ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship


The ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship is an international submission grappling competition, organised by the Abu Dhabi Combat Club. ADCC is considered one of the most prestigious No-Gi submission grappling tournaments in the world, and is commonly referred to as The Olympics of Grappling.
The inaugural tournament was held in Abu Dhabi, UAE in 1998 and is held every two years. Host countries have included Brazil, China, Finland, Spain, the UK, and the US. Competitors can only participate after winning ADCC trials or by invitation.

History

The competition was created by Sheik Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the son of the former United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, together with his Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Nelson Monteiro. Royler Gracie characterised this as the beginning of "the modern era of submission grappling". Thousands of submission grappling tournaments around the world use elements of the ADCC format and rule structure. To date, the great majority of ADCC champions have been black belts in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which has the most similar rules to ADCC. However, there have been notable exceptions to this such as Americans Mark Kerr and Jeff Monson, Russian Karimula Barkalaev, Japanese Sanae Kikuta, and South African Mark Robinson, along with silver and bronze medalists such as Caol Uno, Mach Sakurai, Aleksandr Savko, Tito Ortiz, Megumi Fujii, Seiko Yamamoto and Nick Rodriguez.

2019 onwards

Mo Jassim took over as head organizer ready for ADCC 2019 and has since made sweeping changes to the organization. He announced that he had plans for adding more women's divisions and allowing reigning absolute champions to compete in weight-classes despite being booked for the main event superfight. It was announced in 2020 that for the first time in the competition's history, there would be more than two years between editions due to the setbacks suffered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 edition of the ADCC World Championships would then take place in 2022 instead, and would still be helmed by Jassim. After the success of the 2022 ADCC World Championship, it was announced that Jassim would return for the 2024 ADCC World Championship be the first person to operate as head organizer for three editions. The 2022 edition took place in front of 13,000 fans in attendance at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
In January 2023, ADCC announced an exclusive multi-year streaming deal with UFC Fight Pass and left their previous broadcaster FloSports. Just three months later on April 27, 2023, ADCC announced that they would be returning to FloSports for the foreseeable future.
On June 25, 2023, it was announced that the following edition of the ADCC World Championship would include three women's weight classes, marking the first time since 2007 that there was more than two available. It was also later announced that this the 2024 ADCC World Championship would also be the first edition to include a women's absolute division since 2007. On July 17, 2023, head organizer Mo Jassim announced that there would be a children's version of the ADCC World Championship held for the first time during the 2024 edition of the tournament. In 2024 it will be held 17-18 August at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

ADCC world championships

List of ADCC Champions in Men's Submission Fighting by Year and Weight

List of ADCC Champions in Women's Submission Fighting by Year and Weight

2005

2007

2009–2022

2024

List of ADCC Superfight Champions

List of winners by total titles

Grand Slam Winners (trials, weight, absolute and superfight)

By nationality

CountryGrapplersTotal
4876
816
22
22
11
11
11

ADCC events

ADCC 2024

ADCC 2022

ADCC 2019

Absolute

ADCC 2017

Absolute

ADCC 2015

Absolute

ADCC 2013

ADCC 2011

Absolute

Superfight

  • Superfight 1: Braulio Estima vs. Ronaldo Souza
  • '''Superfight 2: Renzo Gracie vs. Mario Sperry'''

    ADCC 2009

Absolute

Superfight

ADCC 2005

ADCC 2003

ADCC 2001

ADCC 2000

ADCC 1999

ADCC 1998

ADCC Trials

ADCC Asian and Oceania Championship

ADCC European Championship

ADCC North American Championship

ADCC South American Championship

Awards

At the end of 2021, ADCC was awarded with 'Promotion of the year' by media outlet Jitsmagazine at the 2021 BJJ Awards as a result of the trials events held that year and the introduction of the ADCC Hall of Fame.
In 2022, ADCC was awarded with 'Promotion of the Year' by Jitsmagazine at the 2022 BJJ Awards for the second year in a row, and the 2022 ADCC World Championships was awarded with 'Fight Card of the Year'.