Wrestling, the Competitive Edge at ADCC

ADCC is the most prestigious submission grappling tournament on the planet.  The ADCC is every 2 years and many of the competitors consider this tournament the Olympics of grappling.  The ADCC happened this past weekend in Finland.  It was one of the best tournaments in the world.  The divisions were stacked with world class talent, new guys and up and comers.

There were so many amazing matches, great victories, great submissions, upsets, and more. We are not here to cover the matches in detail nor mention all of the specifics.  What we do want to discuss is the fact that wrestling was what allowed many of the champions to have the competitive edge needed for victory.   Wrestling was the deciding factor in many of the matches.

Wrestling in the ADCC

So ADCC has just passed and the most notable thing was that wrestling will help you win any nogi tournament and more specifically, the ADCC.  The ruleset is created to emphasize takedowns because if you guard pull there are negative points.  When we are talking about so many of the best athletes competing against each other, when guard pulls end up with negative points, this can be what matches are won over.   This is why we see so much wrestling.

Cobrihna won his 3^rd ADCC championship this last weekend and was in the finals against collegiate wreslter and black belt, AJ Agazarm.  This match showed how remarkable a high level bjj athlete can be when they implement wrestling training.  Cobrihna showed that he had the skills to beat a college wrestler and black belt on his feet.

Gordon Ryan was also in the finals against Keenan Cornelius and ultimately his wrestling lead to his victory over Keenan making him ADCC champion. Gordon used a head and arm tie from the feet to fall into an overhead sweep and used the head and arm control to transition into a mounted guillotine.  It was a beautiful display of the combination of wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Atos black belt, JT Torres was in the finals against his rival, Lucas Lepri.  JT was able to win the match because of his wrestling.  In the finals, he did not want to pull guard because Lucas is notorious for his top game, JT decided to keep things on the feet.  Ultimately this was an excellent decision and he was able to take Lucas down and win his division.

ADCC 2017 in review shows us that wrestling can make or break you in this tournament.  If you, like many other want to win the ADCC one day, you better start training wrestling now!  This can give you the competitive edge.  If you don’t have a place to train wrestling, check out Hudson Taylor’s “Wrestling for BJJ” DVD Set.  Hudson was a division 1 wrestler and he is a blue belt World Champion.