The COMPLETE Progression and Evolution of Leg locks in MMA/Bjj/Sub Grappling

[dsdoubled]

I just exited another thread started by @AZ103 posing the question of why leg locks are so effective in high level competition nowadays. There was a lot of good material in the thread. It got me thinking of the history of leg locks in grappling and MMA. What are the milestones? Who are the game-changers? And in what order?

This is not really my area of expertise but as far as I can tell, this is how it went.

I think its obvious and consensus that the greater submission scene in Bjj/Sub grappling/Vale Tudo/NHB/MMA started with the Gracies. I know there were other players and disciplines but they were the 1st to take it to the world stage. As far as I know leg locks were not a big part of their repertoire.

Then comes either the Japanese catch/shooto/combat wrestling practitioners that come mostly from the Billy Robinson/Karl Gotch CACC lineage (Paulson, Shamrock, Sakuraba, Sato, etc), OR, the Russian sambo guys from the early days of MMA/NHB (Taktarov, , Gokor, Chalangov, Semenov, etc). Obviously these guys had leg locks for days.

When I think of who came next I draw a blank up unti the mid/upper mid 2000s when I started seeing guys like Joe Stevenson, Kurt Pellegrino, Dokonjonosuke Mishima, Hector Lombard and others pulling off leg locks in the UFC and other high level MMA orgs. I didn't keep up with the grappling scene as much at that time. But the guy that took things a step further was Rousimar Palhares. Obviously he terrified people.

Then came the Alan Belcher fight. Belcher really prepared himself for Palhares and it bviously paid off. As far as I know, he sought out some Hayastan (Gokor) guys, Dean Lister, and if my memory serves, another submission guy from his native Louisiana to really up his game. In my opinion this is where leg locks really took off (2012). Alan let people know that you could really make huge strides in this relatively untapped sect of grappling if you put in the time and sought out multiple schools of thought.

Obviously I know in the following years leading up to today guys like Eddie Bravo and especially John Danaher got into the fray in a major way. But id like if you submission guys could fill in the gaps, tell me were I may be wrong, and expand on the story. Sorry so long but I think you guys will enjoy the read and following discussion.

 

[dsdoubled]

Abbreviated version:
-Gracies
-The Russians, Japanese, a handful of Americans, and a few old school Europeans.
-UFC & PRIDE fighters in 2005-2010 range.
-Palhares.
-Belcher (Gokor, Lister, a Louisiana BJJ OG).
-Danaher
-???????

 

[BJJ_Rage]

Lombard was never big on leglocks... Davi ramos was Alan’s secret weapon, the Russians have always been good in leg Locks, but no other style becomes close to be as proficient in leglocks as the. New jiu jitsu wave. Japanese catch fighters were the best back in the day, but still a far cry from today’s specialized leg lockers

 

[ChainFlow]

Abbreviated version:
-Gracies
-The Russians, Japanese, a handful of Americans, and a few old school Europeans.
-UFC & PRIDE fighters in 2005-2010 range.
-Palhares.
-Belcher (Gokor, Lister, a Louisiana BJJ OG).
-Danaher
-???????

-Fadda lineage
-Sambists and shoot wrestlers
-ufc & pride fighters such as Mir
-Scott Sonnon starts teaching people about the saddle; no one listens
-Krishna Mirjah starts training and extensively studies shoot wrestlers and their leg lock methods, including their usage of what we now call outside ashi for heelhooks. He attempts to improve it and integrate it with the BJJ he learns.
-a shit-ton of rebellious white-brown belts bought Reilly Bodycomb's stuff and tweaked it in various ways
-Roli Delgado starts showing catch and sambo-derived leglocks, especially the straight ankle, to people like Cavaca and eventually many others
-Palhares bursts onto the scene
-Eddie Cummings starts training under Krishna Mirjah and learns leglock concepts and positions not normally taught in BJJ at the time, such as outside ashi. Cummings also studies Bodycomb's material obsessively and begins combining the two into a system with his own improvements. He also studies Dean Lister. Presumably he also studies Palhares.
-Eddie Cummings moves gyms to Renzo NYC and starts showing his moves to Tonon & others. This draws the interest of Danaher. He assumes a mentor role to Cummings and attempts to further refine the leglock system and integrate it with his existing material, leg locks & otherwise.
-Gordon Ryan, a Tonon student, starts training under Danaher, who's in the aforementioned process.
-Eddie Cummings terrorizes the no-gi scene with his heelhooks, as do the rest of the "DDS"
...
-DDS splits up because most of the group wants to move on to other things and also Eddie is bitter that Danaher doesn't give him credit for the bulk of the leglock system that made the DDS famous
-Gordon Ryan loses to Vinny Magalhaes
-Leglocks don't work, system is abandoned

 

[dsdoubled]

Lombard was never big on leglocks... Davi ramos was Alan’s secret weapon, the Russians have always been good in leg Locks, but no other style becomes close to be as proficient in leglocks as the. New jiu jitsu wave. Japanese catch fighters were the best back in the day, but still a far cry from today’s specialized leg lockers

I included Lombard partially because he has a couple wins from the mid 2000s via leg/ankle/foot lock, but mostly bc of that submission grappling match where he brutally broke his opponent's lower leg.

I was unaware of the Ramos/Belcher connection. I attributed most of his performance in the Palhares fight to the other guys I mentioned. You consider Davi Ramos part of the newer wave of Bjj guys leading the leg attack charge?

And I was really hoping someone could fill in the gaps when it comes to the timeline and widespread implementation of the leg attacks being used by the Russians and Japanese around the same time. Was this coincidence? They were both incredible at it but quite different as far as I can tell. Was there any exchange between the Russian and Japanese grappling communities? It seemed guys like Kitaoka, Iminari, Aoki, and the other Japanese leg lockers were super aggressive, risk-taking, kill of be killed types whereas the sambo guys seemed a bit more systematic about the whole thing.

 

[dsdoubled]

-Fadda lineage
-Sambists and shoot wrestlers
-ufc & pride fighters such as Mir
-Scott Soon starts teaching people about the saddle; no one listens
-Krishna Mirjah starts training and extensively studies shoot wrestlers and their leg lock methods, including their usage of we now call outside ashi for heelhooks. He attempts to improve it and integrate it with the BJJ he learns.
-a shit-ton of rebellious white-brown belts bought Reilly Bodycomb's stuff and tweaked it in various ways
-Roli Delgado starts showing catch and sambo-derived leglocks, especially the straight ankle, to people like Cavaca and eventually many others
-Palhares bursts onto the scene
-Eddie Cummings starts training under Krishna Mirjah and learns leglock concepts and positions not normally taught in BJJ at the time, such as outside ashi. Cummings also studies Bodycomb's material obsessively and begins combining the two into a system with his own improvements. He also studies Dean Lister. Presumably he also studies Palhares.
-Eddie Cummings moves gyms to Renzo NYC and starts showing his moves to Tonon & others. This draws the interest of Danaher. He assumes a mentor role to Cummings and attempts to further refine the leglock system and integrate it with his existing material, leg locks & otherwise.
-Gordon Ryan, a Tonon student, starts training under Danaher, who's in the aforementioned process.
-Eddie Cummings terrorizes the no-gi scene with his heelhooks, as do the rest of the "DDS"
...
-DDS splits up because most of the group wants to move on to other things and also Eddie is bitter that Danaher doesn't give him credit for the bulk of the leglock system that made the DDS famous
-Gordon Ryan loses to Vinny Magalhaes
-Leglocks don't work, system is abandoned

Fantastic. Never heard of Krishna Mirjah or this Fadda lineage you mention. Who did you mean by "Scott Soon" ? And I had no clue Roli Delgado was this important. I remember him being clowned a bit on TUF.

 

[EndlessCritic]

-Gordon Ryan loses to Vinny Magalhaes
-Leglocks don't work, system is abandoned

10/10 hilarious.

 

[ChainFlow]

Fantastic. Never heard of Krishna Mirjah or this Fadda lineage you mention. Who did you mean by "Scott Soon" ? And I had no clue Roli Delgado was this important. I remember him being clowned a bit on TUF.

The Fadda lineage is a non-Gracie line of jiujitsu (never trained under them) that was known back in the day for being dirty leglockers.

Soon = Sonnon, my laptop autocorrects too aggressively

And Delgado is definitely a better bjj instructor than MMA fighter (not a slight, he’s a great instructor)

I also realized after posting that I should have mentioned Imanari.

 

[yetanother]

I included Lombard partially because he has a couple wins from the mid 2000s via leg/ankle/foot lock, but mostly bc of that submission grappling match where he brutally broke his opponent's lower leg.

Isn't Lombard more a representation of the "with enough steroids everything is possible" school of tough rather than any kind serious leg lock technician.
I mostly remember the match when some regular looking dude RNC'ed him instantly after Lombard went for some half assed straght footlock and the dudes wife was shrieking for far longer then the match took.

 

[dsdoubled]

The Fadda lineage is a non-Gracie line of jiujitsu (never trained under them) that was known back in the day for being dirty leglockers.

Soon = Sonnon, my laptop autocorrects too aggressively

And Delgado is definitely a better bjj instructor than MMA fighter (not a slight, he’s a great instructor)

I also realized after posting that I should have mentioned Imanari.

Figured auto-correct was in there somewhere. And yes, I had Iminari, Kitaoka, Aoki, and a few other JMMA guys in mind when thinking this over. The Japanese has such a fun, aggressive, reckless submission scene. It was awesome.

 

[dsdoubled]

Isn't Lombard more a representation of the "with enough steroids everything is possible" school of tough rather than any kind serious leg lock technician.

I don't think they are mutually exclusive. I think he is definitely a representative of the W.E.S.E.I.P crew but also a skilled grappler. I mean, he is a judo Olympian and longtime Bjj blackbelt. He has also spent a lot of time in the CSW fold learning their style.

 

[dsdoubled]

The Fadda lineage is a non-Gracie line of jiujitsu (never trained under them) that was known back in the day for being dirty leglockers.

Soon = Sonnon, my laptop autocorrects too aggressively

And Delgado is definitely a better bjj instructor than MMA fighter (not a slight, he’s a great instructor)

I also realized after posting that I should have mentioned Imanari.

That's interesting about the non Gracie Lineage. I always kinda assujmed that all BJJers could trace their instructors back to one of the original Gracies. Can you name me a few?

 

[ChainFlow]

That's interesting about the non Gracie Lineage. I always kinda assujmed that all BJJers could trace their instructors back to one of the original Gracies. Can you name me a few?

The easy answer is all of GFTeam and also Nova Uniao’s descendants.

 

[tekkenfan]

yeah alan brought in dean lister davi ramos and diego moraes for 2 weeks for his camp spent like 20 grand for a leg lock crash course

Lombard was never big on leglocks... Davi ramos was Alan’s secret weapon, the Russians have always been good in leg Locks, but no other style becomes close to be as proficient in leglocks as the. New jiu jitsu wave. Japanese catch fighters were the best back in the day, but still a far cry from today’s specialized leg lockers

 

[Daz2300]

I think the Estima Brothers have to be in there too, they came up with an attack nobody else had seen until Braulio tapped Lovato at ADCC '09 then Victor went and won Nogi Worlds in 2011 finishing every single match with the Estima Lock. It doesn't really fit in with the whole Ashi/Saddle heel hook game but i think they still need to be on the list as it was another milestone given its been used successfully at the highest level.

 

[Poochie]

-Eddie Cummings moves gyms to Renzo NYC and starts showing his moves to Tonon & others. This draws the interest of Danaher. He assumes a mentor role to Cummings and attempts to further refine the leglock system and integrate it with his existing material, leg locks & otherwise.
-Gordon Ryan, a Tonon student, starts training under Danaher, who's in the aforementioned process.
-Eddie Cummings terrorizes the no-gi scene with his heelhooks, as do the rest of the "DDS"

I know part of this was written as a joke but I have a question as to the Danaher leg lock timeline. According to Danaher on Joe Rogan Podcast he first became interested in leglocks when Dean Lister said, "why ignore 50% of the body" when Lister was training with Matt Serra for ADCCs. This would be around 2001. Did it take a dozen years to develop the system or was it really Eddie Cummings coming to train at Renzo's that finally solidified the game?

 

[mataleaos]

Fantastic. Never heard of Krishna Mirjah .

He was Eddie Cummings' first teacher before Eddie went over to Renzo's academy.

 

[ChainFlow]

I know part of this was written as a joke but I have a question as to the Danaher leg lock timeline. According to Danaher on Joe Rogan Podcast he first became interested in leglocks when Dean Lister said, "why ignore 50% of the body" when Lister was training with Matt Serra for ADCCs. This would be around 2001. Did it take a dozen years to develop the system or was it really Eddie Cummings coming to train at Renzo's that finally solidified the game?

I did imply in what I wrote that Danaher already had his own leglock system worked out. And to be honest I did a disservice to Daisuke Yamaji by omitting him. He was one of the great leglock innovators at Renzo’s before Danaher rose to prominence and whose influence is arguably equal in at least that regard.

As to whether Cummings’s arrival was what finally solidified the game... let’s just say that I don’t think it was a coincidence that it wasn’t until after his arrival that Renzo’s started killing everyone with heelhooks. I also know for a fact that Cummings was already doing heelhooks in the same essential way everyone does now (hunting outside ashi or the saddle, denying the rotational escapes, finishing with counterpressure on the knee, getting the wrist-bone bite on the heel) before he even met Danaher. I’ve seen videos. I have no doubt that Danaher had a lot of useful tips, techniques, and guidance due to his own research and much longer time training. I’m also sure that Cummings deserves a hell of a lot more credit than Gordon Ryan and Danaher seem to be giving him these days (none).

I don’t want to go any further because internet drama is lame and I don’t want to repeat things that aren’t mine to say.

 

[Poochie]

Thanks, I guess I guess it's not a coincidence that when Eddie left the blue basement he was training at RGA in WIlliamsburg where Daisuke Yamaji is the head instructor.

 

[dsdoubled]

I gotta think Erik Paulson is pretty important in this discussion as well (along with Ken Shamrock). It seems like they were the ones who spent a lot of time in Japan and then brought the skills back to the states with them. Especially Paulson bc he was also a part of the traditional Machado Bjj system.