Claudia Gadelha on what UFC BJJ does not want to see: “A guard passing contest for 15 minutes”
The organization’s president said guard play is fine “as long as your guard is aggressive” and that the same goes for leg locks; she explained how Cassia Moura won without going through Adele Fornarino’s guard
The split decision that gave Cassia Moura her second UFC BJJ belt raised a question at the UFC BJJ 12 press conference: is fighting from the bottom, in the guard, now a bad idea in the organization? President Claudia Gadelha said no, but she made clear what kind of match the event does not want to see.
“I think guard play is beautiful. It’s very technical and it’s part of jiu-jitsu,” Gadelha said on Thursday, October 8, in Las Vegas. “I think you can play guard as long as your guard is aggressive and you’re looking for submissions the whole time. Same thing with leg locks, right?”
“It’s not very exciting”
Then she described what the organization is trying to avoid. “The thing we don’t want to see is a jiu-jitsu match turning into a guard pass contest, like the top player trying to pass the guard and the bottom player just not letting the top person passing the guard. That’s the thing we don’t want to see because it’s not very exciting,” she said.
“When we look at the technique and the beauty of jiu-jitsu, we want to see more of the sport. We want to see takedowns, we want to see guard passes, but not a guard passing contest for 15 minutes,” she added. Fifteen minutes is the full length of a UFC BJJ match, which has three five-minute rounds.
How Moura dealt with Fornarino’s guard
Gadelha used the main event as her example. Adele Fornarino spent a good part of the match on the bottom, attacking the Brazilian’s legs, and locked in a heel hook at the end of the first round. Moura won by split decision.
“The way the judges saw that match was that Cassia, instead of trying to pass through Adele’s K guard, she was disengaging to pass around, cuz it’s actually the only way you can pass that guard. Adele is very good with that K guard. It’s almost impossible to pass,” Gadelha said. She added that she watched many of Fornarino’s matches, including the ones against Ffion Davies and Bia Mesquita.
In her view, the Brazilian came prepared. “Cassia kind of did her homework and she watched all Adele’s matches and she was able to build a strategy where she disengaged and went around instead of going through,” she said. At the same press conference, Moura said her plan was to push the pace and make the Australian tired.
Not a new subject
It was the second time in a few weeks that Gadelha talked about the style she wants in the event. Two weeks before UFC BJJ 12, she said that butt scooting and leg locks are boring. At the event, four of the five submissions at UFC BJJ 12 were leg locks, all of them in the first round.
At the press conference, she put both under the same rule: guard play and leg locks are welcome when they come with attacks. She also said a rematch between Moura and Fornarino is the right thing to do.
Is UFC BJJ right to ask for a more aggressive guard? Leave your opinion in the comments.
