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BJJ stars Nicholas Meregali and Pedro Marinho headline WNO
After a few months of silence, FloGrappling have now announced the main card for their next Who’s Number One event on May 18th, 2023. The 18th edition of WNO will feature a slight change of pace, as the main event matchup will also be the first gi match in the promotion’s history. Nicholas Meregali announced that he would be taking part in it initially, and his opponent was confirmed as Pedro Marinho, who called him out after his last win on the WNO mats.
The co-main event is set to be an interesting battle between Elder Cruz and BJJ legend Rafael Lovato Jr. The only women’s match of the night is to be contested between Alex Enriquez and Amanda ‘Tubby’ Alequin, while the final two matches on the main card are Jacob Couch v Izaak Michell and Dante Leon v Ruan Alvarenga. There will also be a preliminary card of matches before these, although none of them have been announced just yet.
ADCC returns to FloGrappling after leaving for UFC Fight Pass
It’s a genuinely shocking turn of events, but ADCC has decided to part ways with UFC Fight Pass and re-sign with their old streaming service; FloGrappling. The main reason that this news came as such a shock was because it’s only been a little over three months since the promotion announced that they were signing a deal with UFC Fight Pass in the first place. In January of this year, they officially left FloGrappling for what was meant to be their new home until at least 2024.
It’s unclear what actually happened to the deal that ADCC had with UFC Fight Pass over the last three months, but it’s clear that one or both parties weren’t happy to proceed. FloGrappling has really hit the ground running in arranging their services for upcoming ADCC events as well, as the first one in their schedule is taking place just days after the announcement was made. The ADCC Orange County Open is booked for April 29th, 2023 and will be streamed live on FloGrappling.
Nicky Rodriguez announces potential WWE move
Nicky Rodriguez took the grappling world by storm back in 2018 when he took home a bronze medal from ADCC trials despite only training in the sport for around 6 months at the time. Obviously he had a wealth of competitive wrestling experience and was one of Gordon Ryan’s regular training partners, but it was still an incredible feat. He improved at a rapid rate after that too, winning trials in 2019 and winning a silver medal at the ADCC world championship later that year.
Since then he’s become a popular figure in the sport, has won another silver medal at ADCC 2022, and has formed his own academy alongside several of his teammates at B-Team Jiu-Jitsu. Now it seems as though Rodriguez might be making the move to WWE instead, as he recently revealed on an episode of The Simple Man Podcast that he was successful in the second of two tryouts for the professional wrestling organization and has been invited back to train with them for a month.
Study shows most US Army hand-to-hand combat is grappling
A recent study looked at 30 Post-Combat Surveys that US Army soldiers gave between 2004 and 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to gain some insight into how hand-to-hand combat worked in battle. The data they gathered showed that the overwhelming majority of hand-to-hand combat situations involved use of grappling techniques. 72.6% of all of those encounters saw grappling being used, compared to 21.9% for weapons and just 5.5% for striking techniques.
The most common grappling techniques used were categorised as takedowns, but there were plenty of submissions used to neutralise a threat as well. While most submissions were grouped together in a single category, armbars and chokes were frequent enough to warrant their own category. This demonstrate that a knowledge of grappling is vital in a real-life combat situation, but also that standing grappling is equally, if not more, valuable than being competent on the ground.
Quick Hits
- Popular rapper Wiz Khalifa has just been confirmed as making his BJJ debut at an upcoming High Rollerz event, taking part in a 6 minute match in the gi.
- Olympic wrestler Alejandro Sancho went viral after losing a match at the US Open and swearing at an official after the match finished.
- Estevan Martinez will be fighting for the lightweight title at Proving Grounds Invitational 8, after Oliver Taza competes in the co-main event.
- ADCC and IBJJF world champion Rodolfo Vieira has decided to hire a BJJ coach for the first time since he transitioned to professional MMA.
Technique Corner
Sweep single-leg to Throw-by
Flower sweep details
Two counters to the Guard-pull
Meme of The Week
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