Once again BJJ Heroes is back with the latest stats report on the submission-grappling’s ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club) World Championships which was held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on August 17-18, 2024 (check full results of the tournament here).
The event was created in 1998 as the ultimate grappling show, much like a Bloodsport type tournament where several grappling-based combat sports such as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), Judo, Shootfighting, Freestyle & Folkstyle Wrestling, Catch-Wrestling, MMA, and others met under a unique ruleset catered to this wide range of competitors.
Over the past 26 years, there has been a gamut of champions from a range of martial arts, though the dominant force has been BJJ, not no-gi or submission wresting, but actual Gi Jiu-Jitsu. This trend persists to this day as evidenced last week when every ADCC 2024 tournament champion had a gi-jiu-jitsu background and many still compete in the Gi currently.
THE SUBMISSIONS
It was an interesting year for fans of the submission game. On paper, we saw an epic number of subs (45), though this was largely inflated by the two extra female divisions added in 2024 and one extra super-fight. Therefore, percentage-wise, 2024 was still in tune with past ADCC tournaments at a 34% submission rate and on par with other top-shelf no-gi tournaments such as CJI, which generated a similar 36% submissions.
ADCC Submission Ratio of the Past 5 Events:
One of the trends we reported back in 2022 was how heel hooks were losing their steam in the ADCC. After 2017 and 2019, where the heel hook rose to #2 in the most utilized finishes in the tournament, 2022 saw a drop in those numbers with only 5 recorded. This year that dropping trend persisted with only 4 heel hook finishes, 3 of which were in the adult male category, falling off of the top 3 most utilized submissions.
Of the many submission artists on the mats this past weekend, Kaynan Duarte of Atos was the most formidable. The Brazilian had a double gold performance with 8 matches, 8 victories, and 7 finishes, nearly matching Roger Gracie‘s 2005 ADCC record of 8 matches and 8 submissions and becoming the #2 in most subs accomplished in a single World Championship in the history of the ADCC.
Adele Fornarino, also a representative of the Atos team was the second athlete with the most submissions. Much like Duarte, the Aussie athlete earned double gold, taking 4 wins via submission in 6 matches.
Fornarino used mostly armlocks (3) and one kneebar, while Kaynan Duarte used a mix of guillotines, RNC’s, and armlocks to earn his medals.
LOWER BODY VS UPPER BODY SUBS
Digging deeper into the Leg-Locker versus Traditional style players, and despite the continuous increase of leg-lockers in the sport, the ADCC’s macros still show a game dominated by upper-body submissions.
In the years that followed the boom of heel hook submissions in submission wrestling (2016 onwards), lower limb submissions (heel hooks, kneebars, ankle locks, Aoki locks, etc) have had between 28-30% of the overall share of the finishes at the ADCC. This year, that number fell to 22%.
Top Submissions Applied At ADCC 2024:
65% of the submissions at the 2024 ADCC were chokes and only 20% came from arm attacks. Painting these stats with broader strokes, we are looking at 22% of successful lower-body submissions and 78% of upper-body finishes.
GUARD PLAYER VS TOP PLAYER DYNAMICS
The ruleset of the ADCC makes life a little harder for guard players than the standard jiu-jitsu rulesets seen in the IBJJF. Guard pulling is penalized in the overtime, the finals, and in the points section of the elimination rounds. Even though this action is somewhat discouraged from the ruleset, we observed 63 guard pulls in the male division of the tournament.
Although the guard was not a preferred path to victory in overall numbers, its importance is still not to be overlooked. We accounted for 31 sweeps in the male divisions, which were well spread among all 5 weight classes, we also saw 9 back takes originating from the guard, and 12 submissions.
As seen above, the guard has its merits, but the top position is still the king. Most submissions originated from a passing dynamic, or from an action initiated when searching for the top position while standing, more specifically 32 finishes occurred from top position dynamics, nearly treble of what was observed from the bottom player. We also saw many more backs taken from a takedown scramble (13) or a pass attempt (17). Adding to this 26 successful guard passes set the top position as a superior winning method.
THE SWEEPING GAME
Which sweeps were more successful? A comprehensible look at how to play guard, successfully, at the highest level of the sport.
Sweeps Applied At ADCC 2024:
– 15x Wrestle Up
– 3x Top Player Attacked Foot & Landed on Bottom
– 2x Top Player Attacked Upper Body Sub & Landed on Bottom
– 2x Foot Push
– 2x Butterfly Hook
– 1x Single X Bump
– 1x Kiss of the Dragon
– 1x Overhead Sweep
– 1x Turtle Reversal
– 1x 5050 Bump
– 1x Arm Drag
– 1x Matrix/K-Guard
Easy to observe that there were hardly any sweeps from the type of guard usually associated with playing with the back on the mat. Wrestle-ups and wrestle-up associated positions (arm-drag, foot push) ruled the sweeping dynamics as opposed to K-Guard, 50/50, Berimbolo, and Kiss Of The Dragon type maneuvers. This allied with the fact that heel-hook submissions were low, leads us to conclude that the “passive” guard playing style is not a favorable tactic for this ruleset.
WRESTLING DWARFS PLAYING GUARD
The biggest number of instances (successful actions that led to an advancement in the match) recorded by BJJ Heroes was in the wrestling department with 62 takedowns accounted for in the male division alone which is more than all the categories combined in 2022. Very impressive, considering we had already observed a record number of takedowns in 2022.
The takedowns also ruled over any other point-securing action this year, be it back-takes (43), guard passes (26), sweeps (31), or even submissions.
Out of all the ADCC male division champions, most utilized wrestling as one of their main tools except for Felipe Pena at +99 kilos, who only applied his takedown skills successfully once in the tournament. Giancarlo Bodoni (5 takedowns) and Mica Galvao (4) were among the most successful at forcing their opponents to the mat, but the most successful at this skill was Team Lloyd Irvin’s Elijah Dorsey with 6 throws, who ended up placing 4th in the under 77-kilogram division.
MOST USED TAKEDOWNS
Another interesting part of the ADCC micro-analysis is how the wrestling game has evolved over these past few editions with different schools showing varied emphasis on a range of aspects of the takedown game. For example, athletes from schools like Atos Jiu-Jitsu, the most dominant academy at the 2022 ADCC tournament have shown a propensity to use heavy collar ties, while arch-rivals New Wave show more attention to the hand-fighting game.
After all is said and done, the ADCC shows how Submission Wrestling mixes common Freestyle Wrestling, Grecco Roman, and Judo techniques, as the board with the throwing techniques utilized this year indicates.
Types Of Takedowns Used At ADCC 2024:
– x15 Single Leg
– x13 Double Leg
– x5 Uchimata
– x5 Throw By
– x5 De Ashi Barai
– x5 Generic (slip/push)
– x4 Body Lock
– x3 Knee Tap
– x3 Arm Drag
– x3 Ankle Pick
– x1 Kouchi Gari
GUARD PASSING: PRESSURE MAKES DIAMONDS
Impressive numbers were also observed in the passing game, a style that remains the best path to conquer key finishing positions like the back and the mount. 2022 allowed us to observe 27 passes in the male category. This year, 26. Very similar numbers. We also saw 17 backtakes and 17 mount controls occurring from passing dynamics, making this one of the most efficient paths to victory.
Guard Passes Applied At ADCC 2024:
As you can see from the types of guard passes applied successfully in the 2024 ADCC, no passing was established from an outside stance. No Toreando, no jumping passes, no stacking either. Almost every single pass recorded came from some form of chest-to-chest or chest-to-hip connection.
In our ADCC After Math analysis report of 2020, we wrote the following conclusion:
“In sum, what the data shows us, time and time again is that the ADCC ruleset favors an athlete who is aggressive when going for takedowns, or wrestles up extremely well, likes to pressure pass, and is positionally minded. Meaning, an athlete that works to conquer dominant positions and either maintains his control or improves on it.”
As it stands, data is as conclusive today as it was two years ago and we see no reason to re-write that statement.
Such awesome data, thank you so much!