~On Dick Moves & Gimmicky Bullshit~

Earlier this week, Sean Strickland released footage of a wrestling session with Orlando Sanchez that went off the rails. The clip is only short and leaves out whatever caused the tensions to build between Sanchez and Strickland, but from context it seems like there might have been some smack talking earlier in the session. This is unsurprising as Strickland is known as a shit talker—a good sport about it, but definitely a guy who likes to run his mouth whether he’s winning or losing.

The clip shows Orlando Sanchez doing exactly what he is known for—metronomically trading collar ties and shoves on the feet. Sanchez is an enormously skilled grappler, no doubt but his fighting style is far from fan friendly. The feat that best embodies this style is that he was able to shove and grind his way to a gold medal at ADCC, while being the first winner to not score a single submission or even point in doing so.

So the two are jostling and then it happens. Strickland takes an underhook, and Sanchez uses his overhook to snatch Strickland’s elbow to the inside. Strickland visibly grimaces and pulls his hand back into his chest as if he’s touched a hot stove. Losing his temper, Strickland backfists and then teeps Sanchez. Then the entire gym gets involved in a debate over whether or not what Sanchez did was a “dick move.” And then the video went out and the entire internet got involved as well.

This writer has no ADCC titles or UFC record to his name and doesn’t anticipate acquiring one by accident in the future, but in the world of grappling the phrase “respect the tap” is taught on day one and repeated throughout. When Jigoro Kano founded Judo he did so by eliminating moves he felt couldn’t be sparred safely, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu—while differing in opinion on some of the techniques were dangerous, continued that tradition. Grapplers get better through hard rounds on the mat, and hard rounds on the mat are built on an understanding that you are trying to win, but you are always going to give the other guy the chance to say “You got me” and then start over from the top. Clearly, in attempting a technique that attacked a joint—and declaring it to be a submission afterwards—while allowing no opportunity in the motion for the opponent to submit—Sanchez was partaking in the dictionary definition of a “dick move.”

Perhaps the strangest part of the incident was Strickland’s coaches letting him continue the round. At that point the trust between Strickland and Sanchez was surely gone and the session was on the edge of descending into a fist fight. Maybe Strickland got something out of going back in there and wrestling a bit more, but as his coaches were letting their prize race horse play silly beggars for no gain. It underlines the strange duality of being a fighter—someone who is not supposed to back down from anyone—but also a professional, not being dumb enough to do it for free.

The shoulder crank that Sanchez attempted is a classic “dirty move.” It falls into the category of “gimmicky bullshit that actually works.” Everyone who has ever done a bit of martial arts or boxing is convinced they can break an arm with an overhook in the clinch. You will probably have seen traditional martial artists demonstrate an armlock with an overhook, hyperextending the elbow against the body—but the lever between forearm and elbow is short and if the man being overhooked pushes his elbow back into the underhook the pressure is lost.

Instead the secret is to stretch the underhook out. This is normally done by posting the head and backing away from the opponent. Jon Jones famously used this to injure Glover Teixeira’s right arm, and repeatedly attempted it when Daniel Cormier tried to keep hold of him—to shouts of “Short underhooks! SHORT underhooks!” from Cormier’s corner.

In mixed martial arts, underhooks are viewed as safety. Whether you’re stuffing a takedown or trying to get up off the bottom, the underhook will carry you through. By extending the underhook and attacking the arm the moment the elbow came clear of his armpit, Jon Jones attacked opponents in a moment of complacency. Against Alexander Gustafsson in their long awaited rematch, Jones shot in on Gustafsson and Gustafsson dug a deep underhook.

Jones came up to the clinch and posted his head on Gustafsson, stretching the underhook out, then he caught Gustafsson’s elbow in the crook of his biceps and punched it in to his centreline.

The same technique on the ground—often called the Mir lock—is a similarly rare occurrence but capitalizes on the opponent trying to slip their elbow free of the overhook. On the mat, of course, the legs can be employed in a knee shield to better isolate the arm and control the opponent. Just the other day Paul Craig was able to provide a real threat against Jamahal Hill with the Mir lock from half guard.

The difference between the Mir lock and the standing shoulder crank is obviously control and speed. With the Mir lock an opponent gets a chance to tap, where a standing shoulder crank is a direct attack on the joint done with very little chance of drawing a submission before something is injured. The standing shoulder crank is very much a tool for an all out fight, with the intention of damaging the arm for the remainder of the match. That seems like fair game in a fist fight, but certainly a dick move in training or even a grappling competition. A grey area is Combat Jiu Jitsu, where Kade Ruotolo attempted the standing shoulder crank a couple of times—sometimes after fighting off a single leg and being left with the overhook, but most notable after grabbing an overhook in the handfight against Laird Anderson.

Kade Ruotolo brings us on to another gimmick move that is making the rounds: the Buggy choke. Like the standing shoulder crank it attacks an opponent in a position of perceived strength and can catch them unawares. Kade and his twin brother, Tye have been using it to remarkable success on the no gi grappling scene. At that very same Combat Jiu Jitsu tournament last year, Kade Ruotolo won the final by submission, by choking the formidable PJ Barch from the bottom of side control.

Ever since then the Ruotolos have gained a reputation for the technique. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about it is that the buggy choke seems like a trap laid specifically for the shoulder pressure heavy style of Jiu Jitsu that is epitomised by many of the Ruotolos teammates at Atos. Here is a great clip of Tye Ruotolo catching ADCC 2019 bronze medalist, Josh Hinger with the Buggy choke in a roll. The choke happens at about 4:40 and Hinger sums the technique up when he says “So stupid… but so tight.”

Kade Ruotolo competed on FloGrappling’s WNO card last weekend against Cole Franson and scored his second competitive victory by buggy choke. This time, he set to work trying to pass Franson’s guard. Catching a front headlock on his seated opponent, Kade rolled over the top and allowed Franson to come up on top of him. Franson did what anyone would with an opponent holding his head from side control and began trying to complete a Von Flue choke. In an instant, Ruotolo had released the guillotine, thrown his arm over Franson’s back and hooked his own legs to cinch the buggy choke.

The entire notion that a legitimate technique can be a “gimmick” is down to how it fits into the existing principles of the game. The buggy choke runs completely contrary to the majority of bottom principles in grappling. Keeping your elbows tight and not allowing the opponent to flare them out is something that most people learn quickly and carry for the rest of their grappling career. An open elbow means the threat of the submission, the opponent getting round behind you, or just getting locked to the floor underneath someone. Yet when Tye Ruotolo grappled the great Craig Jones on last weekend’s WNO card, the moment Jones passed guard—Ruotolo was opening up his elbows and throwing his arm across Jones’ back to threaten the buggy choke.

There is good reason to approach gimmicky techniques with scepticism. Nobody wants to end up like Tony Ferguson did against Charles Oliveira. That was a week after Kade Ruotolo scored that buggy choke over PJ Barch at Eddie Bravo’s Combat Jiu Jitsu worlds, and Ferguson is Eddie Bravo’s most high profile student. Ferguson got stuck underneath Oliveira, failing buggy chokes and seemingly just locking himself in place beneath the Brazilian, unable to chain any escapes from the buggy choke itself. It makes sense: if you are opening yourself up to threaten the buggy choke and you can’t finish it, you have to start digging yourself out of a hole you put yourself in.

Yet when the buggy choke is a legitimate threat, it seems to create a completely new dynamic to the bottom game. When Craig Jones passed Tye Ruotolo’s guard and found himself being threatened by the buggy choke, he put his forearm in front of Ruotolo’s neck and framed off him, popping his head free from the buggy, but in the process he raised his chest. Where the cross section had been the mat, then Ruotolo, then Jones’ chest, it was now Ruotolo hanging off Jones above the mat. When Ruotolo let go, he dropped down to the mat and placed his frames in front of Jones, allowing him to get back to guard.

The next time Jones hopped off Ruotolos butterfly hooks and into side control, Ruotolo threatened the buggy choke again and this time Jones walked himself back into half guard. From there Jones seemed to want to pass straight to mount or smash down Ruotolo’s top leg. It was a fascinating development which lined up with many of the changes we have seen to guard passing and top play in MMA.

In mixed martial arts, passing to side control is often seen as unfavourable because there are wrestlers like Kelvin Gastelum who want to turn to their front and build up. Against Robert Whittaker, Gastelum was opening his own half guard and begging Whittaker to pass and Whittaker refused because he knew Gastelum was harder to hold down from side control.

In Jones’ case, he went back to half guard because controlling Ruotolo’s bottom leg meant that Tye couldn’t pretzel himself up into the buggy. Partly because he uses both legs to lock up the position, but also because Jones was now more head on with him than perpendicular as he would be in side control. Instead, Ruotolo seemed to try to use his hand to guide his butterfly hook in, in an Eddie Bravo type jailbreak. The Craig Jones – Tye Ruotolo match was a ton of fun and contained plenty of float passing, leg attacks, and surprisingly fun stand up work from both, and is definitely worth a watch.

But is the buggy choke a gimmick? Would you be an idiot to spend time training it? If you really don’t like to waste time playing with new looks, watch the next couple of years of the Ruotolo brothers careers. If they start getting stuck underneath people because of the buggy choke or after they attempt it, it could be fair to call it a gimmick. If they continue to create space to get back to guard with the help of the buggy, it will be more than earning its place in their bottom game arsenal.

Ultimately, what the Ruotolo brothers have in their buggy choke right now seems to be the same as Kazushi Sakuraba’s kimura. They know that every time they show their opponent that opening, their opponent will dive head first into it. That isn’t to say they are grappling against idiots, that is just to say that what their opponents are doing is the right thing to do, in principle, most of the time and perhaps not in this one instance. Whether the buggy choke is a flash in the pan that can be remembered as a true gimmick, or becomes a useful part of the bottom game in the long term probably comes down to how opponents learn to defuse it and how little space they need to give up in order to do so.

Yet it is always worth remembering that almost every new development in the game is gimmicky bullshit until the other competitors and coaches in the sport begrudgingly decide that it is not. In the grand scheme of things we are only a few years removed from leg attacks being seen as a low percentage crutch for guys who can’t pass guard.