BTG 135 - Who is the best Heavyweight in BJJ?

[Music] Hello and welcome to the Breaking the Guard podcast. As you may have noticed, we've changed the the setting quite a bit. There's a good amount of remodeling going on. Uh so we'll get back into the the regular studio. In the meantime, we're just in another room in my house here. Um, but today I wanted to talk about the who's number one that just passed. It was a very good event. Good finish. Good amount of finishes going on. Uh, I also would want to brag that I picked 100% right on the main event. Uh, and that wasn't very easy to do because there was a lot of good matchups. If we start from the bottom of the card, we had uh Zanji and Boogie Richie Martinez from 10th Planet. And this one I thought was an easy one to pick. Honestly, uh, I thought Zanji was going to win by Kimura. And it's exactly what he did. He won by Kimura. I think that I' because I've coached against Richie before and it was the same thing. Get a Kimura. He's very flexible, very hard to submit with leg locks. He's a good leg locker himself. Uh you don't want to get stuck in a closed guard with him. But once you work to pass, that Kimora is going to be there. And again, I don't know anybody whose shoulders can turn 360. So, uh, that was the game plan for DJ Jackson, which he won with. I've seen other people do the same thing. So, I figured Sanjay, being a very smart competitor, would do that, and he did. Uh Richie did put up some good offense and defense off his back, but once he got the first referee's advantage, and I think maybe because he went for a leg block early and pulled guard, so Zanj didn't really uh do much before that, but that seemed to light a fire under under Zanji's butt because he went right into a stack pass. Then he was able to move into side control. immediately got the Kimmora, got the finish. Job well done by by Zanji, who's I think 44 now. So, I mean, I wonder how much longer is this guy going to go. Uh, but after him, then you had Owen Jones um versus someone who I was not familiar with. Uh the name is slipping me at the moment. It'll come back to me. But uh nonetheless, Owen Jones was able to get the job done, get the submission finished. Another one that I mean he was the bigger name, so that wasn't to me a big mystery. You had Andrew Tacket in there as well. And obviously him being the name I figured he would win. He did win by leg lock against a guy. I think it the Chris some he has a weird Christopher type name. Again, I apologize for not knowing your name, but I just a lot of people to get through. And he was able to catch him with a leg lock and it looked like he wasn't expecting it. And I thought there was going to be another uh a block going out because attack did have he was seated on top of him in like what we used to call reverse cowgirl but now like you call it reverse close guard but he wasn't closed guarding it yet. But rather than going into the entry for an A block, he jumped into inside heel hook with I think both legs over and was able to get a a quick tap. So good on him. Then you had Helena Cravar um with I think in the third match against Elizabeth Clay. And again, I was thinking Helena Cravar would pull it off and she did. She uh was able to work to the back. I figured her leg lock defense is very strong and Elizabeth Clay is mainly a leg locker. And uh what ended up happening was she did get a decent bite on a straight ankle, but she went outside Ashi, which puts your back at a risk of exposure, protect particularly against somebody who's got good leg lock defense and mobility like Helena does. And she was able to slip to the back and then eventually able to secure renegade choke. So, first three matches, three submissions in a row, then it moved into the co-made event, which was Victor Hugo versus Luke Griffith. Now, th this one to me was uh again tougher one to pick. Uh, I always go with the people I train with and know and so I was putting my bets on on Luke, but not overlooking uh, Victor, particularly since Luke now dropped significantly in weight. He went from being 250 to 220. When I first met him, he was in the 220 range. So, and he was great there. And again, he's a big guy because he's 67 or something like that. So, he's just huge. Uh, and he's definitely tall and limby, but I wouldn't say lanky. He's pretty stacked, right? Uh, he was a lot more stacked at 250, but I think that that might have been too much mass for him. Like, not everybody is supposed to be a muscle bound freak, right? Like, you know, some of us are supposed to be longer and and more agile that way. And I think particularly for his style being uh leaner is going to be better and it seemed to pay off for him in this match. Uh although Victor was I think 250 something maybe 260 I forget the exact weight. So significant size advantage and early in Victor was able to get to the back of Luke with the body triangle hunting for renegotes. looked pretty bad like at that point like a this bet's not working out well right now. Yeah, having the big man on your back who is someone as good as Victor is can be a nightmare. And I think it was like almost five minutes worth of maybe a little bit less than that if back uh time that Victor had. But eventually Luke was able to escape. He did try a bunch of different escapes that uh weren't uh really working there. And this is one of it's funny because the other day I was training with Jake and uh with everybody else I had worked on this back escape series that I've shown on the the course repeatedly and working flawlessly working under hook side working choking side uh you know working the turning escape working on um putting the bottom triangle down and then using the leg lock or extending get and I was able to get each one of these escapes to work. But then uh when I was training with Jake, uh none of those things were working. I mean, maybe a little bit, but man, I was I was having hell getting out. And it was just a reminder that when you're working against somebody who's a master at a position, even when you have the this the right answers, it's not as it's not that easy, right? like it's a lot of determination and and drive. And uh clearly that was the case because Luke was looking like he was uh uh looking for that hand lever trying to bring the outside foot in and pull it out, but it's what happens in real life is when you do put the foot in and you're trying to pull the foot up, the guy's trying to choke you at the same time. So you can't really grab the foot. you got to go back here, you know, and even if you're using the the leg to bump it up, you still at some point have to grab the ankle to pull it up to break up the body triangle, but that could be the time he's trying to choke you. So, it becomes very difficult to uh to defend those back body triangles, which he was having a really hard time. Uh he did he manage to escape which to me looked more like Victor's body triangle kind of wore out. It didn't look like it was a particular function of one technique more it's just like it got loose because he got tired of holding the position after defending or holding on to it from all these different escapes that he did. So I'm not taking obviously the escapes played a role in it but there wasn't one particular escape that broke it right that was a clean break. It was just more like time uh under tension eventually dissipated it and then uh Luke played a little bit on top and then they I think they stood up and then Luke was able to hit a nice duck under to the takedown and then um I believe he went right into the mount if I'm not mistaken and then from the mount he bridged was able to get to the back and then he was able to get his back body triangle. And now Luke with a with a body triangle, man, it's a nightmare. And again, I've trained with him before, he again, he's such a tall guy that if he can lock that body triangle, man, you're going to have a hell of a time getting out of there. Uh, and he's got such good hip control with it that he can shoot both arms in and choke indiscriminately. Like he doesn't need an underhook side control. Like you're not slipping out of it. So, uh, he was able to put a lot of pressure on Victor, but Victor, to his credit, was able to defend all the chokes. wasn't able to escape, but uh and he was held there for just a little bit under 10 minutes. So, also brutal position to be stuck under for that long. Uh yeah, it's for me even three minutes with some of a tight body triangle and my back's wrecked for like a couple days, you know? So, can you imagine 10 minutes with like full choking pressure defending all that? So, credit to Victor for being able to survive that long. Uh, he did at the end it looked like Luke was trying to get a finish. So, he did look like he broke away for like a kimora grip to arm bar. Victor saw it coming, was able to get on top, but the time ran out at that point. So, it was a good effort to just try to catch something and Luke ended up winning the decision. Uh, which, you know, they were obviously competing heavyweight. So, you know, now that puts Luke at kind of the top. He He's silver medalled in ACC. He, you know, beat now another guy, Victor Hugo, who just beat Nikki Rod, who wants CGI. Um the heavyweight picture is pretty mixed because if we go to the final match then we have Nick Rodriguez versus uh Kanye Dwarte C uh CGI champ million-dollar man versus double gold ADCC uh winner Kynan and u not their first time facing each other either. This one I picked Nick Rodriguez and again at the beginning looked like I had it wrong because at the very beginning uh Dwarte wasted no time shot snatched single leg put Nikki on his hands and made him in a quad pod started threatening to take the back and uh he wasn't able to throw any hooks in but he was keeping Nikki Rod on his fours you know in turtle position trying to get the hooks And but uh Nikki was doing a good job of going for Gramby rolls and going back to tripod then quadpod and forcing Kynan just to do breakdowns repeatedly. Now normally this is pretty fatiguing for the bottom guy too, but I think Nikki being a wrestler has a bit more experience working this position cuz he seemed fine. like he wasn't fatiguing getting up and rolling and getting up even though Kynan was doing some great mat returns some that like flattened him out completely for a second and uh it was looking like oh Kynan's going to have his way with him but he was eventually able to recover into guard which was then another big question it's like we really don't see Nicki Rod play guard too often if at all and u with Kynan being such a great guard passer particularly against butterfly guard. I thought, "Oh, this is going to be interesting." Like, how long is this guard going to last? And it turns out quite well. Uh Nikki was able to defend his guard through various pass attempts. Didn't seem to get really in any trouble, being honest. Uh he he wasn't being aggressive with his guard, but he was being soundly defensive and not allowing Kynan to pass. and when he got an opportunity was able to pop back up to his feet. So I was like, "Oh, okay." He he had enough guard work to defend his guard against a guy who was a world class, you know, world champion guard passer. So credit to to Nikki for that. And then he was able to score his own takedown. But the big difference is he scored a takedown, went straight into the by lock, right into the mount. And and one of the more perplexing things I've seen was Kynan putting zero attempts into escaping the mount. Zero. I don't know if he fatigued like he was just completely dead tired and could not move, but he didn't do one, one bridge, one kip, even a hip escape, like nothing. He just laid there like a dead fish. And normally, well, that would be a quick death because if you're letting a guy to sit on the mount for like 10 minutes, he's going to find ways to finish you. But sadly, Nicki Rod couldn't figure out a way to finish this guy. He looked like he had one thing that he knew how to do, which was dig under hook, look for the arm triangle. The only problem was he would get like so close to getting the the the arm trapped. And if you've seen me, I've taught like basically our Smount setup where you go to a smother choke or, you know, the mother's milk type submission. We get an under hook. We hike one knee up. We, you know, we arm lever our way through to be able to lock out. He would get all the way about here, but he wouldn't grab the head. He wouldn't use the other hand to cross face really well. And then Kynan would kind of hip up and then they would his shoulder would drop back down and he had to start over again. And over the course of the 10 minutes, they must have done this same dance like 15 times where he would get the arm so high up. Like you'll see Kanan's like right here, which normally at this like when the guy is elbow here or below, I have good downward pressure to resist you, right? Like I can still crunch it back in and recover. But once my elbow breaks his 90 and I'm here, like I can even feel my shoulder get weak at this point where now this is a a harder pull to start from. And he was getting him like here, you know. So the only way Kynan was getting out, it wasn't because he was musling his arm back down, is that his hips were moving up. So as his hips move, obviously the shoulder is going to drop relative to that and he was able to recover. Uh, but it was frustrating as a viewer to watch because you're like this should have been either escaped by Kynan doing one legitimate submission. I mean, mount escape or Nikki Rod securing a finish. Uh, but none of that happened and we just had 10 minutes of him laying on top of him. Not being able to get a position that he was working for in 10 minutes and he won, you know, uh, and it was dominant, just not exciting at all. The more interesting thing about this picture now is that now you have, okay, CJI U champion defeats the ADCC double gold champion. So, where does that put CJ CJI? My brother says something that I say CG, so I'm overthinking it now. The CJI champion has just defeated the ADCC double gold champ who I think had six submissions on his way to the to double gold. It's I think it's only below uh Roger Gracie who had I think seven of eight if I'm not mistaken. So, it's like one of the most decorated champions uh in ACC in recent times and he just got dominated by Nikki Rod, the CGI champion. I'm sure Craig Jones is going to go crazy in the marketing for this to pump him up. But this title picture now is very confused, right? because you have uh Victor has beaten Nick. Um Luke has beaten Victor and then Kynan now just lost to Nick and then Penna has beat Luke. So, this is where we could say, you know, MMA math or in this case, jiu-jitsu math doesn't work, right? You know, A beats B doesn't mean B beats C, right? Like, or A beat C. Like, it it's all messed up right now. There's no clear uh guy that's who is the best right now at heavyweight. It's like of the current competing guys. I think if Gordon was in there, it's a pretty easy pick that Gordon, you know, is better than everybody, but doesn't seem like he's coming back anytime soon. So, we have to assume that he's out of it uh out of the running for the time being and we're looking at the active competitors in this case. Uh so, you have Penna, you have Luke, you have Victor, you have Kynan, and then we have Nick. five people who have a really good claim at being the best heavyweight and I'm sure we can find three more people who would definitely qualify uh for those that top position there uh and make a tournament out of it because it doesn't have to be same day tournament or it can just be kind of like you know a PFL type thing where put one versus the other one versus the other maybe even round robin where everybody gets rounds with each other because uh it's not easy to say who's the best heavyweight right now. Uh and they're all good. I think technically either Luke or Penna are probably the best. Penna right now obviously has the edge. He won the 80CC and he beat Luke. Um, so he's got a little bit of an edge there, but I think Luke just needed more mental maturity as far as overcoming adversity. That was also his first ADCC. So, making it into the gold medal match where he had the back early, almost had the ring naked choke. I'm sure he had a little bit of what I call like a finishers dump where uh he had a near finish and then lost it and that kind of demoralized him. And then when his opponent got the upper hand, he kind of just the momentum shift was so drastic that some people just break right there inexplicably. And it's a psychological phenomenon like you're like, "Oh man, I I had it in my hand and I let it slip." And you just let everything slip down versus you're like, "Okay, I made a small slip. I'm going to grab on to whatever I have and keep fighting, right?" And the fact that he had to deal with that early adversity with Victor was also good because it kind of proved like look, he can recover from bad position even early in the fight. Uh so and he asked for that rematch which makes sense as well. Uh uh Luke versus Penna rematch and who's number one makes a lot of sense to me. Although there's a lot of interesting matchups in that division right now. It's very interesting because they've all beating each other. So there's a lot of and they've all faced each other multiple times but they're they're changing quite a bit. a Luke versus Nicki Rod also would be very high tension uh simply because of the fact and I think they've even I think Nick beat him if I'm not mistaken or no I know he faced Nick beat Dan I don't know if he faced Luke I would have to look it up but uh that would be interesting to see as well given now their their positions in the game you know a Victor versus Pana or Victor versus Kynan. So like that's why like a tournament would make a lot of sense here because there's no clear great right now. They're all good. They're all, you know, winning and they're exchanging losses, but we need to see I I would like to see a champion emerge from this that is like undisputed. Right now it's highly disputed, right? all the the guys that won the big belts have lost. Uh so it's very curious. I mean Penn is actually looking the best. He hasn't competed I think since ADCC and you know he walked away with the gold. He didn't do the absolute. Uh and I think he was nursing some back injuries as well. So maybe that's why he's been a little bit dormant letting that recover. But it would be good for to him to jump back because he's probably I mean if not the most technical outside of Gordon, his his guard game is very tricky to deal with. He's shown that obviously once he gets on top he's a nightmare and he can take the back very well and finish off the back very well. So he's another very complete uh grappler. um the wrestling not obviously a strong point for him but and grappling is he he makes it work you know so uh yeah I would like to see those heavyweight matches and mix all those guys up that that would be good and uh the I would say the intrigue in the heavyweight division at least in grappling is alive and well in my opinion like when Gordon was in there it kind of killed a lot of it because Gordon was just smashing everybody, you know, it's just the reality of it. Although the last agency, he didn't really smash anybody, but he he did win his matches. Do I don't know about dominant, but he easily won the matches. It wasn't controversial, but uh I think the health issues are a lot more serious than we know. And um I I think that's taken a toll and I I just saw their school looks like that it's close to opening up. It seems like that's going to be the next transition. And if so, that's great. All right. But with him out of the picture, it definitely opens things up quite a bit because now, like I said, we don't know who the best guy is. There's a lot of good names. Like I said, those five are the ones that pop out to me as they all could make a claim and uh they could defend it. So, it would be interesting to see of all those guys, like I said, right now Pana looks like he's sitting in the best spot. Nikki Roden and just behind him, you know. Uh but and I would have said, well, Victor would have been just behind him because, you know, he just beat Nick, but then he lost to Luke who lost to Penna, right? So that's why to me I'm running in circles here, but it's it's in a very interesting picture. We don't normally get this many matchups that early with or not early but with the top people so recently uh that has gone back and forth. So someone should organize a tournament, do an eightman, throw three other people in there that are deserving of it uh which isn't hard to find and see who comes out on top. Now the the the rules set is always a factor, but I think the the format might be more important. Is it a single elimination eightman? Right. Is it a roundroin? You know, where each guy goes against each other guy and then whoever wins the most matches by, you know, the best method. That's a thing that could be played with also. Uh, I guess it just depends on how much interest besides myself there is in watching an event like this. I I think it'd be great. Uh, although we do have CGI coming up this year, their one advantage over ADCC is that they're saying they're going to be a yearly event, but the only problem is they just changed their whole format where now they're doing a team event. So, it kind of prevents them from being able to do this type of heavyweight tournament because they're now doing fiveman team event. So, and these guys are already in the divisions like, you know, Nikki Rod's in the B team and Luke Wilson, I mean Luke Griffith, excuse me, he's in uh New Waves team and I'm sure there's going to be at team where Kynan is in there and then I don't know, there's a Six Blades team. They definitely could make it now that you have Zande and Lovato and and Victor as three monster competitors and they have lighter weights too, you know, uh like Justin Raider, although I haven't heard from him in a bit, but I'm not sure where the other teams are. But like my what I'm saying is like they've taken already at least three of those big names off of being able to do a heavyweight tournament. So, this allows a third party to create a space to make a tournament for these guys and just do like a maybe even like a pay-per-view style heavyweight tournament. Uh, I I am curious how well do these grappling pay-per-views do. I'm not sure if those are like heavily sold or not, or maybe Flow Grapplings just needs to organize it. uh put together heavyweight eightman rapping tournament. I think everybody would watch that, especially if you put those names in there and pay them well.