EBI 6, Hype!!

[Mike Nall]

Even if Galvao doesn't tap everyone for the $50k, I think he takes it all.

Same here. And I don't think he will tap everyone either. Honestly when he had his best adcc performance where he became the third person to double gold at one event, he didn't tap everyone like Roger Gracie did or come just short of everyone like Braulio Estima did. But he got the best tap in the absolute final which is what people remember. That and the war with Palhares. But he has gotten a lot better at no-gi submissions in the past few years. The armbar and back chokes are his best submissions so the OT rules fit his style.

Plus I have been thinking this about EBI for a long time and the better the competition, the less the subs. We'll still see them and EBI will still be awesome but I do expect the amount of subs to go down a bit. It's just not very common to see cream of the crop elite grapplers submit each other. Rafa Mendes and Cobrinha have had 14 matches and 1 submission. Rodolfo Vieira and Buchecha have had 6 matches and 1 submission. It's just so hard for these A1 guys to get submitted. And it's not because of points or anything like that. It's just at a certain level people get so damn good that they're never out of position to get subbed in the first place.

But a higher competition level under this ruleset is good, and even if less matches end in regulation they will still be fun and the OT will still give 6 good chances each match to see a sub.

[elrith]

Cyborg is going to win. I'm calling it. Sorry

[Brent Smith]

Even if Galvao doesn't tap everyone for the $50k, I think he takes it all.

That's my prediction.

Love watching Eddie and Garry but its going to be a tough one for them to make it to the finals

[Ben Eddy]

The OT rounds are going to get tested very hard this time around IMO. There might be a situation, maybe even a few times, where there is a feeling of "can we really let this OT round go without time limit?". Think of Galvao on Vinny's back for example. Those OT rounds could last a very long time for both guys.

I also wonder about how it's going to get tested on the opposite side of that coin. If guys are pretty efficient at finding the sub each round, that's going to be extremely hard on the athletes. For example if we have Gary jaw crushing Vinny three rounds straight while Vinny picks spider web and rips Gary's arm off three rounds in return.. That's brutal. Fun to watch sure, but will be interesting to see how the athletes bodies hold up during that and after that. What if you've been arm barred two times in a row headed into the third OT? How is that arm feeling? How is that jaw feeling? Maybe it's fun to watch, maybe it causes a guy to give up mentally which would be interesting to see, but later on down the road do athletes start to feel the OT rounds are unsustainable/too hard on their bodies to want to come back?

I hope the new stalling rule gets actively implemented. It was added for the last EBI, but wasn't used and I think there were some times that it should have been used (if you're going to take an active stance with it, which I think would be best to encourage athletes to actively advance positions).

How the event goes will really come down to if the ruleset and money causes these guys to really go after it. No one is going to tap out guys like cyborg, galvao, vinny etc. if they are just rolling on cruise control. These guys are only going to be leaving openings if they are being aggressive, if they're willing to really exchange and take chances to try and get their own sub. Is the money going to be enough to encourage that? Will the OT rounds encourage this? Will the OT rounds hold up? Will the stall call penalties get them to turn it up pre OT? That's the difference here and it will be interesting to see if that difference in format causes these guys to attack at a level of aggression that opens each of them up to risk.

[Mike Nall]

Cyborg is going to win. I'm calling it. Sorry

No it's not a bad call at all. The problem with looking at Andre galvao smashing him in their adcc superfight is that Cyborg suffered from tachycardia shortly before the match and was clearly gassed during most of the match. Most people still thought Galvao's style was a bad matchup for him but EBI 6 gets an opportunity at least at a rematch where Cyborg is healthy going into the match.

Cyborg is strongest as a guard player IMO and Galvao's specific passes that he likes to use work very well against the type of guard that Cyborg likes to play, which is why I'd stil pick galvao. But Cyborg could beat Galvao or Cyborg could win EBI and never face Galvao. Anything can happen here.

The OT rounds are going to get tested very hard this time around IMO. There might be a situation, maybe even a few times, where there is a feeling of "can we really let this OT round go without time limit?". Think of Galvao on Vinny's back for example. Those OT rounds could last a very long time for both guys.

I also wonder about how it's going to get tested on the opposite side of that coin. If guys are pretty efficient at finding the sub each round, that's going to be extremely hard on the athletes. For example if we have Gary jaw crushing Vinny three rounds straight while Vinny picks spider web and rips Gary's arm off three rounds in return.. That's brutal. Fun to watch sure, but will be interesting to see how the athletes bodies hold up during that and after that. What if you've been arm barred two times in a row headed into the third OT? How is that arm feeling? How is that jaw feeling? Maybe it's fun to watch, maybe it causes a guy to give up mentally which would be interesting to see, but later on down the road do athletes start to feel the OT rounds are unsustainable/too hard on their bodies to want to come back?

I hope the new stalling rule gets actively implemented. It was added for the last EBI, but wasn't used and I think there were some times that it should have been used (if you're going to take an active stance with it, which I think would be best to encourage athletes to actively advance positions).

How the event goes will really come down to if the ruleset and money causes these guys to really go after it. No one is going to tap out guys like cyborg, galvao, vinny etc. if they are just rolling on cruise control. These guys are only going to be leaving openings if they are being aggressive, if they're willing to really exchange and take chances to try and get their own sub. Is the money going to be enough to encourage that? Will the OT rounds encourage this? Will the OT rounds hold up? Will the stall call penalties get them to turn it up pre OT? That's the difference here and it will be interesting to see if that difference in format causes these guys to attack at a level of aggression that opens each of them up to risk.

It's going to be a longer event for sure. The Atos team often preachers that you never go backwards. So people like Rafa Mendes and Andre Galvao believe never to let go of a sub, because it's going backwards, and that the best place to be is the back. So they spend a lot of time just working on riding the back, because they don't believe in letting go of it once you get there. In this bad ass no-gi match from Rafa earlier this year, he rode the back for the better part of 10 mins before getting the RNC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMAznWHVZA#t=10m13s To be fair Rafa seems to have better armbars from the back than RNCs but that match could've gone forever and he wouldn't have let Quexinho out of back control.

Never even thought about your opposite side of the coin (jaw/arm) stuff. Damn that's pretty crazy and it's a great point. We've seen a lot of escape time wins but maybe we'll see a fastest sub time win, or at least a fair amount of multiple subs in OT rounds. There could even be injury dropouts like back in the early UFC days.

How does the new stalling rule work?

So many questions that you're right, can only be answered by the tournament. Can't wait.

[Ben Eddy]

No it's not a bad call at all. The problem with looking at Andre galvao smashing him in their adcc superfight is that Cyborg suffered from tachycardia shortly before the match and was clearly gassed during most of the match. Most people still thought Galvao's style was a bad matchup for him but EBI 6 gets an opportunity at least at a rematch where Cyborg is healthy going into the match.

Cyborg is strongest as a guard player IMO and Galvao's specific passes that he likes to use work very well against the type of guard that Cyborg likes to play, which is why I'd stil pick galvao. But Cyborg could beat Galvao or Cyborg could win EBI and never face Galvao. Anything can happen here.



It's going to be a longer event for sure. The Atos team often preachers that you never go backwards. So people like Rafa Mendes and Andre Galvao believe never to let go of a sub, because it's going backwards, and that the best place to be is the back. So they spend a lot of time just working on riding the back, because they don't believe in letting go of it once you get there. In this bad ass no-gi match from Rafa earlier this year, he rode the back for the better part of 10 mins before getting the RNC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMAznWHVZA#t=10m13s To be fair Rafa seems to have better armbars from the back than RNCs but that match could've gone forever and he wouldn't have let Quexinho out of back control.

Never even thought about your opposite side of the coin (jaw/arm) stuff. Damn that's pretty crazy and it's a great point. We've seen a lot of escape time wins but maybe we'll see a fastest sub time win, or at least a fair amount of multiple subs in OT rounds. There could even be injury dropouts like back in the early UFC days.

How does the new stalling rule work?

So many questions that you're right, can only be answered by the tournament. Can't wait.

Yea one of the few (only?) guys left able to pass some of these "unpassable" guard players. Impressive match and a great example of how long an elite level guy can maintain back control as well as how long it takes him to tap out another elite guy with that control position. Galvao is going to be very similar I imagine. Unless we just start seeing guys go more aggressively for that jaw crush as it seems to be an option that's much easier to get to.

The new stalling rule is that a stall call equals +15 OT seconds if it makes it to OT (might be 30 seconds each call, not sure). If used actively it should dissuade the strategy of trying to just coast/survive until OT rounds as by then you will have racked up a lot of penalty time if you stalled to get there.