2017 Year in Grappling Review

I'll make an effort to make this expansive, but by no means will it be exhaustive. The proliferation of the sport both in the Gi and NoGi, and now honestly, the Sub Only formats has truly exploded this year. The ACB JJ organization in particular has signed a ton of talent in the past two years and has acquired a bunch of guys in the past few months. This year saw the usual spate of IBJJF Worlds/Pans, a number of Abu Dhabi Pro Gi Grand Prix events, but was also an ADCC year. I don't purposefully intend to not mention any teams or competitors, but some of my preference for styles of grappling and rule sets I watch will mean I probably saw more of certain formats than others and as such care to write a bit more about them.

At a lower tier, we saw the rise of a number of EBI style format shows serving as feeders to EBI. Fight 2 Win Pro put on cards across the United States (which was even featured on ESPN's website). As always, there's no perfect game in golf, and anyone obsessed with grappling is seeking to find progress however incremental it may be. I honestly wonder what next year holds.

In the first half of the year we saw upsets at the Premier GI IBJJF World Championships with guys like Meregali beating Lo, Musumeci becoming the 4th American to win a black belt world title in the Gi. Meregali submitted Lucas Leite and Dimitrius Souza before besting Leandro Lo in the final. No one can say he won because the division was lacking this year. Musumeci also deserves credit for besting Joao Miyao, Ary Farias, and Isaac Doederlein en route to his title. The Miyao brothers were denied a world title in the Gi yet again (as Paulo is still suspended from IBJJF for failing a steroid test and being stripped of his title he won, and Joao lost to archnemesis Musumeci. Bruno continued his run of defeating Caio Terra to claim another world title.

Another breakout moment for the Gi event was Saggioro who lost to Cobrinha by the smallest margin possible in a thrilling run to the featherweight final (which saw Rafa inexplicably decide 6 weeks out decide he had nothing left to prove. I find that hard to believe, but take that to mean what you will).

Garbriel Arges bested the competition in an insanely stacked Middle division. Galvao picked up another world title and Erberth Santos picked up his first by defeating legend Bernardo Faria who has subsequently retired from competition. It was a year where established competitors added another line to their resume but also a ton of guys took out veterans in long shot matches as well.

NoGi Worlds saw Caio pick up another world title but I was wildly impressed with the Japanese contingent in NoGi. Guys like Hashimoto (who also impressed me very much against the ever leglock fleeing disengaging Samir Chantre at the ACB JJ Grand Prix) give me hope for a strong contingent of Japanese competitors to change up the NoGi Worlds lighter weight classes entrenched favorites.
Joao Miyao picked up a NoGi World title RNC'ing Pinheiro, and defeating his other opponent by a wide points margin in a very small bracket. Moizinho picked up a world title besting a bracket where his other key competition was Gianni Grippo and Pablo Mantovani (who would also debut at the ADCC later in the year).

Perennial firestarter AJ Agazarm bested Canuto in the final to pick up another black belt NoGi World title in a year that saw him lose a number of smaller tiered matches in various rule sets but win here and come in 2nd against Cobrinha at ADCC. Hinger, Lucas Barbosa, & Cornelius picked up title for Atos at this year's installment of the NoGi Mundials as well.

The ADCC this year saw the domination of Gordon Ryan at his weight class (and a second loss to Felipe Pena in the final of the open weight). He crushed his division and finished nearly everyone he faced including previous ADCC and World Champs. The event also saw a contingent of Renzo Gracie NYC competitors debut at the ADCC with the likes of Ethan Crelinstein and Oliver Taza winning ADCC trials, and the invitation of Jake Shields/the last minute replacement of an athlete by Nicky Ryan, and Master Renzo winning a superfight. Compared to the multi-school/branch armies of athletes preparing at other organizations/teams with operating budgets and camps run et cetera, per athlete, it's hard to argue any team other than Renzo Gracie/John Danaher had a greater impact.
Cobrinha picked up another title, as did Yuri Simoes. JT Torres won his first ADCC title. Craig Jones finished Leandro Lo and Murilo Santana proving he has the chops to hang at the elite level.

Eddie Bravo's premier invitational event with it's unique format (now emulated in varying degrees at other similar events) put on a dizzying year with 4 events and the introduction of Combat JiuJitsu.
EBI 11 - Gordon Ryan
EBI 12 - Erin Blanchfield became the inaugural Women's champ
EBI 13 - Garry Tonon picked up another EBI title shortly after the ADCC
EBI 14 - Gordon Ryan picked up another title in the midst of winning ADCC, besting Yuri Simoes at the Kasai event, winning this event, and besting Ralek Gracie at a Metamoris event in what was probably the busiest high level grappler schedule to close out a year competing in recent memory.

As for combat jiujitsu, Vagner Rocha picked up a win via TKO/Palm strikes over the tough Nathan Orchard in what is a growing rivalry between them as Orchard had battled Vagner in overtime at another EBI this year for nearly 30 minutes.

With Garry Tonon and Gordon Ryan heading off into MMA and Gi training respectively, it will be interesting to see what happens to the landscape of EBI  as it has come to be dominated by Danaher-trained athletes for the past couple years. The upcoming EBI event features the return of Geo Martinez at featherweight and Eddie Cummings to defend his featherweight title after failing to capture the Bantamweight belt in an overtime submission loss to Geo. Exciting stuff even just in February of the upcoming year.

Honorable Mentions:
ACB JJ with its inclusion of heel hooks, and implementation of rounds akin to an MMA fight has produced some interesting clashes of style with it's weight class grand prix format. Among the events this year we saw Edwin Najmi win a very tough -75kg division as well as Josh Hinger win his +85 division. Paulo Miyao won an -65kg division and Vitor Honorio won the + 95kg division. At the lightest weight grand prix Joao won the -60kg division and Paulo won the -65kg division.
Kasai in NYC put on an exciting grand prix style event with names like Vinicius, Grippo, Tonon, Canuto, Coco, and Agazarm in an effort to bring together a format that will produce both action and submissions.
5 Grappling put on some Gi grappling divisions but with ACB JJ buying up the talent I think this will be harder and harder to put together. The lightweight grand prix they did had a fairly large spread of guys just to be full and frankly I fell asleep during the event. I don't put this on 5 Grappling but rather the competitors who honestly, several weren't really working that hard for their time and/or money. It was a pretty high profile event and opportunity and some of the guys I'm sure roll harder in their academy. At any rate, I would hate to see a pro level event fail or disappear, but they've got some identity searching to do if they want to stay afloat in this current growing see or platforms for guys and girls to compete.

It's exciting that nary a month passes without some high level event to watch or stream or order on PPV. Between Flograppling, UFC Fight Pass, and the likes of direct PPV ordering, and the dearth of shows like Rise, Sapateiro, Finishers Show the Art, Ultimate Mat Warrior, and 5 Grappling, there's a ton of content to digest as the sport continues to bring the technical production and packing aspect to catch up to the product itself which is grappling.

Sidenote......Grappling in MMA:
Can't pretend like grappling didn't make it's way into the real proving ground of unarmed physical combat. Demian Maia finally got a shot at the strap but Tyron Woodley set a record for least punches thrown in a title fight (hard work considering he previously set it in the fight with Thompson before that) and literally backed up and circled away the entire fight. Khabib returned just in time for 2017's end to show us why his ground game and vicious ground and pound is so devastating. Lovato is making strides in Bellator as it Neiman Gracie.