How Grappling Will Change In 2025

2024 will be remembered as one of the biggest years ever for professional grappling. Today we’re going to talk about what means for 2025, the techniques that took over MMA, and why 2025 might be the deciding year for the future of professional grappling.

With respect to where grappling is going we’re going to start with MMA grappling because the answer is much simpler. In 2024 we saw many high level examples of what Justin Flores calls wall-waza.

Wall-waza refers to grappling on the barrier. This is an MMA native skill because the overwhelming majority of grappling events happen on an open mat.

Flores has been using this as a distinct term for the past couple years but it doesn’t seem to have caught steam yet. The techniques have though.

There are a few things that make MMA unique. Small gloves, longer rounds, etc.. None of them is more significant that the integration of striking and grappling along the barrier. Over the decades this has led to a constantly evolving set of techniques and tactics.

Here is Pat Sabatini hitting a beautiful kosoto gake along the fence, taking the back, and striking a few years ago.

Sabatini’s teammate, Sean Brady, has also used similar wall-waza techniques in his fights.

Both of those examples are from years past. The reason I think wall-waza is the story of the future is now we’ve seen grapplers at the highest levels use it to dominate championships fights. Here is Islam Makhachev finishing a takedown with a beautiful trip along the cage.

And here Makhchev uses wall-waza to overwhlem Sean O’Malley.

Offensively we’re going to continue seeing fighters drive their opponents to the fence to trip them in different directions. When grapplers get to body locks they have easy looks at tripping opponents backwards like Pantoja does below.

But as the skillset becomes more refined we’ll see additional judo-wrestling hybrid takedowns on offense and defense. Here is a prime example from Japanese super prospect Rei Tsuruya.

And here we see Makhachev using a harai goshi to turn his defense into offense.

Personally I have been loving watching, studying, and training more judo. This fascination has bled into my personal projects as well.

I recently made a tool with gifs and videos links for every judo throw on the IJF’s website. You can get it here for only $5.

You might be wondering, what could the answer to wall waza be? Again, it has to come from what makes MMA unique.

Much like “sprawling and brawling” was an early solution to wrestlers in MMA, the answer for clinch wrestling should be clinch striking. Here’s an example of Leon Edwards shutting Gunnar Nelson’s attempts to clinch him.

Edwards did two things that really shut down the exchange. He blocked Nelson’s hips while pulling on Nelson’s posture. This froze Nelson in his place so Edwards could get back to work.

There’s no reason why more fighters shouldn’t look to incorporate elbows into their pummeling. You don’t need much room to generate massive power and cut people.

In professional grappling the answer to where the sport’s techniques are going isn’t as clear.

You can’t make broad claims about where professional grappling is going because it still doesn’t really exist. There is no one definitive ruleset nor arena that defines professional grappling. There are two questions that define the biggest competitions though.

1. If there are points at all, how is the event scored?

2. Does the event have a barrier or is it on an open mat?

The scoring system certainly has the biggest influence on what action you see. You might assume that a scoring system which rewards being on top would have less variety of submissions. Interestingly, that’s the opposite of what we see.

Before we get into the data I want to shoutout The Grappling Conjecture. It’s a phenomenal blog that collects and visualizes an impressive amount of data.

I see that he wrote his own 2024 wrap-up. I haven’t read it yet because I don’t want his work to influence this article, but I have no doubt it’s as excellent as it is thorough and you should read it though!

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to judge a jiujitsu match. You either award points for successful techniques like ADCC and IBJJF. Or, you judge the event based on more nebulous terms like action, aggression, etc. like WNO and CJI do a few of things stand out.

• About 60% of grappling matches at the highest level ended without a submission.

• Because ADCC prioritizes being on top, athletes shoot for takedowns more and expose their neck for guillotines, adding to the overall total of neck submissions.

• Because athletes can play more open in CJI, the submissions are more evenly distributed between the most effective submission types; leg locks and chokes.

Here is a summary table from the data on The Grappling Conjecture.

But when you look at the actual submission totals you get a new wrinkle.

There was a ton of failed subs at CJI. You have to think this is because the rules allowed athletes to play from the guard and use a more open style with additional submissions that. Still, the variety of successful submissions at CJI was much, much lower than ADCC. Other than rear naked chokes and inside heel hooks, every other successful submission at CJI was just a one-off.

At ADCC there were more successful ankle locks and knee bars. Part of this is because ADCC had many more matches, and, as a consequence, mismatches. You can infer that ADCC’s scoring system pushes athletes to stay on top, which can expose them for more lower body submissions than in CJI.

Below are the charts.

So what can we expect going forward?

Leg locks are already getting more complicated. Broadly speaking, we’re seeing more and more athletes use ankle lock variations to stay ahead of their opponent’s attempts to counter heel hooks and slip out.

In last week’s article, Chris Wojcik explained why this is happening in more detail. Click here to read that interview.

In events with a heavy wrestling focus like ADCC, we’re going to see new ways to attack and defend the most common takedown type, single legs. That means more prolonged wrestling exchanges like what we see below.

Jayrod did a good job sprawling, but once Bodoni got his hips under his shoulders, the scramble was lost. An area of exploration that I’d love to see would be combining funk wrestling with single legs.

Funk wrestling has the risk of exposing your own back to the mat. In freestyle and folkstyle this can be disastrous as you can get pinned and instantly lose the mat.

Jiujitsu does not have match ending pins. This means funk scrambling can be rewarding with much less risk. More importantly, you can use funk techniques to immediately enter leg attacks or pull your opponent into back control. We’ll discuss this more in the premium section of this week’s article.

Now let’s move on to the biggest match-up we can expect in 2025.

The UFC is starting 2025 out with a bang. Their first pay-per-view features Arman Tsarukyan vs Islam Makhachev 2 as well as Merab Dvalishvili vs Umar Nurmagomedov. Plus, Dana White announced he is hell bent on signing Jon Jones vs Tom Aspinall.

Fights aren’t the UFC’s primary concern in 2025 though.

Next year the UFC’s deal with ESPN will end. This means they will be signing with another streaming partner. Many believe Netflix is the frontrunner to get the UFC.

Don’t get it twisted. The UFC partnering with the world’s largest streaming platform is a monumentally shocking win. The sport wasn’t even legal in New York a decade ago!

Still, what the story I’m paying the most attention to is the UFC’s decision to take over submission grappling.

The UFC has been promoting grappling competitions with their FPI event for a few years now. Only recently have they decided to put real effort into it.

In the first four years of hosting grappling events the UFC put on 9 FPI cards. They’ve already announced six for next year. Curiously, they don’t have a card planned for August. This leaves a hole for the hottest event in grappling to dominate the attention of everyone in combat sports.

On 12/23 the world’s second best grappler released the first episode of his new travel series. Part party chronicle, part charitable world tour, Craig Jones’s Parts Unblown is here to continue growing the sport of submission grappling.

It’s a humorous nod to Anthony Bourdain’s show Parts Unknown. Much like Bourdain, Jones is using his art to show underrepresented people and how they interact with the scene.

The timing is perfect. The shows episodes will run right up to the second iteration of his invitational event, CJI, which will take place in that empty month of August and feature no direct competition from ADCC or FPI.

CJI vs FPI is the most important match-up of the year.

TKO and Endeavor, the UFC’s parent companies, are on a conquest to own as many media and sports properties as they can. That’s why they’re getting into professional grappling. And, just like they do with their MMA fighters, TKO will sign their new grappling talent to exclusive contracts so they can’t compete for competitors.

Anyone who’s followed MMA knows the UFC’s business model. They scoop up talent for as cheap as possible, put on big spectacles, and charge a premium to watch.

Today, the majority of the UFC’s revenue comes media rights deals and site fees. Saudi Arabia reportedly paid the UFC 20 million just to show up and put on fights there. That doesn’t mean their athletes’ pay has grown like you’d expect.

The UFC’s lowest value contracts pay athletes $10,000 to show up and fight and another $10,000 to win. $10,000 is undoubtedly more than grapplers make in grappling. That’s not the issue. The problem is exclusivity.

Other than ONE Championship, professional grappling does not use exclusive contracts. This means athletes can try to take as many matches as their bodies can withstand. But, if an athlete signs to the UFC they can only hope to be inserted into the UFC’s content calendar.

In the short term, athletes could make much more. But what happens when they only get offered one match in a year? What happens if they get injured and don’t get another opportunity to compete? What happens when the UFC has choked out competitors, and grapplers have FPI or nothing?

Jones knows this. He’s already called on athletes to not sign exclusive deals so they can do CJI and keep what leverage they do have.

If you’re an athlete reading this, listen. Ask for contractual flexibility. If you’re a coach or a manager reading this, give your athletes the chance at a fair fight. Negotiate for a contract with some flexibility. If you’re a fan of grappling, watch CJI and promote other shows that are paying athletes while not infringing on their liberties.

2025 could very well be one of the last years we have left to watch an open sport where athletes have the freedom to fight for a better future.