usually isn't a sweep), and the matrix. I should also note that the tripod sweep wasn't a traditional tripod sweep, but was actually this sweep here,

A lot of people were playing de la riva and reverse de la riva guard at this event. I don't know if this is a new trend on not, but that sweep was being used repeatedly to off balance people and in one case sweep.

17 sweep attempts and 5 finishes. 22.7% finish rate. 

The number 1 pass at this event was the half guard pass. More than half of the attempts succeeded, which is very impressive. Closely related was the knee slice pass which also had an above 50% completion rate and the 3/4 mount pass. The smash pass was also successful and the torreando was having some success as well.  

37 pass attempts and 17 finishes. 31.4% finish rate. 

The back was the best position as always. Lots of people achieved side control, but nobody was able to capitalize on it and the same could be said for the mount. There were a lot of leg locks, but they all came from outside ashi and butterfly ashi, so we didn't see much in the way to the saddle or 50/50.

Action

Ok, now let's look at the action stats. These are all based off of 5 min intervals and should tell us how often certain things are happening. The way the time works is that I take the time of the matches and break them into 5 min intervals, but if there is a submission I cut the match time in half. I think this is a fair compromise, but in this case it might be skewing the amounts a bit because the finishes were so quick. So just keep in mind that things are actually a bit better than what these stats say. For those wondering the action score tells us how many moves are attempted each 5 min interval and the technique score tells us how many are completed. 

The 2023 action average was 6.5 per 5min and 1.68 techniques per 5 min. The technique score for this event was 2.18, which is significantly higher than the average. The action score was 7.01, which is also higher than the average. This just confirms that this was a good event. There was a lot of action and a lot of technique on display. If you want to compare the other stats with averages, please check out my previous post of 2023 stats.

Youtube

Here is a video breakdown of the event with videos and my thoughts on the matches. Check it out and subscribe.

 

Overall

As I said above, this was a great event that everyone should watch. You had everything you could ask for in an event and it was fun. I think too often people focus on names like Gordon, Craig, the Ruotolos, etc, but as you can see with this event, there are lots of talented people without big names that can put on a great show. I think they mentioed that there were going to be 4 WNOs this year. At first I thought that was too few, but considering we have 5 ADCC trials and the actually ADCC championship, it should be enough. I'll be covering most of it so stay tuned and subscrive to my youtube channel if you haven't done that already. 

Year to Date Stats