What We Learned From CJI 2

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CJI 2 has finished and to be honest, I think that the response to it has been mixed. Going into the event there was a lot of negativity due to the fact that it is going behind a paywall quickly after it is shown. This soured people to the event before it even started. Of course the real test was when the show started and unfortunately things got off to a rough start, with few submissions and a lot of fairly dry matches. Luckily things turned around on Day 2. To be fair something similar happened at CJI 1 when they started with the HWs, but then the lightweights came in with some amazing matches. The dark cloud over CJI 2 definitely put a damper on things, but let's be clear that there were a lot of interesting matches and great grappling on display. 


Results


B-Team def New Wave


Helena Crevar def Sarah Galvao


Craig Jones def Chael Sonen


There was some controversy about the B-Team vs New Wave decision, so now I'm hearing that New Wave will also be receiving $1 million, which is very generous of the anonymous donor.

 



 How People Won



We got a 26.0% submission rate. It could be worse, but that isn't particularly impressive. The ratios are the same as what we always see, which is chokes followed by leglocks and finally armlocks. Draws dominated the event, which I think is too bad as it brought down the atmosphere. The 2nd day things got better, but for anticipated events like these, I think starting strong is really important as you need to momentum to carry you through lackluster matches. 


Stats


Here are the stats for both days put together along with the women's division. The only thing that isn't included is the Craig Jones Chael Sonen match. 



We had an 8% submission rate here. The rear naked choke was the most common sub, followed by the armbar and armtriangle (curtesy of Victor Hugo). I'm pretty sure Helena Crevar and Adele Fornarino ran up the ankle lock attempts in their match as they each attempted them whenever their main game got shut down. 


 



Here we had a 49% takedown rate. This is actually very high, which is why it baffles me a bit that people were waiting around and handfighting. There were a lot of people hitting takedowns and the pit seemed to give people a big advantage. I think more people would have found success if they would have pressed the action on the feet more.  

The single leg came out as #1 here as you'd expect, followed by mat returns. However we got a little bit of everything mixed in here. There were a lot of interesting throws, takedowns and footsweeps, which is why I wish people were more active.




The event had a 15% sweep rate. This is a bit low, but I'm guessing this is due to the numerous size mismatches. That said Diego "Pato" Oliveria had one of the best moves of the event when he swept Luke Griffith. Wrestle ups and the hook sweep were the highest scoring sweeps here.


 



There was a 24% pass rate. I think this was also likely due to the size mismatches and in some cases the fact that the bottom player was fatigued from a previous match. North-South passes were the most common here followed by the knee slice pass. In this category we also got a bit of everything.

 



The mount was the best finishing position here followed by the back. This is actually surprising as I'm not sure if I've ever seen the mount beat the back, but perhaps Roger Gracie is on to something. Surprisingly the saddle yielded no submissions and 50/50 only 1. It was also a bit surprising that there were no side control subs. 


 


This is the area that I think needed improvement. CJI had one of the lowest watchability scores of any event this year and that was mostly due to the lack of subs, but also inactivity. The 2nd day things picked up, but it couldn't make up for some of those first day matches. The action score basically shows how many techniques were attempted in a 5 min period, so any score under 10 means that there are times when 1 athlete isn't even attempting a technique. This is something that needs to be improved and hopefully harsher stalling penalties will be implemented in the future. 


Women's Stats


Here are separate stats for just the women for those that are interested.

 


Highlights




The ladies really put on a show and all of the matches were pretty good. They kept up a high pace and I was surprised the younger women were able to not only keep up with, but best their more experienced counterparts. Helena Crevar showed that she might be the best female grappler in the world right now. Hopefully we see more of her and she gets the top names she deserves. Sarah Galvao looked good as well and I hope she gets more nogi experience. 

Giancarlo Bodoni looked very good throuout and showed his skills. Sometimes he doesn't look quite as good when he isn't at ADCC, but he looked good here. The one person to sub him was Taylor Pearman who looked great. I think he showed he is a top 88kgs competitor, so I hope some other shows start using him more. Felipe Pena also looked good. The first day he looked great, but couldn't get the sub, but the 2nd day he proved the last ADCC wasn't a fluke and subbed Luke Griffith again. Unfortunately this gassed him out and he was dominated by Dorian Oliverez. Dorian looked great the whole event and although he couldn't get a sub he dominated in his matches. 

Victor Hugo looked good as well and I believe he was the only person to get 2 subs in this event. Nicky Rod basically won it for the B-Team and is the only 2 time CJI winner. There were some other good people as well, but I was surprised that many of the people that were expected to do well underperformed. That happens sometimes though.



Thoughts


I think CJI 2 got off to a bad start with the Flograppling announcement. I don't think it was the worst thing in the world, but having it happen the day before angered people, which had a lot of people going into the event ready to hate. The Gable match cancelation also put a damper on things. The performances on the first day only added to the problems. I think if people went in more positively, the event might have been rated higher by fans. I've seen much worse grappling events, but this had a lot of negative buzz around it, which is a shame considering it helped the athletes and underprivileged children. I hope people remember that aspect and don't judge things too harshly. Although things weren't perfect, it was a good event, that gives money to good causes and was free to watch. 

Now lets get to the rules stuff. The controversy at the end was a shame and IMO they got the decision right, but there shouldn't be any grey areas. Hopefully they work to iron out the langue of the rules, so things are more clear in the future. The 2 "phantom taps" also caused controversy, but I'm glad they stuck to their guns and aired on the side of calling them taps. We can't have people trying to do that to get out of subs, so I think they did the right thing. 

The biggest problem at this event was stalling. It seems like the refs were reluctant to penalize people, but IMO that is one of the things that makes this ruleset work. Without it things fall apart as we saw. Too often the refs are afraid of calling too many penalties, but in the case of these matches, if you don't do that it ruins the event. You need to force people to take risks and open themselves up to getting submitted or else they will just do as little as possible. I do think the extra money helped and I hope in the future events start to use submission, best match and takedown bonuses to encourage more action. 


Analysis


Chokes still seem to be the most reliable submissions, especially when there is tons on money on the line. Many people seemed ready to let things break, but there is no need to worry about heart or stubbornness with chokes. Back attacks in general seemed to be less effective here than in the past, so perhaps that is an area people should work on more in the future. Mixing between the RNC, nogi ezikiel choke and the thunder lock, might yield better results than pure hand fighting from the back. It seems that right now the defense from the back has caught up to the offense, so perhaps it is time to think of some new strategies. 

Although the back position seemed weaker at this event, the mount seemed stronger. Last year is seemed like more people started using the mount, but couldn't finish. Now people seem to be increasing their skills in this area and we got more subs from the mount than the back. If people can increase their skills in the mount, I believe the mount and back can be use synergistically to increase submission rates. I think this could be an area of study worth pursuing in the future for competitors.

The lack of takedown attempts was a bit concerning. I think this is something that could have helped teams win their matches more easily. The takedown rate was actually very high, but there weren't a ton of attempts. I think there might be a flaw in many teams training that ended up hurting them here. Many teams train for ADCC, WNO, etc which have long matches, so you could end up wrestling for extended periods. Many competitors are used to standing straight up and pulling on people's heads to wear them down. I'd argue that in a comp like this, that is a bad strategy and due to the shorter rounds and the pit, attacking more aggressively is the better tactic. I think too many people wasted time trying to employ ADCC tactics in a ruleset that didn't warrant it. I think tempo and pacing is an understudied area and many times when people talk about it, they want people to slow down and take their time. There isn't enough thought going into speeding up and training to put a pace on someone.  

It seems that North-South passing has become more popular and people are starting to understand how powerful it can be. It was the most common pass at this event and one of the highest percentage passes as well. I'm starting to see these style of passes become more and more popular and they seem to be working at all weight classes. This is definitely an area I think more people should put time into as it seems very effective for a variety of body types and sizes. 


Overall


This wasn't the greatest event of all time, but it certainly wasn't the worst. It was great seeing all the talent out there and it was fun seeing all of the unusual match ups. How often will you see Deigo Pato vs Luke Griffith? There were a lot of fun moments that made this worth watching. Personally I'm a fan of this Quintet format, but I don't think it was executed properly here. Of course if they want to try again, I'd be happy to watch, but I'm not sure if that will happen after this event as it seemed like the logistical issues were a headache. 

I'm hoping we get a CJI 3, but perhaps it should move to every other year, so we have ADCC one year and CJI the next. This might make things easier for competitors, viewers and the CJI organizers. I hope next time they focus on the smaller competitors since they don't seem to get as much of a spotlight, but put on exciting matches. I hope the negativity online doesn't dampen Craig's motivation to do these events. Even if this wasn't perfect, the charities got money and grapplers got paid. A lot of good came from this event even if it wasn't perfect. I'm really hoping there is a CJI 3 as I think CJI has done a lot of good for the community even if people are complaining about it. 

Year to Date




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