After every ADCC tournament, the famous submission-grappling promotion releases their non-podium related prize winners, these are performance awards attributed to those who stood out for a particular reason, which is not always directly related to how far they went on the mats during game day.
All awards were released yesterday (October 15, 2019) and are officially decided by the ADCC commission. Winners will receive 1400 dollars (best fight being 700 each).
FASTEST SUBMISSION
Officially 18 seconds, even though we counted 14 from start to tap, that was all it took for Garry Tonon to surprise Edwin Najmi with a kani-basami (scissor leg sweep from standing) wight on to full control of the saddle position and subsequent inside heel-hook.
The match took place in the first round of the open weight division and was yet another outstanding performance by Tonon, who could have easily been one match away from being the man of the tournament after getting the fastest submission, a bronze medal and the best fight award (below).
BEST THROW
Stephanie Egger on Gabi Garcia
Almost a complete stranger to grappling’s mainstream audience, BJJ blue belt, and MMA fighter Stephanie Egger was faced with the gigantic task of facing Gabrielle Garcia on the 1st round of the ADCC +60 kilogram division this year.
An experienced athlete with 9 years of black belt experience, Garcia is the most accomplished female ADCC competitor of all time, being also well over 30 kg (66 lbs) heavier than Egger. Stephanie, however, was not phased by Gabi’s curriculum and shocked the jiu-jitsu community by taking the multiple-time world champion to overtime, where she landed the beautiful “drop” seoi-nage that earned her this prize.
Although likely ruled an hipon under a judo ruleset, the seoi did not grant Egger any points under the ADCC guidelines. This makes the award slightly confusing as there were plenty of cleaner, or more decisive, takedowns during the tournament. Nonetheless, this was a beautiful example of skill, timing and power at play, as well as a highlight moment of the tournament.
The Swiss athlete would go on to lose the match in overtime by 2 points to 0.
BEST MATCH
Hard to disagree with this choice, even though there was no shortage of outstanding matches on the mats during the ADCC Championship weekend.
Tonon and Canuto gave us, the fans, a stand-up war in which the final result was a majority decision victory to Garry. Renato started the match better with a beautiful lateral drop to side control in the first half of regulation time, unfortunately for the Checkmat athlete this was before the points came into play and therefore the score remained 0x0.
Even though the lateral drop was the most decisive moment of the match, as time progressed, Tonon’s relentless pace swayed the judges in his favor. All in all, this match could have gone either way, the pace was incredible and the prize well deserved given the show these two athletes put out.
BEST PLAYER
After earning the “Best Fighter” prize in 2017, Gordon Ryan does it again with a beautiful display of skill and submission flair that earned him double gold.
We feel that only two other athletes could have been on the race for Best Player with Ryan this year, namely JT Torres and Kaynan Duarte, but Ryan did indeed look special this year. No one got close to posing a threat to the John Danaher prodigy and it is very hard to argue with this decision.
