A rundown of the biggest headlines and news from the world of competitive grappling.

Who’s Number One delivered yet another fantastic event that produced a number of moments worth reporting. First up was Nathiely De Jesus overcoming the odds to become the first woman to defeat Gabi Garcia for the second time, followed by Roberto Jimenez showing some excellent defensive work before succumbing to an armbar at the hands of Gordon Ryan.

The main event then saw Craig Jones make short work of ATOS’ Ronaldo Junior, and that’s when everything went downhill. As Jones’ teammate, Ryan took to the mats to shake hands with ATOS head coach Andre Galvao, he was flipped off in return as a result of their recent social media wars. The pair had another backstage altercation where Ryan slapped Galvao as the pair argued back and forth.

Full results for the event can be found here.

Two incredibly close decisions at the top of Fight 2 Win 164

F2W 164 saw the promotion catch a lot of heat from fans and pundits as both the main and co-main event matchups were unbelievably close, which naturally leads to some debate about the deserved victor. In the co-main event, Canadian Dante Leon wasn’t able to secure the victory against Manuel Ribamar despite the athletes trading Guillotine attempts and Ribamar was awarded the Decision victory.

The main event then saw a huge upset as Vagner Rocha emerged victorious against multiple-time ADCC World Champion Yuri Simoes. Neither man stalled, but neither man was able to really get their game going in the match which led to an impossible choice for the judges on the night. In an uncommon reaction, F2W CEO Seth Daniels even publicly addressed the complaints and explained the reasoning behind both of the decisions.

Full results for the event can be found here.

16 year-old Victoria Lee follows in sibling’s footsteps in ONE debut

It might seem crazy to most that Victoria Lee just made her professional MMA debut at the age of 16, and in Asia’s biggest organization, ONE Championship. But it wasn’t even remotely new ground for the Lee family as Victoria’s older siblings Angela and Christian both made their MMA debuts for the promotion at the ages of 18 and 17 respectively. Now, the older Lee siblings hold the Atomweight and Lightweight World titles.

The teenager won her debut with a Rear Naked-Choke in the second round, putting her Jiu-Jitsu skills to fantastic work. All of the Lee family have solid grappling skills although Christian is known as more of a knockout artist, and was even able to defeat Shinya Aoki. Victoria seems to fight much more similarly to her sister Angela with both sisters showing phenomenal skills on the ground, and the elder having racked up 7 submission wins already.

Third Coast Grappling 6 increases prize money as bracket fills out

The prize money for Third Coast Grappling 6 has now grown by 50% from $20,000 to $30,000, shortly after the promotion has reached the halfway point in fighter announcements. The increase will be allocated solely to the winner and they will now take home $25,000 while the runner-up gets a $5,000 consolation prize. Six more spaces remained last week after 3CG started by announcing Kaynan Duarte and Nicky Rodriguez.

The third competitor announced was William Tackett, who will serve as something of an underdog despite the fact that he’s a proficient leglocker who’s more than capable of battling his way to the final. He will also be joined by the reigning Submission Underground Absolute Champion Mason Fowler who excels under EBI rules, so it’ll be interesting to see how he fares in a more traditional grand prix format.

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Quick Hits

• A battle of leglock specialists will take place at the next Sapateiro event as Jordan Holy has been booked to face Jon Calestine.
• Japanese MMA and grappling legend Shinya Aoki is set to fight former UFC veteran Sage Northcutt in a headline match a ONE FC event in April.
• Polaris Triple Champion Ashley Williams has announced his intention to do a seminar tour around the UK in order to help gyms struggling as a result of Covid-19.
• Ex-UFC Featherweight World Champion Max ‘Blessed’ Holloway was recently awarded with his brown belt in BJJ by Rylan Linares.

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Technique Corner

Toehold and kneebar combination from inside sankaku

Countering the straight footlock with headlock attacks

Reverse de la worm guard to omoplata

Is it just us, or is Paul Costa digging himself a hole by continuing to fixate on everything that went wrong in his fight against Israel Adesanya?

Back in Sept. 2020, Paulo Costa got taken apart by Israel Adesanya and finished in the second round of their fight via technical knockout, a loss he has never taken particularly well. Even now — nearly six months later — he’s still talking about it and trying to explain away why “The Last Stylebender” was able to defeat him in such a one-sided fashion.

Finally, he’s sharing some specific details on what was wrong that morning at UFC 253 on “Fight Island” when they fought.

“The difference is that when I fought Adesanya, I was only using 20 percent of my capacity so we had to change our strategy last minute,” Costa said in a YouTube video. “We waited and attacked only in the second round … and today, we know that was a big mistake. But that’s easy to say now. The correct decision would’ve been to not fight because of the poor condition I was in. But anyway, I just had to talk about that a little because a lot of people asked me what happened, why I was so different.

“I was different because I wasn’t feeling well at all. I didn’t sleep the night before the fight,” he continued. “I was having severe leg cramps in the locker room before the fight. The athletic commission came to my locker room twice to check on my leg to remove the oil that we had put on my leg in order to massage it. A lot of things happened.

“I fought him with no sleep,” Costa continued. “I didn’t sleep the night before because of the leg cramps I was having all night. The fight happened at 9 a.m. there so we had to get up at 5 a.m. We had to stretch, warm up, wrap hands and do all the things we normally do before the fight. It was 2:30 a.m. and I hadn’t slept yet. It was my mistake, I don’t blame anyone for this.”

“Because I needed to sleep I had been awake for 24 hours. I drank wine, an entire bottle. To try and literally pass out to sleep. It started with one glass, it didn’t work. Half a bottle. Didn’t work either, so I drank the entire bottle. And I had a very different sensation. I don’t even think I told you this, Tamara, I enter every fight very active, of course I’m afraid of getting hit or knocked out. So I’m always paying close attention.

“And for this fight for the title, I was sleepy and not even a little worried about getting hit. I didn’t feel anything. It was very strange. I had no hype in thinking I was going for the title. I was totally serene. I was so calm it scared me.

“The loss happened,” Costa finished. “But if I had lost to him being 100 percent healthy, then I would have been a lot more upset because someone would have defeated me for real. But since my loss happened under the circumstances that I mentioned earlier, I’m anxious to fight Adesanya again. But fight him the right way, being myself, and I’m sure that when that happens, things are going to be a lot difficult for him.”

Costa returns against Robert Whittaker on April 17, 2021, on ESPN.

Check out the betting lines for UFC 263 rematch between flyweight king, Deiveson Figueiredo, and the man he drew even with, Brandon Moreno.

The UFC just announced that after their flyweight champion, Deiveson Figueiredo, drew even with his challenger, Brandon Moreno, last December, the pair will run it back at UFC 263 on June 12th of this year. Betting odds have surfaced for this 125-pound title bout, and although Fig is still strongly favored over Moreno, the odds have been set a lot closer than before.

Deiveson Figueiredo: -235

Brandon Moreno: +200

At UFC 256, Moreno was coming in with zero respect put on his name in the gambling community. Odds.com had the defending champion listed as a -334 betting favorite to the challengers sizable underdog tag of +290. After Brandon rose to the occasion and proved his worth by taking Deiveson to a majority draw, the rematch has Figueiredo listed as a smaller -235 favorite, and Moreno clocking in as a +200 underdog.

Why aren’t these odds even if the first fight was a draw? Well, if you look at the scorecards, one of the judges actually scored the fight 47-46 for the champ, with the other two officials both seeing the match 47-47. Deiveson has consistently been a monster inside the Octagon, and while Brandon is a phenomenal fighter, he hasn’t shown to have the same sort of fight-ending capabilities. Fig still seems to hold an advantage here, so these odds are understandable.

In case you were wondering, the ‘Draw’ prop bet for their first fight paid out at +8000. That means a winning $100 bet on that would have returned a ridiculous payout of $8100 altogether. Talk about a come up! Some other plus lines that paid out in their initial meeting were the ‘Over 2.5 rounds’ prop at +100, and the ‘Fight goes the distance – yes’ line at +225. No propositions for Figueiredo vs. Moreno 2 have been released yet.

These are the prop bets that paid out in the first-fight between Figueiredo and Moreno at UFC 256 back in December of 2020, courtesy of Odds.com:

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