Will Gordon Ryan’s return be part of the best ever WNO? We preview the last stop before ADCC and CJI

With #grappling stars like #gordonryan #tainan dalpra and Ethan Crelinsten on the card, could this be the best ever Who’s Number One?

On paper the guys at FloGrappling have put together an amazing show for the last major event before both the ADCC and Craig Jones Invitational (CJI). On the latest edition of the Jiu Jitsu Oracle, Calum and Ross preview all of the matches on the WNO 24 main card.

They then talk about updates to the rosters of ADCC and CJI before reviewing the Polaris show which featured an interesting bout between Levi Jones-Leary and Mateusz Szczecinski.

Since recording it as been announced that Ffion Davies will face Mackenzie Dern at CJI, in arguably the biggest women’s superfight in the history of #BJJ

00:00 Who’s Number One 24 Preview: Gordon Ryan vs. Josh Saunders
03:04 Fabricio Andrey vs. Diego Pato
06:06 Tainan Dalpra vs. J-Rod
10:22 Jacob Couch vs. Jonnatas Gracie
12:50 Victor Hugo vs. Javier Zaruski
14:38 Jozef Chen vs. Elijah Dorsey
18:59 Ana Rodrigues vs. Adele Fornarino
21:40 Ethan Crelinsten vs. Deandre Corbe
25:55 Changes in the ADCC and CJI Lineups
33:29 Polaris Review

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Hosts: Calum Burke and Ross McTavish

welcome to the Jiu-Jitsu oracles who’s number 124 preview a show headlined by Gordon Ryan against Josh Saunders I’m Ross I’m joined as always by Callum and once again his computer screen which is going to provide some helpful Graphics along the way so Callum we talked about this a little bit on the last pod when we H covered Gordon Ryan’s comeback the main event Gordon Ryan against Josh Saunders having had a little bit more time to think about it do you have anything to add about how you think the match is going to go uh not really I mean you sent me uh a post from Gordon advertising his new instructional which is a front headlock instruction also seen Gordon in the past use these whose number one matches against opponents AR really on his level to kind of uh showcase his skills and whatever DVD he’s got coming out to advertise it a little bit so you’d suggested maybe we’re going to see a front headlock attack to uh finish the match I think that’s going to be potentially a bit harder of a submission to force than some of the other things he’s done like arm bars and triangles which I think you can get from Super dominant positions but I think if you really don’t want to get guillotin to front head locked it can be a bit more difficult to force it’s more of like a situational thing perhaps and so maybe we see that but as far as was my overall perspective on the match between Gordon and Josh Saunders I don’t see see it being over overly competitive and we’ve seen some new training clips from Gordon on his YouTube H he’s looking pretty good in training he’s back up and weight a little bit as well getting some of that physicality back so I don’t see the match being overly competitive but I’m looking forward to watching Gordon’s Showcase of was jutu in whatever he’s working on at the moment something we can confirm is that the match is going to take place under a 15minute time limit we weren’t sure on the last pod whether it would be the traditional 15 minutes that we see on who’s number one or whether we would see Gordon rules where Gordon often gets to increase the time limit of his matches uh because he likes long matches um so definitely 15 minutes and yes we both think Gordon’s going to win and it’s going to be interesting to see how he goes about his business so that said Callum of all the rest of the matches which one are you looking forward to the most that is a difficult decision I think this is the best who’s number one card we’ve had in a long time I think I’ve mentioned before potentially since we saw that really big card where they had the tournament for the 70 kilo title and for the middleweight title that was an insane card given the people that were vying for that uh two belts however this one is pretty good as well so difficult to make a choice uh of which one I’m looking forward to the most but I think the co main event is very interesting got Fabricio Andre versus Diego P these guys kind of the same weight class so they’re the same weight class in ADCC obviously um and they’re like usually one weight class apart in IBG but I don’t think I can remember these two facing off in ghe or no ghe can you not off the top of my head Callum and if you can’t then I’d be surprised if they have yeah so not not a match I can remember in ghe or no G so that’s going to be really interesting um we have seen matches that they’ve kind of had opponents in common so we’ve seen P beat Ethan kringstein and we’ve seen Ethan beat Fabricio uh we’ve seen baby short beat both of them as well as P beat baby shark so interesting from that perspective obviously P’s biggest weapon in this is likely to be his leg locks we’re likely going to see him pull guard against Fabricio um we saw baby Shar who was fabricio’s teammate at the time H heel hook FAO in Trials before the last World so potentially There’s an opportunity there for p to get a hold of the legs P probably regarded as a better leg Locker than baby shark so we’ve got that aspect but physically fabricio’s very difficult to deal with very explosive I think as well especially noi he’ll be quite hard for p to tangle up but I think if he does tangle um Fabo up then he will be in some trouble two guys that are really physical for the weight class as well Fabo like I said very explosive very fast and then P very strong there was a video put out recently it seems to be a bit of a trend in some gyms but they get one of those um grip testing machines so they did that in AJ and G went around testing everyone and Pat’s grip strength was pretty much the same as tinin who’s like several weight classes above him so I think physically they’re going to be pretty well matched even though like slightly different attributes H Fabo obviously amazing passing amazing takedowns and P with an amazing guard and amazing submission attacks H I would go slightly more towards pattle just given off of the rule set and how it will be judged and I think he’s more likely to get a finish as well I don’t see Fabo really finishing P especially because I don’t think pattle will stand with them much but really interested to see how the match goes and I think it’s one of these matches that I’m surprised we’ve not seen given that these two guys are quite close in weight to each other okay so while you were sing over whether to pick that match or another one what was the other match that was under consideration for being the most interesting to you there’s probably about three other ones to be honest the other three I’m really looking forward to is Titan versus J Ro let’s start with that then okay let’s go with that okay what do you think about it um so I think pretty confident Ty is going to win the match but I think it’ll be exciting match because one the people involved like tyan is really in a boring match G or noi and then jrod is pretty much never in a boring match um given how we’ve seen TI and do against um Taza uh and other people that are kind of similar level to jrod and noi I think Titan is going to be pretty dominant I think he will likely stand with jrod h jrod just beat his teammate jonatha alz but I think in noi tan shown himself to be a lot better um so far with kind of what they’ve displayed um I think he’ll stand a bit with jrro I’d be interested to see how that goes obviously jro’s got more experience in the stand up but same TI in up against alaza I wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to get to a single leg or an arm drag or anything and put him down and I think once he does get on top H will be quite one-sided from there but we could see jrod be really Scrappy we’ve seen him in a lot of matches not do so well in the first half of the match and then really bring out in the second match so we’ll maybe see some of that some crazy scrambles where we can get to some good positions but I think it’ll be a very exciting match overall even though I heavily favor tining in that match what are your thoughts on that well I think the only time I’ve really seen tytin in under pressure was when he lost to Johnson Gomez last year in the ibjjf world and I don’t think Jay is quite as good as johnon is but he does pose a similar kind of problem in terms of that explosive sporadic movement so I I don’t think he’s quite as big or like physical as jnon as well yeah but looking for ways that Tian could potentially lose yeah so all I’m thinking is that because Johnson had those moments in the match against him and uh was ultimately able to come out on top maybe maybe it could be a thing where if tin is going to lose it will be against a um like a player that can be Scrappy in a couple of exchang es and that’s enough to out a victory but I do agree that if tinan gets to impose his will and control in any position then I can’t see uh jrod shifting him from there the only thing with if tin goes for a submission and then jrod’s able to get out and counter which he’s very good at but I think the way tinan attacks it’s unlikely that he’s going to put himself into like a position where he’s going for an arm bar and jrod can counter I don’t really see ttan finishing like that yeah I agree with that I think uh Titan’s weakness we’ve kind of seen it black belt asides from getting dqd is yeah like you said against jnon and against that match against Mo and mik was a brown belt it’s just when he can’t really get on top and get his pass and going I think when he gets his pass and going not really seeing anyone been able to stop it so like with him on top he’s he’s pretty much going to beat everyone um we might see an exception to that in future but so far we’ve not really so yeah if he’s able to negate the sweeps of uh tining or or be able to stand with him and not get taken out taken down that might be a serious issue for him I think though as well as worth highlighting like we did with the Taza match that obviously we’ve got Titan coming over from the ghe but if you just look at these two an overall grappling pedigree like they’re definitely not on the same level like tiny is multiple time world champion multiple time PanAm Europe Champion Etc and jrod hasn’t really won anything huge except the trials when he qualified to ADCC so like an overall grappling kind of pedigree timing is like definitely way higher than jrro we’ll just see how much the kind of G versus noi Dynamic plays into the match okay now let’s just touch on a couple of changes on the card as well so there’s a match with Jacob couch who was scheduled to be against Francisco low that is now against jonus Gracie so what do you think about this new matchup for Jacob C yeah this is interesting so I think these two it’s interesting with ADCC because it’s obviously quite a weight disparity so there might be some guys at 77 that are like very big for the weight class and don’t really want to um don’t really want to go up to 88 and then there might be guys at 88 aren’t that big and they don’t want to make the cut to 77 but these two guys ADCC wise are different weight classes so um couch winning the trials at 88 kilos and jonatha given some good performances at 77 which led to him getting an invite I think at that 77 weight class one of Jonathan’s uh biggest assets definitely was his physicality he looked very strong very immovable when he got on top H I think couch though as well is also very physical for his weight class so we’ll see how much that plays into it couch coming from a bigger weight class maybe the size discrepancy won’t be that big when we see them next to each other but uh that’s definitely the first thing that comes to my mind I think though I’m definitely favoring couch in this um I think Jonathan style he very much goes into the guard and engages with his passing I think against a guy like couch who’s so statically strong and good at dragging your legs into things and locking up cloth guard and going for things to definitely see him dragging jonatha into some dangerous positions quite early on and managing to get to his finishing positions from there I think that’s a fair assessment Callum I favor coach by getting into the legs as well anyone looking for conflict you’ve come to the wrong podcast did as we go through this card um the other match with a change Luke Griffith had to drop out H Javier zeri is taking his place and that is against Victor Hugo now yeah I don’t a lot about um Javier um we’re gonna mention him a couple of times on this podcast because he’s now entered the ranks of the edcc and we’re going to give a quick update on uh the changes to a couple of Divisions that have happened since our last podcast but uh in this match Callum against Victor Hugo what do you see happening yeah so same as you I didn’t know a lot about this guy just having a look through his Instagram at the moment as I’m sure you can see on screen so it looks like he is a noi black belt world champion so that’s a good start I think uh Victor Hugo as well as a no be black but world champion I think he got double gold uh one of the year so it’s really hard to say what I expect in this match given that we don’t really know a lot about Victor’s opponent H however just going off of the caliber of Victor and the kind of performances he’s had lately I definitely have to favor him it’s hard to say stylistically what’s going to happen in that match because don’t really know much about his opponent but uh yeah I have to favor Victor in that match yeah [Music] um let’s say there’s three more matches on the main card we’re going to touch on before we get on to the updates with the ADCC and cji and then we’re going to round off the podcast with a quick review of the Polaris event that happened at the weekend in the UK so um let’s talk about a match with with two faves of the ji Jitsu Oracle Joseph Chen against Elijah dyum yeah so two trials winners from this year um even though Joseph will be moving over to CGI he won the European trials and Elijah won the North American trials so this match very interesting the big thing for me in this is with the six obviously Joseph has a really good guard we’ve seen him submit some really good people from the bottom and do some good things from the bottom but I think he’s mostly known for his guard passing and then like secondary to that uh his wrestling his wrestling is really good but I think Elijah’s wrestling is also very very good and he’s very very physical and hard to move about or do anything with and we saw that with him against Niki Ryan obviously training room is a different situation to compete in but I think whenever we see Joseph and Nikki roll with each other I think Nikki definitely looks like he has the better wrestling so interested to see in this whether Joseph will stand with Elijah and how that goes I think if he gets on top of Elijah he can definitely pass his guard I think he’s got some of the best passing in his weight class the question is whether he will be able to get on top and if he’s on bottom will he be able to do anything to Elijah because we know when Elijah is on top of someone he is an absolute nightmare to do anything to uh very good at just getting planted into his passing positions very hard to move about or score or do anything to um and then solid passing when he kind of grinds his opponents down from that solid posture so that’s the kind of big question mark to me in this is whether Joseph will stand with him whether he can stand with him and take him down or whether he’s going to play guard what are your thoughts on that yeah I think it is Battle of like who can get on top um if Elijah’s on bottom I wonder how he’s going to sweep Joseph yeah we don’t see a lot of his his guard game because his wrestling is so good so that would be interesting but I would favor Joseph to to get the guard pass his guard passing is very good but yeah we don’t know if he’s going to get there or not yeah and then I think there will be time in the match on the feet and I would give the edge to Elijah there yeah um so I think it’s a match that like it can be like a variety of positions could happen I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a bit of both guys on the bottom a bit of some wrestling I think if Elijah gets on top of Joseph he can definitely rack up some good time there yeah um so maybe maybe Elijah by decision based on the fact that like he’ll be on top for like a good proportion of the match but I think there’ll be other bits in the match that will be more option packed and then like maybe guys like maybe if Joseph gu the top Elijah will just get back to his feet rather than sweep and then try and wrestle and then like maybe Joseph will pull off that if he can’t get take down but then then he’s got the problem with Elijah being on top of him so I mean it really could go either way I’d favor Elijah by decision uh but um definitely an exciting match um and just while we’re here there’s another exciting match for Joseph that’s going to come hot in the heels of this because he’s taking on Andy verela on Sunday June the 23rd and that’s an interesting match because both of them are going to be in the Craig Jones Invitational as well but very different style match up for Joseph going up against Andy who is really all action and the action goes all over the place uh as opposed to Elijah Who Um can be uh more accustomed to keeping the match in one place particularly if he’s on top and you’re not able to move so yeah so definitely both in the ballpark as far as like where they’re at both winning trials um some opponents in comman we saw Joseph beating Tommy in the trials and we saw Tommy after being in some deep trouble with Elijah beating Elijah but then we’ve seen Elijah beating Nikki Ryan and Nikki Ryan definitely seems to get the better of Joseph in training anyway so yeah interested to see how this uh plays out in the competition well done the matchmakers for coming up with this match um okay couple matches left on the main card let’s talk about the women first Anna Rodriguez against Adell for ninho yeah this is an interesting match um not seen much of Adele outside of her aame her really dangerous guard um good arm bars and leg locks um but I think that is something that she can catch a lot of people with think Anna Rodriguez bit more well-rounded bit more positional and definitely a lot more experiened so I think that’s how we’re going to see the match probably see Adell pulling guard going for her dangerous submission attacks off of her back and then we’ll see Anna trying to play her top game and get her pass and game point so I think if it gets finished early it’s going to be aele taking the match if not I think Anna’s experience and passing is going to be able to navigate through adell’s guard and uh get the decision Victory if not kind of get her into like a pin situation to get a submission or maybe take the back so that’s how I kind of view this match but I think it’s very exciting from a stylistic point of view what do you think yeah I mean there’s quite disparity in experience obviously A-Rod is an incredibly seasoned competitor and Adele’s kind of come on to the the scene at this level in recent times um as you said big big threat from the guard um if I was aod I’d be trying desperate stay out of the closed guard um I think if she can avoid that then um she will have a good chance to either pass or like take the back in a scramble or something like that um I think our game’s like more expansive than Adele’s but I think Adele is super dangerous so she just has to trade carefully particularly like in the early stages of the match where you know Adele could uh pull to like an aggressive close guard and then you know you can get bogged down there and and not only can you get bogged down there but if you make a mistake you can leave a limb that can be snatched up so favor A- Rod um but again another match where even although um we are leaning towards one player it’s definitely like an offering that either could win so again hats off to uh Flo gratland for putting together a good match and last match on the main card that we’ll talk about uh DeAndre Corby one of your boys against Ethan crownstone I think the big question is how’s DeAndre going to adapt to the who’s number one environment Callum what do you think H yeah this is debatably um my match I’m most looking forward to like I say there’s a few on here that I’m really looking forward to looking forward to the card in general but this one uh definitely I think these two in their weight class and just in general are two of the most well-rounded guys out there both amazing uh from standing amazing guard passing amazing guard both really well versed with leg locks both got amazing back control both got amazing pinning so I think overall they’re both amazing both really well-rounded I see the biggest difference being in their kind of style and physicality so Ethan is very much chaotic very much movement based loves to scramble loves to keep things moveing moving and tries to come out on top and scrambles and take the back whereas DeAndre is very much the opposite he likes to kill all the movement stop you from moving H moving get on top and just kind of grind out and get the pass from there and pinned so I think it’s really interesting to see where they kind of go I think Ethan has been a bit more insistent on wrestling as of late we saw him pool guard against Fab and wrestle but I think for the most part he likes to wrestle DeAndre very good wrestling as well but he really doesn’t mind sitting to he’s got a very good Guard from there and uh very good at entering into the legs and sweeping from there so like I say I think skill-wise they’re like really well matched in every area but I think their kind of philosophy for how they go about implementing those skills as well as the physicality um kind of fast twitch versus slow twitch seems to be the biggest difference in this in in this match from a storyline perspective it’s interesting because DeAndre is very much on the up a young up incomer and Ethan is one of the more established names um at this way class so um be interesting to see how the match goes and whether DeAndre is going to be like I think he will be but a force at uh in this in these ranks for like a long time it’s a good match for him to get against like a veteran like Ethan a match that he can win um and imag if he does win then he takes out someone who’s got a big name in that division um really interested to see how Ethan Luke T like to me it doesn’t feel like I’ve seen him compete loads of late what do you think am I have I just been have I just been sleeping on him or well you had that match recently on Karate combat but I don’t think that was like an overly competitive match um I don’t think this as opponent was really on his level so yeah we saw him do the first trials alongside the Andre none of those guys managed to win that one and then D Andre won the second trials and Ethan didn’t compete in that one I don’t believe and yeah it doesn’t seem like he’s had that many matches here and there he doesn’t typically do tournaments outside of ADCC don’t really see him doing the I GF um if there’s like a super fight tournament with some money on the line we’ll see him jump in but yeah I don’t think I’ve seen him in a lot of matches as of late so yeah it’ be interesting to see what kind of form he’s in both these guys will be doing ADCC given there in the 66 kilow class so potential um opponents in ADCC so it be interesting from that perspective as well but just looking forward to seeing both of them displaying their well-rendered Jiu-Jitsu and seeing who comes out on top on that yeah and just on that weight class in the ADCC possibly the most competitive weight class of them all so from Luke and and a weight class that is likely to be dominated by Brazilians when it come comes to who gets on the podium so it’ll be interesting to see if any non Brazilians can uh disrupt that and from that point of view seeing how these two guys look when they square off and if they’re in great form um that will be that’ll be good to see because uh it would be nice if like we saw um some other guys get into the mix in that under 66 weight class but it’s going to be really really difficult now on the edcc and cji can we quickly talk about a couple of changes that we believe have happened um okay so first off the last time we did pod Callum we read a bit about how we’re looking forward to seeing Adam Bradley in the ADCC um because of what happened to him at the trials and how he might get a potential rematch with Michael Pixley and then very quickly Adam Bradley announced that he was doing cji so uh we’ll come on to the the cji additions in a minute but first off in the under 99 division for the men which uh those of you with computers laptops and not Spotify uh you’ll see that Kaz although I believe I believe it’s an older version of the list that uh is currently uh on my phone but Adam Bradley not not to worry Adam Bradley’s out going to cji and he’s been replaced by Kyle B and also in that division we now have have zariski which is interesting because it puts 17 people into that division so I don’t know if they’re expecting someone to jump but um that as it stands just now and then the only other change is uh of R Rosevelt sza is in the over 99 division um and in the female categories we have Kendall rousing added to the female over 65 and McKenzie Dar is out of the under 55 and we did a little bit on her in the last pod we were kind of surprised to see her name on there so it seems that she’s appeared and then disappeared and nothing much has been said about it uh so um yeah don’t know why but no McKenzie D so any of those names uh that you want to comment on um not really it’s just a bit surprising from ADCC why they don’t advertise what they’re doing a little bit more uh some things just seem to go on the website we’ve seen a super fight with Gordon and Felipe on the website nothing was said about it then it was taken off so it just seems a bit strange but yeah there’s been some changes so I’m looking forward to seeing those guys in ADCC and we’ll keep you up to date with all the changes as they happen as we podcast uh cji Callum not as many not as many changes we talked about Adam Bradley jumping in if you’ve not seen Adam Bradley’s uh post about why he decided to make the switch recommend you go to his Instagram thought it was very thoughtful and well written uh his explanation um so that’s in the over 80 kilo category and then we also have very recent addition I don’t believe his names on the graphic nasio Santos um who had won South American trials um as decided at over 99 kilograms has decided to go to CGI instead of doing CC and then couple of interesting names under a I don’t think on our last pod we mentioned Andy verel um if we did then Andy verel is in if we didn’t then Andy verel is in so guarant be guaranteed to be some excitement with him competing and mentioned that he’s got a match against Joseph Chen coming up real soon and then a name here that is very interesting and um definitely going to bring something different to the table and that is Jason n so Carl what do you make of these additions yeah I think Jason N is a very interesting one I really like that and I think it’s a bit of a throw back to some of the earlier adccs when it was almost like a UFC of grappling we saw guys from different grappling disciplines can competing against each other so Jason DOL uh I think we recently saw him in a um noi grappling match that he won I think he hit a nice duck under and then um won the match after that we’ve not seen much of him in jiuyu so it’ll be interesting to see how his skills transfer over I know that he has been training with some of the guys in Austin I think he does some training with like the tack Bros and I think he’s done some stuff with the B Team guys in their gym before so I’m sure he’s had plenty rounds with some really high level guys so be cool to see how his game transfers into noi but as well as that we always speak about the really high level teams and Jiu-Jitsu being like aoj in New Wave and I think hen State wrestling is just one of the best programs in Combat Sports um across the board and that’s what he comes from so coming from a really high level team in wrestling so we’ll see how that uh plays into it and as well as that I think we’ve seen comments from his Penn State teammate or former pen Penn State teammate because they’re not there anymore they’re not in University but Bo nickl has expressed interest in it as well in a podcast so maybe that’ll be an announcement in the future that he would like to crack at that that 1 million so I think that’s a really interesting name that’s been thrown in there and I’m looking forward to seeing how he does against some of the guys in that bracket yeah I believe Jason NF is a three-time NCAA champ so fantastic pedigree uh bo nickl I I did see that he wants to do it I just wonder with his MMA aspirations whether he’ll be able to do it uh yeah it’s an interesting point but we see quite a lot of the time MMA guys doing Jiu-Jitsu so obviously with the UFC contract they can’t go and fight for Bellator or another promotion however they do seem to be able to do um us competitions I think I remember sha Ali even doing like a grappling Industries a few years back so uh maybe there’s something in their contract about it but it’ll be a good chance for those guys to earn some money and b nickel is someone we’ve seen compete a little bit more in Jiu-Jitsu than Jason off and he’s looked really really good in the matches that I’ve seen I remember a win Tech match on Fight Pass when he was against Oliver Taza and granted he’s a bit bigger than Oliver Taza but he looked amazing in that match and that was a good few years ago um probably with very limited Jiu-Jitsu and MMA training um that match went to a draw because there was no sub but um B nickl definitely got the better of Taza in that match and then we’ve seen him against Gordon but there wasn’t much shitu going on in that he kind of just suplexed Gordon and then Gordon submitted him so I think that would be a really interesting name at over 80 kilos so we’ll see what happens with that yeah the reason I use the word aspirations is because I don’t know what he’s got booked for the got some M eatch coming out then that’s going to be that’s going to be difficult but if he’s got if he’s got a bit of downtime if he’s got a clear run at it then then maybe he’ll be able to jump in um okay so some extra names to cji and ADCC and then let’s round off to chat by looking at Polaris that happened in the UK at the weekend um why don’t we talk about the main event first because it wasn’t the most exciting match so I think our coverage of it will be quite short uh it was Owen livsey against uh baky uh MMA fighter who was um replaced y Romero at short notice and um I believe Owen was announced as the Victor on the night but ultimately it was declared a draw and it was a match where like despite Owen’s best efforts nothing really got going and we even saw Owen pull guard trying to get something going H and Owen uh being um a former high level Judo practitioner very much likes to keep it on the FI feet and uh score with uh throws and we’ve seen him adapt to noi ji- Jitsu very very well so bit of a disappointment in the main event um what were your thoughts on it K yeah so everyone was obviously very excited to see the match with you Romero which was cancelled because of uh weather reasons where U was coming from H this guy was definitely able to hold his own against wien but uh coming from an entertainment perspective definitely wasn’t the most entertaining he’s very much being very defensive and backing up and um anyone that’s done a bit of wrestling knows that if you’re just kind of purely defensively focused um and not really wanting to engage even if someone is a bit better in the wrestling it can be very hard for them to get anything going if your kind of only thought is to back up a bit and and be super defensive so yeah a bit disappointed in from that entertainment point of view um in that match in the main event okay so there were entertaining matches on the card though um when do you the most entertaining one of the rest of the matches Kum um so let’s just have a look at this poster again so the one I was looking forward to the most was mattius versus Levi I think that was a very interesting one to watch everyone was interested in watching that stylistically um both guys known as guard players both very good at the Bolos and then matus with the leglocks as well it had been speculated that we might see Levi come up up and pass and that was exactly what had happened so the reason I found this quite interesting was we’ve not seen a lot of guys pass against Mattias and not get dragged into his game um so we saw Matas get into the legs a couple times um and that’s usually a wrap from there but Levi was able to deal with it pretty early and free his knee and even counter with some uh Baron blls off of that but most interesting just the kind of posture he was adopting to not get dragged into tast his game too much there very much tripod sort of posture from the open guard and from like KNE cut sort of positions leading with his head keeping his hips and his legs back so maybe that’ll be a bit of a blueprint people can uh try and Implement against mat in the future given that he’s one of the scariest guys to compete against in that weight class but we did see Maus Come Away with the decision in that match just given that he got into his game a couple times and got a couple attacks off a little bit even though not much too H not much happened in the match too much but from like a study perspective it was quite interesting I thought yeah I think matias’s guard was very disciplined and some good recoveries High pummels Etc so we we normally look at matus from an attacking uh perspective but I thought he was very good defensively in this match against someone in Levi who’s a great attacker in himself um so I’d love to see them compete against each other again think they’re very evenly matched it really could go either way and if they compet against each other again’ be interesting to see the adjustments that both made in order to try and get the victory um okay another exciting match on the card was Stevie Ray against Jed Hugh carum what did you think of that match yeah that match was really exciting um Jed obviously coming from a pure B grappling backround and then Stevie coming from MMA think he was a bit bigger in the match definitely seemed like there was a bit of a physicality difference given the weight I think um I’ve seen Stevie post that he’s walked around before at about night OD kilos so um carrying that sort of muscle and we all know that MMA guys tend to be a bit better conditioned and a bit more physical than a lot of grappling athletes I think that played into the match but really impressed with how Stevie was able to handle himself in all areas of the match Jed obviously known for his leg walks um was able to submit Paul Craig pretty much instantly well leg lock and we’ve seen Stevie in matches of his own go for leg lock so um we’re expecting him to be somewhat well versed but wherever it went in the match leg locks or um wherever he was very comfortable in defending himself and even towards the end of the match got some of his game going got a pass on Jed and forced him to Turtle so that was his highlight for the match but um overall we saw Jed get the decision and rightly so because he was attacking for 90% of the match getting his game going um edin’s legs a few times looked like it was quite close but like I say Steve you looked pretty comfortable defending from all positions so very fun match and lot of movement in the match a lot of different exchanges so that was definitely one of my favorite matches on the card yeah I just think any of the exchanges interactions um well it was a little bit of back and forth Jed seemed to get the better of most of them and sort of like come out on top get get to the better position so a deserved victory for Jed um Ben Bennett against cant let’s talk about that one car yeah so we saw these two uh on the feet to start off with if I remember correctly would have thought maybe Ben would have pulled seems like his normal game is uh very submission heavy from from his guard but I think I remember santii pulling guard and getting to top or coming up on a wrestle up and getting to the back but anyway once he got to the back which was relatively early in the match um that’s pretty much just where it stayed he was pretty clapped on from there Ben’s defense looked pretty good from um just not getting submitted that sort of perspective but as far as getting out he wasn’t really able to get much going um and Santi was able to get the decision in that match yeah um yeah just when santii got it’s typical santii you know when he gets the like a dominant position he’s pretty hard to shift from it uh and looked really good on the back so um yeah a good win for Sant it was a it was a good challenge for Ben I mean we saw Ben do really well the most recent Euro trials and uh he’s going up against Sant he’s been one of the best Grapplers in Europe at that weight class um so it was a good test for him but uh yeah Sant really good uh noi submission Grappler uh just look a real tough proposition given his um ability to wrestle and and you know stay safe and get dominant positions and really like wear you out so good victory for S Terry um Helena crer against Jessica tortilla Helena Tak to a decision this time which is something that we don’t always see um I think we we did a recent podcast about the 80% club and we were looking at Grapplers who have more than 80 % of their wins come by way of submission and I would think uh Helena would probably be in there well not quite on the list in terms of uh being at the true Elite level of the sport because she’s still an up and CER and we were looking at guys like Gordon Ryan and mik galvo Helena submission uh ratio is very very high but taking to a decision uh just throw this in there because I saw the other day M shinski submission rate so he’s had 50 m well 50 wins at Black Belt I think he’s 50 and9 and 48 of those wins um by submission so that’s like 96% so that’s pretty crazy but yeah same thing applies to Helena she was attacking a lot in this match definitely hunting the submission she just didn’t quite get the execution off she had some good attempts some outside heel hooks as well as jumping on some front headlock attacks and some back attacks but wasn’t quite able to execute on those submission attempts but overall very dominant and was definitely hunting for the submission the whole match even if she didn’t end up getting it yes and last match on the main card we’re going to talk about another one of your boys Callum yeah younger another one of your faves um he was up against Sam Quinn tell us how it went yes I was really happy to see Ellis back competing um he’s been out for a little while now with a back injury so didn’t seem like that was hindering him at all in the match very similar match to one he had with Ben Bennett a while ago um where he was kind of just mounted on Ben the whole match didn’t manage to get the sub in that but in this match he h kind of shot in and got to a sort of rear body lock position and Sam was able to actually throw Ellis from there with that sort of like Great Vine Haro she counter throw that a lot of people are doing in Jiu-Jitsu at the moment um I’ve seen Ellis post before though that his best position is is being in a guillotine so he’s very comfortable defending from there was able to get up on top and pass and for the majority of the match he was just completely controlling Sam um going between the mount and the back I think his Mount and back control is really really solid when he gets there on someone when he gets to like that range where he’s like chest to chest super close with someone he’s just like an anaconda he’s just like constantly like squeezing himself in keeping himself at that range and it was just like a complete master class and controlling from there um saw the commentator saying that he was looking for Ellis to push the pace for the sub and commentators curse Ellis managed to get the choke from the back about 10 seconds after that comment so really good performance from Ellis and I’m excited to see him against some big names in Polaris in the future agreed and I think I’ve mentioned before talking about Ellis how impressive his Sweep game is and how he uses it to get chest to chest top position can of reminds me of um Adam vinski now yeah who does sweep to top he’s very deep into top position chest to chest opponent’s arms are often up up high over their shoulders Etc so I think Ellis is brilliant at that and he’s really added that uh top game um to an already good game that he had and yeah one one of the leading liks in the UK and uh terrific to see him back competing and hopefully can go on and take out some more big names in the future so we’ll be back with our next pod which will be wrapping up the who’s number one event but we’re not going to be back until a few days after it happened because Callum and I are off to Manchester and straight Blast Gym UK having their annual camp and uh we’re going to be doing a weekend of jiujitsu so we’ll have to get back and then watch all the matches before we share our thoughts and then we’ll also be keeping up to date with any moves that happen with the edcc and cji and then we’re going to get into our tier lists for both events where we’re going to rank the competitors uh slotting them into different categories and letting us know letting you know who we think will do what in both events and they are going to be graphic heavy so definitely recommend uh watching them on YouTube uh to get the best experience possible but for now we will uh take a little break for a few days go and do some Jitsu in Manchester then come back watch the H number one event and let you know what we think