📝 2025 In Review

After some holiday R&R I’m back for a thorough end of year wrap-up. Below you will find MMA’s best grapplers, performances that stood out, competition trends, and the most important stories to watch out for next year. That includes technical and legal developments.

Before we get started with all of that I have a special offer from my business partner, Dr. Sean Mceachern.

Now let’s talk about what worked well last year.

Let’s not bury the lede. MMA’s best grappler in 2025 was Islam Makhachev.

Islam started the year by defending his title with what is looking like a signature move, the short d’arce. Then he went up to dominate the welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena for 25 minutes.

You can read more about this fight ☝️ here.

Islam would be my pick for overall fighter of the year as well. He is the first fighter to ever go up from 155 to 170 and win the title.

BJ Penn also won both titles, but he won 170 first before going down to 155.

My pick for submission of the year goes to Merab Dvalishvili for the what-the-fuck-even-was-that factor in this choke below.

This was the first time I saw a choke like this. If I had to be pedantic I’d call it a north south ezekiel choke because of the way Merab is covering both sides of O’Malley’s neck with his fists. If you want to read about this fight specifically click here.

Another submission win we have to call out was this ultra rare leg scissor choke from Shinebaatar Bat-Erdene.

The leg scissor is one of those techniques that is so easy to understand it’s obvious to see why the choke doesn’t work more often. All you need to do is tuck your chin and turn your head and the threat evaporates.

The problem is, if your opponent wedges their knee under your chin you can’t really remove the choking mechanism like you can with an arm in a rear naked choke. Maybe we all need to practice leg scissors as auxiliary options when we can’t get side triangles?

In last year’s round up I said that judo techniques along the fence would be a major trend to watch out for in 2025. Defensive fence wrestling has gotten so good that grapplers need more systematized options involving their feet to streamline their takedowns.

I think that was broadly correct. Just look at how well the best grapplers in the sport pull their opponents off of the cage for trips and throws. Merab added minutes to his takedown highlight reel when he dominated Corey Sandhagen and rematched Sean O’Malley.

But if there was one single technique that stood out for me in 2025 it would be the sasae tsurikomi ashi (or sasae for short) as a direct counter to knees. Below are 3 crystal clear examples of what I’m talking about and all involve the same 3 steps:

Here is this throw in action.

This technique definitely isn’t new. But the frequency I saw it used makes me think that this technique is now part of MMA’s fundamental grappling meta. Especially as MMA grapplers have been incorporating more and more judo.

There are several performances you could highlight as examples of elite MMA grappling in 2025. We previously highlighted Islam’s win over JDM and Merab’s win over Sandhagen. Both are good picks. So is the fight that gave us that sasae clip above, Sean Brady’s win over Leon Edwards.

But if I had to pick one fight as my favorite example of a grappling masterpiece in MMA it would be Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez beating the life out of Roman Dolidze en route to becoming the first man to submit the ADCC veteran.

Before I explain why I loved this fight so much, look at the stat line from the fight.

There are a couple things worth mentioning here. After completing 50% of his takedown in round 1, Hernandez completed 100% of his takedowns in every round after that and Fluffy’s control time increased every round, except in the 4th where he submitted Dolidze. This gets at an important point about MMA grappling in general.

MMA grappling is a long war of attrition. The fights are 15 - 25 minutes long. That’s more than twice as long as adult freestyle wrestling. So fighters don’t need to wrestle like those athletes.

You don’t need a bunch of fancy setups or tons of quick takedowns. You need to get in your opponent’s face, restrain them, and tap them with strikes until they get tired and sit down. That makes the wins, whether they be submissions, TKOs, or decisions, come that much easier. And that’s exactly what Fluffy does. His style is so straightforward it is accessible for anyone that wants to fight on the floor.

Once Fluffy gets his hands on an opponent, he never takes them off. Yeah he gets tired, but they get more tired, faster, than he does.

Body lock, cradle, collar tie, or half nelson, Fluffy is always pushing into his opponent so they are working. Most importantly, those are all fundamental wrestling holds. Anyone can add them to their game today. Plus, look at how effortlessly he integrates his striking into his grappling.

Speaking of adding things to our game, let’s take a peak at the best in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and no gi grappling to talk about what we can steal study.

If you want to be a good MMA fighter you need to be well rounded. If you want to be a great MMA fighter you need to be dangerous and that only comes from some specialization. Look at the UFC’s most dominant grapplers.

Islam Makhachev has MMA’s best top half ever, Khamzat Chimaev has an otherworldly blast double and body lock combination, and Merab Dvalishvili blends shots and judo trips better than everyone in the sport.

Specialization makes special athletes.

If you want to specialize, you need to stay up to date with what’s working at the highest levels of professional grappling. And here are some things that are starting to poke out as distinct trends in no gi grappling.

The berimbolo is often seen as the epitome of sport jiujitsu. Aka stuff that won’t work in in the street. They require complicated gripping sequences, inverting onto your spine, and rolling to your opponent’s back.

For the longest time, many said berimbolos simply could not work in no gi, let alone a fight. What we’re now seeing is that the berimbolo is an excellent compliment to the modern leg locking style.

And speaking of leg locking, just a few weeks ago a new submission debuted. We’re calling this the Lachie lock and it’s effectively a new rotational knee bar coming from K guard.

Okay now let’s be frank. Leg locking and berimbolos will never be anything other than niche Hial Mary’s in fighting. There’s too much risk associated with both techniques for fighters to actually train them enough to be viable in MMA. But there are some other techniques that are being refined and revitalized right now in grappling that would be helpful for MMA. Let’s start with the resurgence of looser passing by featuring my two picks for grappling stand-outs from this year, Declan Moody and Andrew Tackett.

Recently, the vast majority of top players in grappling relied on tight passing to pin their opponents while getting around their legs and block leg lockers from elevating them to attack submissions. But leg lock defense has exploded. Now many top players with competent leg lock defense are standing and loose passing again.

One downside with loose passing is it allows the bottom player to turtle. If you want to pass from the outside you’ll need to be good at taking backs as well.

Loose passing also lends itself to getting to north south quicker. And north south can open up distinct options for chokes and arm locks while keeping your opponent’s chest pinned.

You might be wondering what this has to do with MMA. Technical loose passing is the perfect skill to add to an MMA grappler’s game because it teaches you how to apply pressure while standing which will make you better at ground and pound. Really good ground and pound needs to be the focus for every MMA grappler.

With a focus on loose passing, athletes need to be prepared to pounce on turtle. And this gets at another thing that I see as a future development in no gi grappling specifically.

The best grapplers in the world do the ADCC World Championships. That ruleset emphasizes turtle. If you can turtle, your opponent doesn’t get points for takedowns or passes as they’re advancing position.

ADCC’s focus on turtle has forced grapplers to get better at dynamic back takes. I believe that now more and more grapplers will start attacking the crucifix as an auxiliary attack in lieu of taking the back. Just look at how smooth Jozef Chen ends this ADCC Trials match.

This is all highly speculative. Theories on how to stay two steps ahead. If you want a more concrete look at what MMA’s best grapplers are doing differently pay attention to this section below.

“Just stand-up” has been the theme of MMA grappling for the past few years or so. Why play guard and get hit when you can simply return to your feet?

To stand-up, you need to put your hand on the mat so your head, and then your hips, can rise. Now it looks like MMA’s best grapplers are answering that problem with a very specific technique. Wrist pinning.

Wrist pinning is just like it sounds. When you get on top in half you grab the bottom player’s wrist and cement it to the floor.

I’m surprised we don’t see grapplers grabbing the bottom player’s wrist more often. Not only does wrist pinning allow you to pass, but it also opens up unique opportunities for the most important part of MMA grappling, ground and pound.

Aside from pinning, passing, and punching, grabbing the bottom player’s wrist also holds another benefit. When you pin a wrist to the floor you pin the shoulder by extension. That means the bottom player can only turn away and raise their hips, not fully stand-up. And when that happens, the top player can take the back.

I hope you enjoyed this overview of what to go study from last year and watch for next year. Before we get out of here let’s talk about the most important news to watch this year.