ADCC 2024 is over and I have to say, it was great. We got new champs, upsets and a lot of subs, but we'll get to that later. This year they added a new women's division, which was needed and for the first time every competitor actually got paid. I was really excited to see some new blood in ADCC and for the most part they came through and proved they deserved to be there.
Let's look at the winners, the stats and my thoughts.
Winners
-66kgs Diogo Ries
-77kgs Mica Galvao
-88kgs Giancarlo Bodoni
-99kgs Kaynan Duarte
+99kgs Felipe Pena
Absolute Kaynan Duarte
-55kgs Adele Fornarino
-65kgs Ana Carolina Viera
+65kgs Rafaela Guedes
Absolute Adele Fornarino
For more detailed stats look at the links below for individual divisions.
Stats
These are the stats of all the divisions combined. If you want individual division stats, please read the links above. Keep in mind that the Gordon Ryan superfight stats aren't included here. There is no real reason, for this, just an oversight on my part. Sorry. Anyway, let's check out what happened during ADCC 2024.
Here we saw a 42.7% submission rate which is honestly very high. Chokes were far and away the most common submissions followed by leg submissions and then arms. This is the usual pattern we see and it even with the large amount of matches it still comes out with this general ratio.
Points made up the majority of wins and the rest were mostly decisions. Normally the decisions would be fine, but honestly in this format I feel the percentage was too high. Often the matches that went to decision weren't that good and the OT unnecessarily lengthens the matches, but I'll go over that more down below.
42.7% submission percentage
The rear naked choke came out on top here as it always does. The guillotine was surprisingly popular as well, but I think this is mostly due to Kaynan Duarte who hit many of them.
19% submission rate
We got a lot of single and double legs here, which is as you'd expect. The bodylock takedown was also something that was working really well here. Although it should be noted that this category includes almost anything where you get your hands around someone and drag them down. The same could be said of the mat return.
One thing that should be noted by these stats is that aside from the single leg, most of the techniques were only attempted by a few people. Most if not all sasae tsurikomi ashi attempts came from Mica Galvao. It seems more people are finding moves that work for them and are perfecting them.
22% takedown rate
Smash passing and half guard passing where really coming out on top here. Good old pressure passing is getting a lot of work done. These tight pressure passes were really showing that in nogi slow and steady wins the race. At least it did at this year's ADCC.
The HQ position seemed like an position many were using from the top. It allowed them to stay out of danger while controlling the pace. Kaynan Duarte was making great use of this during his run.
16% pass rate
Wrestling up to a single leg was the most common sweep, however outside of that we got a diverse set of sweeps. There seemed to be a wide variety of things that were working, from the more traditional sweeps to some of the more flashy stuff.
Some things I should explain are the roll over sweep and the sub sweep. The roll over sweep is basically when you throw someone over head and come top. Sometimes you start the motion yourself and other times the opponent starts by trying to jump over you. Either way, it accounted for a number of sweeps. A sub sweep is when someone sweeps by threatening a submission. This is a very good tactic that was high percentage here.
21% sweep rate
The back was the best place to finish as always followed by the mount. In the last few years the mount has become more popular, but people haven't been able to convert it into submissions. Here we are seeing that start to change as we got some subs from there.
Surprisingly the saddle and 50/50 came out fairly evenly in wins and in the number of times the position was used. I guess this goes to show although they have different strengths and weaknesses, one isn't necessarily better than the other.
Here we have the action score which shows the adverage action you see in a 5 min period. Here we got 7.33 actions per 5 min, which definitely isn't bad. We also got a 0.17 Good technique ratio. Basically this means that 17% of the moves tried actually works, which is ok, but a bit low.
It seems most of people's time was spend hunting takedowns, however they also seemed to have the biggest return on investment. I think the rules had a large part to play into that and although I like takedowns, I believe some tweaks are needed to make the matches more exciting and also increase the amount of good grappling per minute.
Finally the watchability score. This is a new metric that basically takes the action score and multiplies it by the good technique ratio and a bonus for submissions. This stat really isn't related to the 5 min format like the other ones are, but can be compared event to event, or athlete to athlete. Unfortunately this is only the 2nd event I've done that used it, so we don't have much to compare it with. I'll tell you more about that at a later date.
7.33 action score
12.18 watchability score
Thoughts
Let's go over some technical things I noticed first.
The Headquarters position was used a lot on top as a staging ground for passes. Kaynan Duarte is the main person I saw using this, but others were using this as well. The HQ position served a dual purpose. It keeps people from getting swept and subbed, but also allowed them to threaten passes at anytime. The top player could effectively neutralize the guard player, run time off the clock and then attempt to pass whenever they wanted. It was a smart strategy that I think more people will use in the future.
Leglocks have certainly become more diverse and those thinking that it was still 2019 were in for a rude awakening. The inside heelhook is one of the most powerful submissions in nogi grappling, however people are used to it now. One strategy people are doing is going into the saddle, waiting for the inside heelhook defense and then passing the leg over for a reap into an outside heelhook. This was done many times at trials by people like Taylor Pearman, but it also happened at ADCC itself.
Another thing people seem to be doing is skipping the heelhooks and just going for ankle locks instead. The days of them just being pain moves, or not tapping people at the highest level are over. Many people are getting caught in deep ankle locks because they point their toes and expect and heelhook, but instead get an anklelock. This is an old school strategy, but not many people have been attempting it until the last 2-3 years. Owen Jones and Mica Galvao seem to have been caught this way.
This type of ankle lock strategy seems to work with outside heelhooks, but what about inside. For that the kneebar was doing a lot of work. The straightening and toe pointing defense can get you kneebarred as well. For 2 good examples, watch Charles Negromonte vs Izaak Mitchell or Ethan Crelenstien vs Deigo "Pato". In both cases the people who were submitted are known for having good leglock defense, but it didn't matter. The attacks came on fast and the defenders had to make a split second decision to defend the heelhook or the kneebar. Unfortunately for them they made the wrong choice. However I think this might be a strategy more people start to use in the future and both kneebar and ankle lock technique in general seems to have become sharper amongst competitors.
Now let's talk about the actual event. There were a lot of good things about it, such as running smoothly and not wasting a bunch of time like ADCC 2022. It looked nice and there were a larger off mat area, which is better for the competitors, however there were some problems.
Someone online was complaining about the judging, and I wasn't there, but they claimed they were. They said judges were on their phones and not watching matches at times which is terrible. On top of that the judging was inconsistent, which they attributed to different regions having different standards. I don't know about that, but there were certainly head scratching calls and it has been like that for a while. Another major problem is that scoreboards and phantom points/penalties. There are many times where people get points/penalties and don't know it until minutes later. In close matches this certainly changes people's strategy. Even worse sometimes the points are taken away out of nowhere, which IMO isn't fair to the athletes.
Another major problem is the stalling penalties. They are extremely inconsistent and alter the outcome of matches. There are times when nothing happens during a match and nobody is penalized, but other times where people are penalized that are actually grappling. There criteria seems opaque and inconsistent. It is important for the matches to be fair, but also the penalties should be used to push the action not decide the matches.
Finally, the 1st half no point period must end. This 5-10min period sometimes causes people to open up or allows people to pull guard. Mostly it is just a time to stall and pretend to grapple until the points period starts. This ruined many matches as half the time was essentially unwatchable. In other cases I think many people felt the wrong person won because most of the action was in the no point period. I personally believe this either needs to be reworked or removed. Perhaps just give people time to pull guard or something, but I hate seeing someone get passed, mounted, etc and then win because the other person did it at the beginning of the match. This rule was made to create action, but it seems to be doing the exact opposite.
Overall
There have been a lot of comparisons of ADCC with CJI this year, but I think it is important to look at everything for its own merits. ADCC was not only good, but it was great. We got everything you could ask for in an event and more. Hopefully the next ADCC will have a full roster and I hope the organizers aren't petty. I'm sure some of the names that went to CJI will do the trials again, but I'd like to see most of the big names from CJI at the next ADCC.
I know people want a comparison between CJI and ADCC. That will be coming as a video, so subscribe to my youtube channel, so you don't miss out on that.
Year To Date
Here are the latest year to date stats. A lot changed after 1 weekend.
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