Criticism of the refs? The ADCC rules explained in an understandable way

Refs from ADCC Germany

No competitions without properly trained referees. ADCC Germany has been following a clear path for years and has always relied on the training and continuous education of our referees by internationally experienced A-class referees from European and World Championships of Professionals at ADCC. In May, for example, two experienced top referees of the world federation were flown to Germany to give training in the context of the ADCC German Open Championships To train refs in Germany.

And even after the event, open questions and points of criticism are always openly communicated and clarified in order to bring out the best in sportsmanship for the participants. Of course, it is also important that criticism is communicated openly and objectively. A good example of this was the very respectful and constructive objection by the coach of MMA Erding at the ADCC German Nationals on July 15 in Herrenberg. It was objected that the fighter from MMA Erding did not receive his supposed points for a takedown. The corresponding fight can be seen in the Livestream on Sportdeutschland.TV can be viewed in full from 4:46:15. The offending sequence can be seen from 4:55:00.

Criticism should be understood on both sides

The Erdinger fighter makes a takedown out of the scramble, but does not manage to keep his opponent on the ground and especially not to control it. Instead, his opponent was at no time kept in control with his back on the ground for 3 seconds, but had gained the backmount. Consequently, no points were given for the takedown by the Main Referee at the table.

We at ADCC Germany understand that especially details of the rules are mostly not completely understandable or familiar to the majority of participants. This results in dangerous half-knowledge, which, coupled with the eagerness of the competition and the emotionality of the coaches and teammates, can quickly lead to a bad mood or the impression that "we are being cheated".

This is not desired by ADCC Germany and we do our best with regular referee trainings to train and educate new referees as well as to recruit referees from all interested teams. On the other hand, we always deal with expressed criticism objectively. We want to make it clear at this point: where people work, mistakes can happen. No one is infallible and no one can claim that no mistakes happen to them. But it is the way in which criticism or mistakes are communicated and, above all, then dealt with afterwards.

So it is also important that criticism, which was invalidated on the basis of facts and expertise, is also understood by the criticizing side and the knowledge thus acquired is applied in the future. I have chosen the example with the fighter from Erding, because Manuel Unverricht from MMA Erding has expressed the criticism objectively in a long and very calm and friendly telephone conversation, the facts were checked and an error-free application of the rules could be confirmed.

But of course there are always cases where criticism is justified. In these cases, too, we do everything possible to identify and correct errors and to avoid them in the future.

ADCC rules explained by the world leader

In the following video on YouTube Mo Jassim (organizer of the ADCC World Championships) and Peter Baltalyiski (Head Judge ADCC) explain the ADCC rules in great detail. Every fighter and especially the supervisors should watch this video in peace and realize why there is no "hail" of points in ADCC in the most active fights. For the most part, points at ADCC are only given in very clear situations with clear control over the opponent. But see for yourself:

We are looking forward to welcoming you all again at the next event on 07 October in Herrenberg. The Late Registration runs until next Thursday at 23:59 and fighters from all countries and teams can participate.

Registration ADCC Super Series III