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Guard Play Reigns Supreme At WNO 22

Guard Play Reigns Supreme At WNO 22

A closer look at the guard work stood out from WNO 22.

William
February 13th, 2024

First Things First

This weekend FloGrappling’s WNO came back with an awesome event. The UFC was busy phoning it in with another Apex card on the Saturday after, so this WNO came at the perfect time. Today we’re going to take a closer look at the action from the top of the event.

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Quick Word On The Weekend

It’s never been a better time to be a combat sports fan. The UFC is still the 800 pound gorilla in the industry, but there are plenty of promotions and violence to satisfy our combat sports desires.

This past week alone we had a major professional boxing fight on Thursday, WNO on Friday, and a UFC card on Saturday. Before we talk about the action from the center of that card sandwich, let’s quickly touch on a legend’s fight in the UFC.

Rodolfo Vieira is one of the most terrifying Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors of all time. He earned the nickname “The Black Belt Hunter” by punching way above his weight early in his career.

Vieira’s style is to melt people with pressure. Unfortunately his UFC career has been a bit ho-hum for the past 5 years. Vieira lost to the now surging Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez and Chris Curtis, both top 15 middleweights.

This weekend Vieira was back to form with his signature pressure and arm triangle choke. Check out this quick breakdown:

How to set up a world class arm triangle choke
Featuring:
Rodolfo Vieira
— Open Note Grappling 🗒️ (@OpenNoteGrapple)
Feb 11, 2024

Now, let’s get on to the subject of today’s article. WNO 22 and the awesome Brazilian jiu-jitsu we saw.

Diego “Pato” Oliveira vs Dante Leon

Midway through the main event, two WNO title holders squared off. 145 pound champion Pato moved up in weight to take on 155 pound title holder Leon. Considering Leon’s physicality I thought this was going to be a squash match.

Much of the match was Leon trying to pass while Pato played guard. Halfway through, Pato actually scored a beautiful elevation and swept Leon.

_{De La Riva → Inversion To Top}

Pato is trying to play De la Riva and Leon is stuffing his legs.

Pato starts to roll under to enter the legs so Leon sits backward.

As Leon’s hips hit the mat Pato opts to roll on top and start passing.

Pato attacks, Leon retreats, and then he lives on to fight back from the score cards.

After Pato secured this beautiful sweep and a separate submission threat he was clearly on his way to taking home a decision. Leon could not afford to give up another sweep and hope to take home a win.

_{De La Riva → Outside Ashi → Heel Hook}

Pato is somewhere between De La Riva and the waiter position while Leon is pulling the grip off his leg.

Pato puts his leg inside to elevate Leon while he uses a wrist grip to pull Leon’s hips up.

Pato secures the leg with outside ashi and gets the heel hook win.

The important thing to point out here is Leon was making a concerted effort to stay on top. He was basing out and putting his weight down while Pato was pulling him over head with his wrist grip. This left Leon’s leg behind and Pato could snatch it up with outside ashi.

Pato’s precision cannot be understated here. He was basically in perfect breaking position as soon as he threw his legs up midway through rolling.

The last time Leon lost a match at his weight class was 2 years ago at ADCC. This is also the first time he’s been submitted since 2021.

Overall an incredible win for Pato.

The next match of the evening featured another younger Brazilian jiu-jitsu phenom, Mica Galvao.

Mica Galvao vs Kenta Iwamoto

Mica Galvao is a generational talent. He actually has a win over Dante Leon, and, like Leon, the last time he lost at his weight class was two years ago at the last ADCC World Championships.

Iwamoto was a late replacement for his teammate Nicky Ryan. He has won the ADCC trials three times and he has a hard charging wrestling style. Unfortunately that largely worked against him.

_{Single Leg → Shoulder Crunch → Triangle → Arm Bar → Reverse Hitchhiker Escape}

Iwamoto shoots a single leg and Galvao digs an under hook.

Galvao turns the under hook into a shoulder crunch, which gives him the space to shoot a triangle choke.

Iwamoto spins out of the triangle so Galvao switches to the arm bar.

Iwamoto sticks his shoulder in to rotate his arm and escape.

This is the thing that makes Galvao such a difficult puzzle to solve. He combines under and over hooks with his flexibility so well that he can launch his limbs up into submission holds whenever you extend to score.

Iwamoto would shoot, Galvao countered with submissions, and Iwamoto was forced to scramble.

As the match went on, the competitors got more slippery. This left Galvao’s submission threats less and less effective. Then Galvao took top and got in position to end the match.

_{Turtle → Rear Naked Choke}

Galvao spins to Iwamoto’s back and throws his leg over Iwamoto’s arm.

Galvao grabs Iwamoto’s other wrist giving him direct access to punch the rear naked choke in.

Iwamoto taps and Galavo legts go.

Galvao is running through this division. I wish the Ruotolos were out of ONE Championship so one of them could square off with him again.

Victor Hugo vs Nick Rodriguez

The main event featured heavyweights Victor Hugo and Nick Rodriguez. The match turned into a showcase for how frustrating Hugo’s size and guard play can be.

_{Closed Guard → Arm Bar → Reverse Hitchhiker Escape}

Hugo has a grip on Rodriguez’s wrist as Rodriguez stands.

Hugo locks his legs over Rodriguez’s head for the arm bar.

Rodriguez sticks his arm in and goes belly down so he can turn his arm, roll, and pull his arm out.

Hugo is somewhere around 6’5 and 275. The confusing thing is he plays bottom like a small competitor with inversions, omoplatas, and leg locks.

Rodriguez was trying to pass in tight with his signature body lock, but Hugo kept active frames to prevent him from getting tight enough to pass. Eventually Rodriguez decided to play a more active game and got around Hugo’s legs.

_{Hop Pass → North/South → Open Body Lock}

Rodriguez walks around Hugo’s legs and pushes the far hook down.

Instead of high stepping Rodriguez hops to north south.

Hugo tries to invert then pushes Rodriguez away to get a knee in.

Rodriguez holds an empty body lock to end the exchange.

While Rodriguez got through his guard, he never controlled Hugo’s head and shoulders. That meant Hugo could continue to raise his hips and re guard. We discussed this dynamic in this article where we reviewed Kade Ruotolo and Tommy Langaker’s match.

At the end of the match, Rodriguez turned up the pace but Hugo cemented his win with this sweep.

_{Modified Sickle Sweep → Back Body Lock}
_{→ Back Mount}

Rodriguez stands to pass.

Hugo chops at his ankle and pulls it out for a modified sickle sweep.

Hugo wrestles up to get a back body lock and nearly mounts him.

Rodriguez frames and pushes away but Hugo gets a grip on his wrist to slow him down and take his back.

Hugo has an interesting and impressive habit of scoring late. In Hugo’s last match against Dan Manasoiu he swept and submitted him late to secure the win. I’m happy that WNO provides a rule set where the patient Brazilian jiu-jitsu games of Hugo, Pato, and Mica Galvao can shine through.

Why WNO Is Special

WNO has carved out an interesting niche amongst other grappling promotions. There is no official score, the rules are really sparse, and the judges announce who they think is winning at the five and ten minute marks mid match. Then, if no submission is secured, the judges decide who won by choosing who showed better jiu-jitsu, largely defined by who got closer to a submission win.

This lack of rules and scoring allows for athletes to relax and do what Brazilian jiu-jitsu is known for, playing guard. Hugo was able to sit back and play, Galvao could counter with acrobatic submissions, and Pato was able to use his guard to launch into a devastating submission.

Contrast WNO’s system with freestyle wrestling, or even ADCC. In both, athletes are penalized far faster for passivity and not going forward. In ADCC, this means guard players are hardly able to do what they do best when the points period starts.

I don’t bring this up to say WNO is the best ruleset for grappling martial arts. I think it’s exciting that there are a multiplicity of rule sets. This just means more athletes can find venues for their (martial) artistic flair and get paid to do so.

This Friday we’re going to be taking a closer look at an MMA fighter that blends ground striking and Brazilian jiu-jitsu chokes better than most. If you’re interested in that, consider upgrading to the Premium Notebook to get that article. Either way, we’ll be back next Tuesday to review the weekend’s action.

Citations & Further Viewing

There were a lot of arm bar escapes in this card. There was a lot of dynamic action, and, frankly, it wasn’t so cut and dry on which specific escape was used. Still, Nick Rodriguez put out this quick explanation on the reverse hitchhiker escape.

FloGrappling has started putting more of their matches on Youtube for free. You can watch the full WNO 22 event here.

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