The Grapple Hut Huddle, July 2023

It's a news only edition as Eric finds it to be nicer to be at the beach than in front of a PC.

This month I’m on a vacation of sorts so won’t be providing much beyond a quick news recap and highlight of big grappling events for July. I have an article I’m excited to share which you can find on my personal substack The Grapple Hut that will be coming out in August or so.

THIS MONTH'S BIG GRAPPLING EVENTS

July 14 - ONE Fight Night 12: Kai vs Le 2 (ONE’s YouTube)

While there is only one grappling event happening on ONE Fight Night 12, let’s be clear that in general ONE’s cards out of Thailand under the ONE Friday Fights and ONE Fight Night banners have been bangers. The card is mostly MMA heavy but features a Muay Thai main event with Superlek so that’s worth staying tuned for. The grappling match is a women’s 125lb bout pitting Tammi Musumeci against Amanda Alequin, both of whom are incredibly talented. Musumeci is an ADCC veteran making her return to competition after her last showing in March at ONE Fight Night 8. Alequin has faced Musumeci in a losing effort back in 2021, and is looking to even the score. She’s not been as active though and this will be her first notable match in 2023. Also, much like when Kade Ruotolo took on Tommy Langaker a few weeks back, this is going to be a grappling match held in a kickboxing ring which means there’s some likelihood of ring based comedic shenanigans.

THE NEWS

There’s been a decent run of news that relates to jiu jitsu/grappling in terms of professional competition over the past few weeks.

Lachlan Giles Given $100k USD To Help Growth of Australian Jiu Jitsu Scene

Lachlan Giles, who we all love and adore, recently announced some interesting news. He has been entrusted with $100,000 USD to help the growth of jiu jitsu in his home country of Australia via an anonymous donor. Giles has been given the autonomy to do with the funds whatever he sees fit.

Lachlan has already put half the money towards supporting active competitors (provided they pass a drug test). His criteria was that the funds would be for active competitors who have been successful in internationally recognized tournaments. Mostly, this is all to help support those athletes’ careers and provide them more financial stability than what is typically found within the sport.

The usage of the second half of the fund given to Giles has yet to be announced but its likely to be meant be used in a similar fashion down the line.

ADCC Adds New Women’s Weight Class

The ADCC World Championship event has long been seen as the pinnacle of competitive jiu jitsu, and one thing has been noted in all that time: there’s a lack of women’s divisions. For the longest time now there’s only been two divisions, the -66kg and the +66kg divisions respectively. For the 2024 ADCC World Championship, ADCC announced that they will be introducing a new weight class for the women’s division with the introduction of a 60kg division.

This is a big opportunity for lighter weight women’s competitors who were either unable to compete against those in the -66kg division due to size disparities, or just didn’t have much opportunity for high level competition. With this, and hopefully more, weight class additions for the women’s division to be on par with the men’s, there is potential for a larger growth in the women’s competitive scene.

2024 ADCC World Championship Venue Announced

ADCC have recently announced that their 2024 ADCC World Championship event will indeed be returning to Las Vegas for the third time in a row. Given the decent fan attendance and overall preference for the city by ADCC and for the most part the competitors, this part isn’t too shocking.

However they also announced a step up in terms of the venue. In 2022, the World Championship was hosted at the Thomas & Mack Center with 12,000 fans in attendance, setting a record for the grappling event. This time for the 2024 ADCC World Championship, the organization has officially announced that the event will take place inside the T-Mobile Arena, a significantly larger arena with the potential space for 18,000 spectators.

UFC Aiming For Six Grappling Events A Year

In the vlogs by B-Team tracking Craig Jones, Haisam Rida, and Nick Rodriguez’s UFC Fight Pass Invitational 4 journey, there was a section of the pre-event rules meeting wherein one of the UFC staff shared information on the future UFC has for their grappling events. Specifically there will be two more events later this year with one in September and another in December. Further more, it was indicated that the UFC are aiming to host and put on more jiu jitsu events on the Fight Pass streaming service, with claims its supported across the whole company up to the folks working at Endeavor (UFC’s parent company). In addition, with Polaris, Subhunter Pro, and UFC Fight Pass Invitational events on the platform the UFC are hoping to host between 18 to 20 jiu jitsu events throughout 2024.

In a post-event discussion on the B-Team’s YouTube channel, Nicky Ryan elaborated further that the UFC stated there are discussions of holding six UFC Fight Pass Invitational events per year starting next year. This all seems to indicate that although the UFC & ADCC streaming deal weirdly started and ended within a month of its announcement, the UFC are still looking to encroach on FloGrappling’s stranglehold on high level competitive jiu jitsu events for a cheaper price to watch.

Georges St. Pierre To Compete In Grappling

Long time MMA favorite Georges St. Pierre announced he’s returning to competition, but not in an MMA bout. At the UFC 290 prefight press conference it was revealed that GSP will be competing on the December 14th UFC Fight Pass Invitational 6 card, though no opponent was announced at the time of writing. GSP is now in his 40s (dear god we’re getting old) and hasn’t been active in any form of competition other than people fawning over his hair since 2017 when he won the UFC Middleweight championship.

While there’s been no confirmation on an opponent, GSP is very keen to have a grappling match against former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov which would be fairly entertaining as both GSP and Khabib are lauded for their grappling and wrestling abilities.