Let someone else slather compliments on ADCC, their rules, officiating, and format are flawed, and ADCC simply doesn’t want to fix them. For more than 20 years, ADCC has been identified as the pinnacle of grappling, with the best talent, the best venue, the best rules, the best officiating. Why is it the best? While historically significant, it’s mainly because ADCC says so. The marketing machine is powerful and social media savvy. While there’s no denying it has consistently included the best talent, the moss continues to grow over the rest of the tournament as it poorly ages into the 21st century.
Perhaps it makes sense to start at the beginning. The ADCC World Submission Fighting Championships were created as a testing ground for various grappling styles much the way the UFC was meant to compare different fighting styles of martial arts. Also, just as martial arts consolidated into the sport of mixed-martial arts, various grappling styles have morphed into a consolidated sport of submission fighting, including techniques from jiu jitsu, judo, sambo, and wrestling. The tournament was designed with a ‘neutral’ set of rules that claimed not to favor any particular style, and gave an international platform for the best grapplers to prove their skills and earn prize money. Since the first edition in 1998, the size and scope of the tournament organization has increased, but the fundamental rules, principles, and even some of the personnel are largely unchanged in more than two decades.
Much like grappling itself, grappling tournaments have been evolutionary, making incremental changes and advancements over time. In the US, we had humble beginnings in sweaty high school gymnasiums, but grappling tournaments have upscaled dramatically over the years, with great improvements in amenities, rules, and officiating, and been rewarded with increased popularity, larger streams of revenue opportunities, and lower barriers to entry. ADCC also sprang from more humble beginnings, but with the international flare, bringing something unique to the world.
Unfortunately, this is where ADCC shows its age, and now seems the relic of a bygone grappling era. An updated venue, slick online marketing, and digital scoreboards are nice, but don’t remove the rusty nuts and bolts that actually hold the tournament together and preside over every match. To expose the inherent weaknesses of ADCC, we need to further explore the aspects of what actually holds this tournament together.
The first sign of weakness is the rule book, or perhaps better stated, a lack of one. ADCC rules are published only on their website and are roughly a page or so. Keep it simple, right? Wrong. By contrast, the IBJJF rule book is nearly 50 pages complete with pictures and charts, with updates and clarifications nearly annually. IBJJF Rules meetings are run year-round, before each tournament, and referee training is offered constantly – even required for black belt certification. Yet, ADCC consistently blames ignorance of their rules on ‘complexity’, as if everyone else trying to understand the rules is the problem. Tournament after tournament, there are complaints about calls that baffle the most experienced grapplers on the planet, yet ADCC consistently blames it on the ignorance of the competitors, coaches, and spectators.
So if the rules are so ‘complex’, how do you clarify them? I challenge any reader to search the web for articles claiming ‘Everything you need to know about the rules of ADCC’ and you’ll find a bunch of three paragraph articles as sparse as the actual rule book. As consolation, we’re told that just before the actual tournament, competitors and coaches get a rules meeting and can ask any questions they like. Oh, but they’re told that you have to ask the ‘head referee’, because he’s the only person in the world qualified to answer. So the day before the most prestigious tournament in the world, they’ll disclose the rules in a private setting. Only very recently have rules seminars been given and posted online. Alas, the latest news is that ADCC claims that they will start running ADCC Open events around the US, and miraculously, they’ll be able to train officials locally in 1-2 hours. Suddenly, the complexity will be lifted? The real question is why has ADCC not clarified their rules in 20 years. Don’t kid yourself, it’s intentional.
Perhaps the most poorly designed aspects of ADCC is the judging. Rather than give the referee discretion and scoring authority, that role is given to a group of judges at a head table. So, the referee is actually relegated to a secondary role, more as eyes and ears of the judges and a ring control agent. While multiple judges were at one time considered ‘progressive’, this has aged as a poor design for several reasons. Firstly, sitting side-by-side at the table does not offer the best vantage points, nor offer even different vantage points for judging. Secondly, if judges are discussing scoring events during the match, it is unknown how much distraction occurs during these consultations, or if there are dominant and subordinate voices in the judging. This undermines the overall credibility of the judging to not have each person accountable for their decision making. By contrast, three referee systems where referees work in and around the mat and clearly gesture their individual decisions at least creates accountability, something that ADCC has avoided for decades.
Another aspect of ADCC showing its age is the format, a hybrid no-gi tournament incorporating both sub-only and points-based scoring in each round, followed by a potential points overtime period. The concept is that this initial period gives competitors unfettered opportunity to hunt submissions without concern for point strategy. While ADCC considers it one of the big selling points, it does not bear the submission fruit it promises. In 2019, ADCC had only a 31% submission rate, largely bolstered by the Absolute division, which was on fire at a 75% submission rate. It’s likely the fatigue of many matches over a two-day tournament took their toll, but there were just some incredible performances that catapulted those submission statistics. For comparison, consider that the IBJJF Black Belt World championships data between 2014-2017 had a submission rate between 31%-40% in a restrictive points-based only system with matches that were considerably shorter by design with no overtimes. So if not promoting more submissions, what is the format intending to do?
Another sore spot in ADCC format is the constant overtimes. It is apparently lost on those in charge that overtimes serve as a second chance at redemption for competitors, and they very often use it as such. Conventional wisdom would be that shorter durations without overtime are more motivating to incentivize action, rather than long regulation periods to be followed by additional overtime periods. While the concept of a ‘battle of attrition’ may have some merit, more often than not it ends up a snooze-fest. Maybe long or open-ended time limits seem best suited to submission grappling, but they certainly work better for individual matches and not bracketed divisions.
The reality is that ADCC is simply not spectator friendly. You would think after billing itself as the world’s greatest grappling event, it would cater to fans and try and attract new spectators from MMA and other martial arts events by being user-friendly. Well apparently no, not at all. After not publishing rules, providing often confused commentators, and practically bragging about how it’s all ‘too complex’ for even the most experienced grapplers to follow, it’s a wonder anyone remains interested. Each ring seems to handle the same circumstances differently, each referee seems to have his own style and doesn’t conform to set commands or gestures, no one knows what the judges are thinking, or even which ones are the judges. If you need evidence that matches can devolve into total chaos, go watch Aly vs. Rodriguez, where you’ll see all these unintended consequences manifest themselves in one ridiculous episode.
Many credible voices over the years have expressed concerns over ADCC rules and officiating. I’ve seen Robert Drysdale and David Avellan make some pretty astute observations after the last ADCC, like the fact that scoring is simply too difficult and the ‘Turtle Rule’ is foolish. Even ADCC’s poster child, Gordan Ryan, when asked about which rule set he prefers, he indicated he likes other formats like EBI over ADCC. The public result of any ADCC criticism is usually the same, consisting of personal attacks from ADCC representatives on social media, falling back on either ‘it’s too complex’ or ‘how dare you’ rather than actually offering any explanation or solutions. The head referee is continually positioned as the only person on the planet that fully understands and can articulate the rules, but apparently he is kept locked away in a foreign land and only upon seeing his shadow every two years, is let out to run the next antiquated event.
In conclusion, consider the proverb ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery’. Well, if this is the case, then not too many compliments are flowing towards ADCC. In more than 20 years, I’m unaware of another organization that has adopted the format or rules even similar to ADCC. Is that by design? Considering the proliferation of tournaments around the world, I’d say it’s no coincidence that no one has attempted to replicate ADCC format. Rather than be deterred by this apathy, ADCC instead prefers to wear it as a badge of honor, as if something unique that was created decades ago is above criticism and is correct to resist any form of healthy change.
Author David ‘Silverfox’ Karchmer was awarded his black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in June 2012 and has been training for more than 20 years. In addition to training and instructing, David has focused the last thirteen years on officiating grappling competitions and has officiated more than 4000 gi and no-gi matches at over 85 events for multiple organizations. He was a previous head referee at Grapplers Quest, Tap Cancer Out, FIVE Grappling, UAEJJF New York Open, Copa NoVA, and Rollmore SuperComp tournaments, and routinely officiates events in North America. For more about David, go to: www.facebook.com/thegrapplingreferee
The post ADCC: Aging gracefully? appeared first on Bjj Eastern Europe.