16 Mar Grappling History Lesson: Best Grappler Across Domains
The other day a questions was posed on social media. If you had a choice would you be more interested in attending the seminar of someone possessing which credentials?
-IBJJF Black Belt Gi World Champion
-ADCC Champion
-Undefeated MMA pro with all wins by submission
A couple of astute readers realized there were some all of the above type options. Since the smallest pool is ADCC champs we will start there. The ADCC championship is semi-annual and was the first tournament to offer large sums of money to the winners. That combined with a small amount of weight classes make it the toughest tournament to win.
The tournament started in 1998 and there have been 11 Championships held thus far with the next version coming later this year. Each year there is one grappler crowned the open weight class champion, and that person has a great claim to be the best in the land.
Of the 11, 4 missed out on Black Belt world titles (Mark Kerr, Ricardo Arona (although he got 2nd), Dean Lister, and Cyborg Abreu)
So that leaves us 7 individuals who have brought in Black Belt Gold in the Gi division of the IBJJF worlds and have won the open weight. 2 of those fighters (Cyborg Abreu and Cladio Calasans have not yet fought in MMA. Let’s look at the accomplishments in MMA of those that have tested themselves in that rule set.
1998 Mario Sperry (MMA 13 Wins 7 by submission 4 losses.)
1999 Roberto Traven (MMA 6 Wins 4 by submission 4 losses.)
2005 Roger Gracie (MMA 8 Wins 6 by submission 2 losses.)
2009 Braulio Estima (MMA 1 win which was by submission 0 losses)
2011 Andre Galvao (MMA 5 wins 3 by submission 2 losses)
2007 Robert Drysdale (MMA 7 Wins 7 Submissions 0 losses)
A quick scan of the list of ADCC winners gives some other names who have done well across all three modalities. Royler Gracie, Rani Yahya, Gabi Garcia, Mackenzie Dern, Michelle Nicolini, Marcio Feitosa, Davi Ramos, Ronoldo Jacare Souza, Demian Maia, and Rodolfo Veira.
Conclusion: There is none coming from me. The reason I chose to seek out training with Drysdale, moved to Las Vegas, and got my Black Belt as part of his team and legacy was due to his ability to display grappling across all domains. There are some other incredible grapplers out there and I will not claim one is better than the other, just suggesting that someone who wants to be well rounded would do well to seek out training with anyone mentioned in this article.
Announcement:
Robert Drysdale will be back in NC. So for those interested in with someone who has proven there grappling across all three domains… See you August 12th at Elevate!
