ADCC 2013 aftermath discussion

It would have been better had they a bigger audience and was more accessible. On the other hand, its not about that, it's about the matches. It sounds like they're going to Brazil in 2015, so I bet that will do wonders for increasing the audience.

ADCC has come a long way since a decade ago, where they had fighters focused on one art, and a bunch of BJJ competitors. Judging from this year (and also the last one in 2011), even the competition has cross trained more, and have added a lot more to their own skill sets.

ADCC is a great counter to major IBJJF competition.

They were originally supposed to go to Brazil this year, but somehow ended up in China for yet-to-be-disclosed reasons. I think what annoys all of us isn't that the event isn't better attended, but that the ADCC's obvious ambivalence toward promoting their signature event misses a huge opportunity to promote the sport as a whole. This is an amazing event that could get some genuine mainstream media coverage if they pushed it the right way, but instead they keep it so hidden that even most jiu jitsu practitioners don't know about it. I mean, there wasn't even a mention of the stream on the ADCC's own webpage.
 
there were times when the hand fighting made me look away... the mats sucked, the referees were odd, the stream wasn't very good and i counted the people in the stands and it wasn't a very high number.

day one was a lot of fun though. i forget which mat i was watching, but the grappling seemed to pick up a lot; there were also a lot of surprises. day two kind of faded for me, since i wasn't able to catch absolute and before absolute there were some terrible matches.

octavio-kron was really frustrating; leo-yamada was a lot of hand fighting; orlando sanchez; and some others.

some really exciting matches, too. kind of a mixed bag, but that's to be expected.
 
there were times when the hand fighting made me look away... the mats sucked, the referees were odd, the stream wasn't very good and i counted the people in the stands and it wasn't a very high number.

day one was a lot of fun though. i forget which mat i was watching, but the grappling seemed to pick up a lot; there were also a lot of surprises. day two kind of faded for me, since i wasn't able to catch absolute and before absolute there were some terrible matches.

octavio-kron was really frustrating; leo-yamada was a lot of hand fighting; orlando sanchez; and some others.

some really exciting matches, too. kind of a mixed bag, but that's to be expected.

I can't agree.

I'm not referring specifically to you, but half the BJJ fans complain when people pull guard, and apparently the other half do when they fight for takedowns... :cool:
 
I can't agree.

I'm not referring specifically to you, but half the BJJ fans complain when people pull guard, and apparently the other half do when they fight for takedowns... :cool:

yeah, you might be right. i was irritable day two!
 
I'm also largely biased. I spent enough time doing judo that I get irritated when someone pulls guard ;)

also, i was bummin' it up and never paid for an adcc stream. i think a person who purchased the stream will be ore likely to back up their purchase with happy thoughts, and the ppl who stole it are more likely to over complain.

i was just grateful ppl streamed it and i was able to see some of the matches i was looking forward to.
 
You definitely see the problems with more standup when there aren't stalling or grip penalties. People say they want to see more standup, but they should be careful what they wish for. More standup without rules that make people attack is an ugly thing.
 
I guess I'll go through by weights. The event itself, no explanation necessary. China was a bad choice but I was happy I got to see it.

66k: I'm beyond happy to see Cobrinha finally pick up an ADCC Gold. He got jobbed out of 2 points for a takedown for some reason, so I'm glad the decision went his way. He controlled the match almost the entire time. I heard that he had a tough time making weight, and even though he never looked to be in trouble making his way to the finals, Darson Hemmings, Marcio Andre, and Justin Rader is a tough road to get there. His movement was so crisp and fluid this weekend. People had written him off a bit I think, since the armbar, even though his matches with Rafa have been closer than ever since then.

As far as Rafa Mendes, I'm confused. In many ways he looked better than ever. He had good takedowns, some of the cleanest technique and movement I've ever seen. His top pressure was absolutely crushing this year. After Day 1 I actually thought he would submit Miyao and Cobrinha both. I don't know what happened but he just never seemed in he driver's seat against Cobrinha.

Rader is damn good. Joao Miyao transitioned to no gi very well. I guess he didn't have a coach, so it was nice that AJ Agazarm coached him in the bronze match.

77k: Kron is a savage. Really awesome to see such a finisher. The match with Gary Tonon was one of the best of the weekend. JT Torres looked amazing and took it to Lepri. I thought JT was controlling the Kron match until that sneaky armlock. I didn't watch the DJ/AJ match. Leo Vieira can still hang. Souza is good without the gi. Ben Henderson's 1st match was one of the most exciting of the weekend.

88k: Keenan was a blast to watch. He had a barnburner with Clark and then gave a darce receipt right back to Oskar Piechota, who had darce'd Calasans in the opener. Oskar was very impressive. Calasans is tough, and Oskar looked good in the Absolute, too. I thought Keenan kinda got screwed against Romulo, but it happens. Romulo looked good this weekend. I missed Leite's matches. Lovato with some beautiful flying triangles and overall great performance.

99k: Didn't pay as much attention. Lister and Assis are both great.

+99k: Dopp. Wow. Can't believe Vinny lost. Buchecha and Cyborg both looked awesome this weekend. The Cyborg/Orlando match was fun. I need to pa attention to Gabriel Oliveira more.

Superfight: I expected Estima to win. Boy was I wrong. Andre was in beast-mode all the way. Amazing guard and top work.

Absolute: Cyborg! Wow. Seeing Keenan beat Lister the way he did really was a highlight for me. Tonon is exciting as hell no matter who you put him with.

I enjoyed day 1 more but fun ADCC.
 
You definitely see the problems with more standup when there aren't stalling or grip penalties. People say they want to see more standup, but they should be careful what they wish for. More standup without rules that make people attack is an ugly thing.

I don't know if ADCC just started the rule in 2011, but before then couldn't you pull in the finals even in the no points period and not get a -1?

If they did away with that they'd have much less problems with boring standing finals matches. Like with Rafa and Cobrinha or Kron and Souza, no one wanted to pull and get that -1.

Yet in 2009 I seem to remember lots of pulls in the Marcelo x Popovitch and Rafa x Cobrinha matches with no negative points?
 
You definitely see the problems with more standup when there aren't stalling or grip penalties. People say they want to see more standup, but they should be careful what they wish for. More standup without rules that make people attack is an ugly thing.

again, i think the problem is more with the rules awarding points only at the last part of the match. forces situations where guys with good takedowns hope to survive early then hit a late TD to win it, and guys with good guards can only hope to sprawl, counter a TD, and/or pull guard off a failed shot.
 
I guess I'll go through by weights. The event itself, no explanation necessary. China was a bad choice but I was happy I got to see it.


Joao Miyao transitioned to no gi very well. I guess he didn't have a coach, so it was nice that AJ Agazarm coached him in the bronze match.

Did this really happen? That is not exactly the coach I would expect for Miyao, even for one match.
 
Why didn't Joao had a coach? I thought Adcc paid for the coaches too. Maybe just to people they directly invite?
 
Why didn't Joao had a coach? I thought Adcc paid for the coaches too. Maybe just to people they directly invite?

Most guys did not get coaches paid for. I heard only the superfight guys got them paid for. I'm pretty sure Gui had to pay for his flight out to coach Rafa.

It's a myth that ADCC is all paid for. The cost of getting to China is one reason a lot of guys didn't show.
 
You definitely see the problems with more standup when there aren't stalling or grip penalties. People say they want to see more standup, but they should be careful what they wish for. More standup without rules that make people attack is an ugly thing.

It's a stalling issue at the core. It applies to the groundwork too. Rafa/Cobrinha would not have gone much differently under IBJJF rules. It would just be the 50/50 version of what you saw on the feet. People hate their IBJJF matches too.

The stalling rules are already on the books. The refs just need to start actually calling them.

The problem is that stalling is a venerable BJJ tradition. Helio was one of the greatest stallers of all time. One of his accomplishments is a 3 hour and 42 minute match, which he eventually lost anyway. But that has trickled down to a very influential set of BJJ figures that believe not losing = draw = win. It's Schaub math.

Just call stalling and all this crap goes away. Warning, lose an advantage, lose two points, disqualified -- it's already on the books. They need to just do it.
 
It's a stalling issue at the core. It applies to the groundwork too. Rafa/Cobrinha would not have gone much differently under IBJJF rules. It would just be the 50/50 version of what you saw on the feet. People hate their IBJJF matches too.

Do you think their 2009 ADCC match was a fluke? I still don't get how that's one of the most exciting matches of all time with so much dynamic movement and almost all of their other matches there's basically no action. At first I thought it was a gi and no-gi thing, but now we've had 2 ADCC matches since then and they were both pretty low on action too.
 
Do you think their 2009 ADCC match was a fluke? I still don't get how that's one of the most exciting matches of all time with so much dynamic movement and almost all of their other matches there's basically no action. At first I thought it was a gi and no-gi thing, but now we've had 2 ADCC matches since then and they were both pretty low on action too.

It's tough to say. They are both wary of each other which is why the matches are fought defensively. They are both very aggressive otherwise.
 
Do you think their 2009 ADCC match was a fluke? I still don't get how that's one of the most exciting matches of all time with so much dynamic movement and almost all of their other matches there's basically no action. At first I thought it was a gi and no-gi thing, but now we've had 2 ADCC matches since then and they were both pretty low on action too.

It was their first time facing each other no gi right? They weren't as savvy to each others games as they are now. And at the time Cobrinha had the wrestling edge (although Rafa started countering with the anaconda) necessitating both to go to the ground as a safer option.

And it was their first time at ADCC. New competitors to ADCC have a tendency to go after it, like we saw Miyao and Keenan do this year, both making small but ultimately costly strategic mistakes against veteran ADCC competitors.

It seems that's what happens when you're fighting to win instead of fighting not to lose, as someone observed in this thread earlier.
 
people who call Rafa boring either don't watch BJJ or don't understand it... only match eso fhis that ever suck are the ones against the very, very best guys
 
people who call Rafa boring either don't watch BJJ or don't understand it... only match eso fhis that ever suck are the ones against the very, very best guys

Isn't this what everyone used to say about the Miyaos?
 
Do you think their 2009 ADCC match was a fluke? I still don't get how that's one of the most exciting matches of all time with so much dynamic movement and almost all of their other matches there's basically no action. At first I thought it was a gi and no-gi thing, but now we've had 2 ADCC matches since then and they were both pretty low on action too.

Their match from ADCC 2011 was quite good as well. The first 5-6 minutes were the same as this years match but once Cobrinha pulled guard(Well Rafa got in on a single leg but Cobrinha pulled guard off it) the match was very exciting. Rafa almost leg dragged Cobrinha and got pretty deep on the back a few times plus some good leg attacks and Cobrinha had Rafa in a few kneebars and heelhooks that looked pretty bad(and supposedly both of them were limping after the match so they must have been as nasty as they looked).

When they fight in the gi the combination of limited leg attacks and the friction/control of the gi means they can really slow the game down, but in nogi it's much harder to just stop the game entirely. In my opinion this years match(or at least the parts I saw before my stream died) was boring because they had to spend the whole time on their feet where they're both only ok and evenly matched.
 
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