Eddie Cummings vs. Reilly Bodycomb

[Uchi Mata]

Up until this point we hadn’t seen much of Cummings’s kanibasami from the bottom. Bodycomb’s training camp (from what I hear) had focused on baiting the basic ashi garami entry that Cummings had largely utilized up to this point and then punishing it. Would it have worked? I’m not sure. But this wasn’t necessarily a case of vastly divergent skill, it was Cummings having a mostly-unknown weapon that Bodycomb was not prepared for.

He did escape the position a couple times, not something that a lot of people can say.


It was definitely a weird game plan, but that might be what it takes to beat someone like Eddie.

I think Tanquihno wrote the book on how to deal with Eddie or any other great leg locker: get a foot in the middle and drive forward with heavy pressure to deny them their entries. This is also consistent with what Gordon told me about passing good leg lockers, basically that you had to keep a foot in the middle to deny them inside position and kill their entanglement entries. Baiting ashi entrances against guys with a sophisticated a lock flow game as the DDS is insanity.

 

[selfcritical]

There used to be a lot of Reilly nuthuggers on this forum.

To be fair, the reason for the nut hugging, namely that his instructionals were of extremely good quality, was entirely justified. I don't think there was ever any expectation that he was a world-beating talent. He does well against regional level competition but comes up short against world-level competition in both sambo and sub grappling, but his basic approaches to leg locks and top game are very sound and easy to implement into someone's game.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Is there anybody out there winning medals at submission tournaments that does not claim to be any degree of Bjj'er? Rustam Chsiev is possibly the only one I can think.

I don't recall names, but I want to say some of the Russian/Dagestani guys who compete at Berkut for ACBJJ don't have BJJ lineage. Going back a few years, Vlad Koulikov used to be pretty competitive in the New England sub grappling scene and he was a pure Sambo guy (though he's since belted through Formiga).

 

[2008]

Before 1:13?

At 1:13 Eddie goes for the 4-11 and he has it fully locked and had Bodycomb in double trouble by 1:20.

You mean when Bodycomb is standing earlier in the match?

Maybe because Eddie wasn't as well known at the time? It seems like people caught on.

In their respective EBI finals matches against Eddie, Bill Cooper and Geo Martinez tried kneeling passing at first against Eddie so that he couldn't get under them. Coop sacrificed top to dive for a sacrifice darce and tried to trap Eddie's legs and inadvertently gave Eddie the 4-11. Coop kept trying to darce Eddie from inside the 4-11 (not a bad strategy) but Eddie's knee flare was too strong. Geo eventually got tangled up because Eddie made a super low X on Geo's ankle and I think maybe Geo didn't realize how quickly it could turn into the 4-11. Geo protected his trapped foot most of the match and got it to OT.

Tanquinho is the only guy I've seen be able to do any standing passing on Eddie, get put into the 4-11, and escape the position without getting subbed.

Its been a while since I saw that video and I only watched it once or twice so I'm a bit fuzzy. I want to say it was the stand up portion(in the beginning that I'm referring to) that Bodycomb wasn't being careful with his legs that I thought was very odd. Maybe at the time Bodycomb wasn't aware of who Eddie Cummings was or Cummings wasn't known as a leglock guy, yet, so Bodycomb wasn't concerned with his own legs in the beginning. I don't follow competitive grappling that closely so I'm still learning about the history.

 

[dsdoubled]

I can't think of anyone else besides maybe Josh Barnett who claims catch wrestling. He did NoGi Worlds one year and won and beat Dean Lister and Ryron Gracie at Metamoris.

Maybe a couple Luta Livre guys that are ADCC regulars that win the trials and maybe win a match or so at the big show. Leozada Nogueira. Nicolas Renier. Those guys are solid grapplers.

I guess at this point, if youre a grappler trying to win competitions youd be doing a disservice to yourself by not taking up BJJ.

 

[dsdoubled]

I don't recall names, but I want to say some of the Russian/Dagestani guys who compete at Berkut for ACBJJ don't have BJJ lineage. Going back a few years, Vlad Koulikov used to be pretty competitive in the New England sub grappling scene and he was a pure Sambo guy (though he's since belted through Formiga).

Makes sense that those Caucasus guys would be the ones to do it. Growing up with wrestling, judo, sambo, and for some reason pankration is big over there, youd be such a good grappler by adulthood you could probably win most tournaments.

 

[2008]

As he should. Bodycomb's latest instructional was awesome and the way he chose to release it is a very new and creative idea, and Bodycomb does a lot for the community.

Hall and Bodycomb have sadly gotten overlooked a little bit by today's current internet generation of BJJers. They contributed so much to the knowledge of the leg lock game and I've heard a lot of DDS fanboys and even a couple DDS members disparage their skill a little bit.


My argument against this would be that Bodycomb has never positioned himself as some sort of grappling god that demolishes everyone in competition, and I've never heard anyone say he's some crazy high level comp grappler.

Bodycomb has mostly been known as a great instructor and great teacher.

I wish BJJ would let this outdated idea go that the best teachers and instructors have to be the best athletes. This is the only sport where I still see this. Most of the best coaches in basketball, football, you name it, were not the best athletes in their sport. Everyone understand that and nobody cares. Coach K is the greatest college basketball coach ever and in college he was nothing special.

When you talk about who has such and such beaten, I understand when you say it about guys that are positioning themselves as these amazing grapplers, and you're trying to put in in perspective like "no, they aren't. Who have they beaten?"

But when it comes to coaches and teachers, does it matter? As long as they roll who cares how many people they've beaten?


The DDS didn't think so at the time. They were going out of their way to get matches at Polaris with Bodycomb, Imanari, Palhares, Marcin Held, and other well known leg lock guys.

And like, even if he's not some ADCC level world beater I feel like it's weird to say that "he ain't shit."

I didn't know who Reilly Bodycomb was or even heard his name before until last month(January) in the (Craig Jones leglock dvds thread). I checked him out and found his webpage with his dvd/on demand instructionals for download. He seemed like a decent dude, comes off humble even. He sets up the prices for his download to be super affordable where you can name your price instead of pirating it.

I do agree with you about the current internet generation being on the nuts/bandwagon of the current "it" guys of today's competitive grapplers, like guys who competed from yesteryears are somehow inferior or garbage compared to guys now. That always rubbed me the wrong way.
90% of the people who train BJJ/grappling learn it from regular black belts, NOT world champions. But some looks at these champions as gods which always turned me off. You don't have to compete in ADCC or Mundials and win to know that a triangle choke, heel hook, armbar, keylock, etc. works if you ever have to use it in a fighting situations, among other things.

 

[DatCutman]

I remember watching this. I found it strange/odd that Rilley was not really protecting his legs at all! I don't know if he was over-confident or didn't care but it was like he was giving Cummings his legs to attack on purpose. I thought it was really weird, honestly.

I've talked with Reilly and Eddie about this match, as it was really interesting to me. One thing to keep in mind is that Reilly is primarily a sambo player; a lot of his game revolves around starting with both people standing. He isn't as good dealing with people who work from a mobile seated guard, because it's madness to someone from his background. It's a weakness he's tried to correct in recent times, and it's amazing to see how far he's come after that defeat. Makes me feel like shit, but whatever I guess.

While splitting the middle by stepping in the legs is the obvious solution against seated guard, eddie cummings has good shin work and refuses to let anyone in. Reilly had some ideas he was going to try, but #1 he didn't anticipate the grounded scissor attack, as footage up to that point had been standard ashi entries, #2 he fucked up the escape, and #3 since he couldn't split the middle, his game plan was to try and attack Eddie during Eddie's leglock entry from underneath. Eddie mentioned that their game plan had been to use the grounded scissor on reilly while making it his life's mission to entangle both legs, because he knew Reilly would stay standing, try to use mobility to evade leg locks, and look for an opportunity to step in between the legs. Long story short, Reilly had a crappy game plan for a good opponent, and lost. If Reilly had a better gameplan at the time, it would've been more interesting to watch.

To be honest, Reilly Bodycomb is overrated and didn't deserve this match with Eddie Cummings.

The man cleans up in Sambo competitions, and was the perfect opponent to showcase a "we have better leg locks than sambo guys" point. I think the fact that Danaher rated him highly as a valuable opponent, and you think he didn't deserve the match, speaks volumes.

There used to be a lot of Reilly nuthuggers on this forum.

We're still here; just too busy training our takedowns to talk shit on competitive grapplers

Suddenly the Reilly fanboys all turned into Danaher Death Squad fans now. But seriously though, Reilly really ain't shit though.

He beat a bunch of no namers. No idea why he has so many delusional fan boys though.

Show me where Reilly hurt you.

I think Tanquihno wrote the book on how to deal with Eddie or any other great leg locker: get a foot in the middle and drive forward with heavy pressure to deny them their entries. This is also consistent with what Gordon told me about passing good leg lockers, basically that you had to keep a foot in the middle to deny them inside position and kill their entanglement entries. Baiting ashi entrances against guys with a sophisticated a lock flow game as the DDS is insanity.

I've sparred with Eddie Cummings, and while theoretically getting the foot in the middle is the game plan, it's easier said than done. It makes me aware of how vastly better Tanquinho is than me to succeed, because I got fucking shut down and couldn't get past his butterfly guard.



It is strange to me how many people will hate on someone for no apparent reason though. If you guys think Reilly isn't shit, go fight the guy and put out a DVD called "Bodycomb Bagger" or something.

 

[selfcritical]

The man cleans up in Sambo competitions, and was the perfect opponent to showcase a "we have better leg locks than sambo guys" point. I think the fact that Danaher rated him highly as a valuable opponent, and you think he didn't deserve the match, speaks volumes.


.

Although at this point, the level of leg locks among sub grapplers is significantly higher than the average sambo player. You can medal on the world stage in sambo and know basically nothing about leg locks as long as your pinning game is sufficiently advanced.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I've sparred with Eddie Cummings, and while theoretically getting the foot in the middle is the game plan, it's easier said than done. It makes me aware of how vastly better Tanquinho is than me to succeed, because I got fucking shut down and couldn't get past his butterfly guard.

It is strange to me how many people will hate on someone for no apparent reason though. If you guys think Reilly isn't shit, go fight the guy and put out a DVD called "Bodycomb Bagger" or something.

I don't think Reilly's bad, nor do I think it's easy to split Eddie's BF guard. It's not like he's spent years dealing with other very high level guys trying to do that to him every single day or anything . Even so, I still think it's the best strategy though I keep waiting for someone to try leg lifting, pressure passing against them (DDS) ala Faria, Santana, or how Maia passes in MMA. I suspect you'd find out they have pretty good kimura/triangle/guillotine games too and that if you hide the legs by leading with your head you still have many threats to deal with, but still I'd like to see someone good at that method give it a whirl.

 

[mataleaos]

I didn't know who Reilly Bodycomb was or even heard his name before until last month(January) in the (Craig Jones leglock dvds thread). I checked him out and found his webpage with his dvd/on demand instructionals for download. He seemed like a decent dude, comes off humble even. He sets up the prices for his download to be super affordable where you can name your price instead of pirating it.

I do agree with you about the current internet generation being on the nuts/bandwagon of the current "it" guys of today's competitive grapplers, like guys who competed from yesteryears are somehow inferior or garbage compared to guys now. That always rubbed me the wrong way.
90% of the people who train BJJ/grappling learn it from regular black belts, NOT world champions. But some looks at these champions as gods which always turned me off. You don't have to compete in ADCC or Mundials and win to know that a triangle choke, heel hook, armbar, keylock, etc. works if you ever have to use it in a fighting situations, among other things.

Exactly re: the bolded. And not only that but I would even propose that sometimes the elite athletes aren't as good at explaining some of that stuff. I've trained with a few world champs that were not great teachers. And some guys that are such "naturals" that they could barely explain how they did certain things, and some others that couldn't even tell you what they did in a roll 5 minutes ago.

Many people that aren't elite athletes have to think more about how things work, and in my experience some of them are just as good at transmitting grappling knowledge as almost anyone else.

There are surely famous examples of those that are world class athletes and teachers, but there are plenty that fall all the more on one side or the other.

Also I give a ton of props to guys that compete and do pretty good but maybe not excellent that don't train full time. Even if it's Master divisions or whatever. The internet idolizes these guys that retire from life to train all day every day. And that's fine I guess. But I also think it's cool to see competitors that have to teach full time or work 9-5 jobs hitting the mats. And maybe they don't win gold every time, but they are putting it on the line and still hanging in there.

But I have a coach that works 60 hours a week and did the Worlds at adult age in black belt and that swept, passed, and subbed his first match, then lost his second on advantage. He didn't even place but he works his ass off all week, is a great teacher, and had a respectable Worlds performance in his late 20's. But yet a lot of people would be like "Oh he lost in the 2nd round. He sucks." I think that's a lame POV.

Rant over sorry.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Although at this point, the level of leg locks among sub grapplers is significantly higher than the average sambo player. You can medal on the world stage in sambo and know basically nothing about leg locks as long as your pinning game is sufficiently advanced.

Sambo leg locking isn't really that sophisticated, for the same reason that the Judo armlock and choke game isn't that sophisticated: time on the ground is limited, and if you're going to catch something you do it in transition. Sport Sambo is mostly a throwing + pinning art with the possibility of snatching subs, but it's not primarily submission grappling. Sambo guys got a lot of accolades for their leg locking back when BJJ guys knew almost nothing about the leg game, but the sub grappling community has definitely passed Sambo by in terms of setups, flows, positional controls, defenses, really everything. Which is fine, because Sambo rules haven't changed and the way Sambo guys have always done leg locks still works really well within their chosen sport.

I wonder how many people who talk about Sambo leg locking actually know the rules of Sambo? Like, for example, that heel hooks are illegal outside of (the very niche and not widely practiced) freestyle rule set?

 

[mataleaos]

I don't think Reilly's bad, nor do I think it's easy to split Eddie's BF guard. It's not like he's spent years dealing with other very high level guys trying to do that to him every single day or anything . Even so, I still think it's the best strategy though I keep waiting for someone to try leg lifting, pressure passing against them (DDS) ala Faria, Santana, or how Maia passes in MMA. I suspect you'd find out they have pretty good kimura/triangle/guillotine games too and that if you hide the legs by leading with your head you still have many threats to deal with, but still I'd like to see someone good at that method give it a whirl.

Yeah they do. They all have good front headlock, kimura, back, and leg systems. Cummings' front headlock series is nasty. He's got a mean guillotine/anaconda/brabo game which you can see in a few of his EBI matches. Garry has a nasty high elbow guillotine and finished one of the coolest brabos I've ever seen at a no-gi worlds. Gordon obviously has a great arm-in guillotine. I'm sure you know all this.

These guys are not just heel hook guys and have many threats to level at opponents.

The one thing I haven't seen from them besides Gordon is top shelf guard passing. Not in the traditional sense. But they seem to be able to use the legs, kimura, and front headlock to get past the guard or onto the back. So I guess it doesn't really matter?

 

[Uchi Mata]

Yeah they do. They all have good front headlock, kimura, back, and leg systems. Cummings' front headlock series is nasty. He's got a mean guillotine/anaconda/brabo game which you can see in a few of his EBI matches. Garry has a nasty high elbow guillotine and finished one of the coolest brabos I've ever seen at a no-gi worlds. Gordon obviously has a great arm-in guillotine. I'm sure you know all this.

These guys are not just heel hook guys and have many threats to level at opponents.

The one thing I haven't seen from them besides Gordon is top shelf guard passing. Not in the traditional sense. But they seem to be able to use the legs, kimura, and front headlock to get past the guard or onto the back. So I guess it doesn't really matter?

I suspect it's a size issue. At Gordon's weight being on to becomes more of an advantage, it's harder to elevate guys, and so if you are on top there's more incentive to pass. I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't all have good passing, I'm sure once Tonon starts fighting MMA we'll see a very dynamic passing game from him in his fights. But for guys Eddie's size playing guard and focusing on leg entries just seems like a more direct way of getting a sub than trying to pass the kind of guys he faces.

 

[selfcritical]

Sambo leg locking isn't really that sophisticated, for the same reason that the Judo armlock and choke game isn't that sophisticated: time on the ground is limited, and if you're going to catch something you do it in transition. Sport Sambo is mostly a throwing + pinning art with the possibility of snatching subs, but it's not primarily submission grappling. Sambo guys got a lot of accolades for their leg locking back when BJJ guys knew almost nothing about the leg game, but the sub grappling community has definitely passed Sambo by in terms of setups, flows, positional controls, defenses, really everything. Which is fine, because Sambo rules haven't changed and the way Sambo guys have always done leg locks still works really well within their chosen sport.

I wonder how many people who talk about Sambo leg locking actually know the rules of Sambo? Like, for example, that heel hooks are illegal outside of (the very niche and not widely practiced) freestyle rule set?

The last i checked, sub rates in (Sport)Sambo are actually relatively high compared to other grappling arts, but I suspect that mostly has to do with the fact that pins score lots of points but aren't total victory, so that people scramble incredibly hard when they've been successfully pinned, which makes it a lot easier to snatch things in transition.

 

[cjd]

I


This here.

Who has Reilly Bodycomb beat in grappling? Who can name some recognizable grapplers has he has beaten?

Well, how familiar are you with guys that were regionally competitive in the Northeast in nogi submission grappling tournaments around 2009/2010?

Reilly had a lot of wins over decent (but not sensational) guys back then. I know him (not especially well), and he certainly wouldn't claim to be an elite BJJ player. From my talks with him, he considers throwing/takedowns to be his favorite part of grappling, which are pretty neutered in the sport BJJ world.

He's had a fair amount of success in a bunch of different rulesets: Submission Grappling, Sport Sambo, Combat Sambo, MMA, Combat Wrestling. He even competed locally a little bit in gi jiu jitsu. He's clearly much more interested in cross training/competing than he is in specialization. I think he has very interesting ideas about skills/movements that carry over between the sports, and is a great expositor of those ideas. His old leg lock DVDs are very solid presentations of fundamental material that is maybe a little outdated (the way a De La Riva guard DVD from 2009 would likely be).

As far as his loss to Eddie, well, Eddie has tapped a ridiculous amount of very solid guys in 30 seconds. If you followed the regional sub-grappling scene in the Northeast in like 2013/2014 (not that I would expect you to, but I was there), he would heel hook literally everyone at every tournament he showed up to in 30 seconds or less, including guys like Mark Ramos. It was ridiculous (he would do the same thing in the open weight). Reilly definitely had a flawed strategy - standing perpendicular like that will shut down typical shin-to-shin entries, but leaves you open to that Kani Basami attack (which no one had seen at that point).

 

[trustdoesntrust]

To be fair, the reason for the nut hugging, namely that his instructionals were of extremely good quality, was entirely justified. I don't think there was ever any expectation that he was a world-beating talent. He does well against regional level competition but comes up short against world-level competition in both sambo and sub grappling, but his basic approaches to leg locks and top game are very sound and easy to implement into someone's game.

this is true, but at the same time i think there's a clear distinction between leglocking meta in the pre and post-DDS eras. Reilly's system was maybe the peak of available knowledge at the time (and just a few years ago at that), but it now seems primitive compared to what Eddie Cummings and Craig Jones are doing.

 

[DatCutman]

I first learned the joy of leglocks back in 2007, back when no one gave a shit. I remember even just five years ago, some people (including someone in this thread, specifically) would go off on how leg locks were bullshit, or cheap, or not jiu jitsu, or whatever. Now that RGA gym is pumping out leg lockers, and BJJ is the king of leglocks, it's always "had" leglocks (whatever "had" means), methods from years ago are wrong compared to today (there's no such thing as the march of time, clearly), etc. etc.

On the one hand, I'm glad people like leg locks now, because less people will give me shit for doing them. But god damn, I forgot how obnoxious the online BJJ crowd can be sometimes. As I see takedowns starting to pick up in popularity, I can't wait to come back to this forum in 2020 and read "why BJJ has the best takedowns of any combat sport, ever."

 

[Zankou]

I think Tanquihno wrote the book on how to deal with Eddie or any other great leg locker: get a foot in the middle and drive forward with heavy pressure to deny them their entries. This is also consistent with what Gordon told me about passing good leg lockers, basically that you had to keep a foot in the middle to deny them inside position and kill their entanglement entries. Baiting ashi entrances against guys with a sophisticated a lock flow game as the DDS is insanity.

So much truth in this post that it deserves a repost.

 

[mataleaos]

I suspect it's a size issue. At Gordon's weight being on to becomes more of an advantage, it's harder to elevate guys, and so if you are on top there's more incentive to pass. I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't all have good passing, I'm sure once Tonon starts fighting MMA we'll see a very dynamic passing game from him in his fights. But for guys Eddie's size playing guard and focusing on leg entries just seems like a more direct way of getting a sub than trying to pass the kind of guys he faces.

Never thought of it that way.

Also my buddy rolled with Eddie and said he had good knee cutting and low x passes.