THE ADCC INTERVIEW: John Danaher
Some call him mysterious, some call him a genius but just about everyone can agree that John Danaher knows his jiu-jitsu. If not by the athletes he's coached then by the way his approach to grappling has transformed the sport, the Renzo Gracie black belt's influence is undeniable.
In this hour long interview I sat down with John to talk about his approach to training for ADCC, the future of leglocks, Galvao vs Pena, advice for Ben Askren and so much more!
Reid Connell: All right. Hi, how are you everybody? We are here in the blue basement for a very special interview. I'm here with John Danaher, of course. John, thank you for having me.
John Danaher: Thank you.
Reid Connell: Here in the blue basement, we're getting ready for ADCC, right?
John Danaher: Yes.
Reid Connell: We just wrapped things up, the first training session of the day. And of course, I always love coming here and seeing some of the most high-level training in the world right here. But we were just talking a minute ago about ADCC, and I was wondering actually, when ... the first ADCC that you went to was?
John Danaher: Yeah. that was UFC ... Sorry, ADCC Brazil when the squad was in its infancy and young-
Reid Connell: 2015?
John Danaher: Yeah, yeah. And Eddie Cummings and Garry Tonon came out. You must remember, that was a very early phase for the squad where our primary emphasis was on pure submission grappling. Most of our emphasis in daily training was getting ready for EBI events, where the emphasis is on pure submission. There's no points scored. There's an overtime, which is based around submission holds. And so the whole emphasis of the training room was very much a very pure submission grappling, no time limit fights and EBI.
John Danaher: And so making the switch to ADCC was, it was interesting to see someone from that pure submission background go into an ADCC tournament where the majority of matches are won by points. And if I remember correctly, Gary and Eddie both won very well with leg locks in their first matches but dropped on points in the second one.
John Danaher: When we prepared next time the squad training had changed a little bit. There was a more versatile squad, which is going in the direction of both submission only and also points tournaments. And the training was significantly different that second time around. And-
Reid Connell: Did you feel like you made adjustments after seeing what happened and in 2015?
John Danaher: Actually, no. we could have prepared that way in 2015 also. It wasn't like I didn't know the rules of ADCC or something like that. I did have a program in mind in those early days, which was a very pure form of submission grappling. I had a belief that jiu-jitsu had gone too much towards point scoring and advantages and that jiu-jitsu in a sense needed to be pushed back towards submission grappling.
John Danaher: Thankfully, at that time there was a host of new submission only tournament's that were cropping up. EDI was the most famous, but there were many others too and they gave a wonderful opportunity for young athletes to change the way people looked at jiu-jitsu and a kind of a movement about this submission only movement. It caught a lot of interest among people.
John Danaher: But at the same time, there was always this persistent criticism that the squad, these kids who, they would do well in submission only, but if they went to a points score, they wouldn't do well. They lack versatility. So I thought, well, that's an easy thing to train. Let's see how we do and change the training and start to add positional concerns along with our traditional submission, heavy approach.
John Danaher: When we went to Europe for the next ADCC, we had many people qualify. I think we had one of the largest teams in ADCC history go to the event. They had all qualified. The only exception was Nicki Ryan, who had almost qualified. He got two silver medals in the North American trials, but because someone pulled out at the last minute, he got an invite. That was how he got into the event. And probably, Gordon Ryan did best. He had an outstanding performance at that ADCC.
Reid Connell: Yeah, 2017 in Finland.
John Danaher: Yeah.
Reid Connell: I was there. We both were there for that one. For me, it was just such an insane, it was such a magical place, really. It was like the entire jiu-jitsu world was in Helsinki, Finland or Espoo, Finland for this tournament.
John Danaher: You say it was interesting. It really was because it's such a small town.
Reid Connell: Yeah.
John Danaher: It was outside of Helsinki. It was in Espoo. And you suddenly had a large number of people from all over the world were would just engaged in grappling in a very small, quiet area. And it literally transformed the town. It was quite interesting.
Reid Connell: It did. I felt like people kept asking me, "When are you guys leaving?"
John Danaher: Yeah. You can't blame them.
Reid Connell: Yeah, because it was like you would go into a restaurant, just a random restaurant-
John Danaher: And you would see five world champions. Yeah.
Reid Connell: Exactly. You'd see the Leandro Lo and Renzo Gracie and everybody sitting down, eating. It was really a magical place and of course a great, great tournament. We've talked a little bit about 2017 for it for a second because it was a great tournament and it was an even better tournament I think for the squad and specifically Gordon Ryan.
John Danaher: Yeah.
Reid Connell: This was the two days, both days there of the tournament, just an incredible performance from Gordon. This was really one of the best performances in ADCC history, I think. I think he had five submissions. I'm not sure if anybody else has ever secured five submissions in a-
John Danaher: I think it was the most successful debut performance in ADCC history.
Reid Connell: It was his first, yeah, his first time at ADCC.
John Danaher: It was a remarkable figure. First, it was a debut performance and the submission rate was I believe, unprecedented for a debut performance. And it really caught people's imagination. Also, because of the nature of the matchmaking, he went against some of the absolute legends of the sport and did particularly well on those matches.
Reid Connell: Yeah. He had probably one of the hardest roads to the finals, or one of the hardest roads to gold. He had Xande and Dylan Danis in the first round. He fought Keenan in the finals. Obviously, you guys spent a lot of time working on ADCC 2017 and when you were here in the room, did you ever envision it going that well for Gordon?
John Danaher: Yeah. I never try to have expectations. That's a good way to be disappointed because at world championship level, the difference between the guy who gets the gold medal and the guy who gets seventh, eighth place is pretty small. There's a lot of variables that can happen. You can get food poisoning two days before the event. You can break a thumb in the last week of training. There's so many things that can happen that can take your performance down 2% to 3% and it might be the difference between the gold medal and quarterfinals loss. So I always try hard not to have expectations.
John Danaher: My job as a coach is to give everyone the greatest possible chance of success leading up to the event. But what happens on the mat, I try not to have expectations about that. I knew that Gordon was going to be a very tough opponent for anyone he went against. That, I was very confident of, but I never had this idea, okay, he's got to win the gold or something like that. That's not the way I think.
John Danaher: It was also a remarkable performance for many of the juniors who went in with very, very little experience in that domain or any domain. A lot of them were just kids. I think Nicky Ryan was probably the youngest competitor ever in ADCC and they all had outstanding matches even when they lost. Always, my thinking is in terms of long term and the truth is that all of those fellows are very, very young and they're still comparatively inexperienced. So they've got a long time ahead of them in this sport and there's no reason why a decade from now they can't all be world champions.
Reid Connell: What do you think it did for the rest of the squad to see one of their own, a young guy like Gordon go out there and do what he did and claim the gold and show that it was possible for everybody? What do you think it did?
John Danaher: That's always a huge, huge thing. We all stand in need of role models. We all have doubts. Okay. Sometimes you look around the room and you're like, man, is this the right way to train? How are the other guys training? Should I be doing what they're doing? It's natural to have doubts. And so when you get positive reinforcement, when you see one of your guys going out and winning, it's an affirmation like, "Hey, we're doing this the right way. This is working."
John Danaher: And you see it to a lesser extent at the North American ADCC trials. When you're winning trials, okay, we're doing something right. It's a wonderful thing for the younger students to be able to see someone they work out with every day and they know very well and he's doing the same thing that they're doing, winning gold medals. That's a huge confidence booster for everybody.
Reid Connell: Do you feel like there was a renewed focus or right after ADCC here?
John Danaher: To be honest, we switch directions so quickly after ADCC, then some guys have to get ready for mixed martial arts. Some guys had to go and help Georges St Pierre prepare for his fight with Michael Bisping. It's just one thing onto another.
Reid Connell: On to the next thing.
John Danaher: The day you start getting nostalgic and looking back and saying, "Oh, remember the good old days when ..." No, you've lost it at that point. Better to take your wins and move on to something new.
Reid Connell: So, now we are treated two years later.
John Danaher: Yeah.
Reid Connell: Can you believe that that was two years ago?
John Danaher: I can't It seems like yesterday.
Reid Connell: It does, right? It does. It really does. But two years later, a lot has happened it feels like in the world of jiu-jitsu. It feels like a little bit of of a different scene now. I don't know. What do you think are maybe the the biggest changes from two years ago to now in the No-gi grappling scene?
John Danaher: I think you saw a lot of those changes at the North American trials. If you looked at North American ADCC trials, you saw a significantly different approach to grappling overall. The number of leg lock submissions was up by, I didn't know what the percentage points are, but it was considerable. The game has changed significantly. If you look at footage of ADCC North American trials from say, seven years ago, 10 years ago, it looks like a different sport.
John Danaher: Nowadays, people are coming out, engaging the legs, looking for reactions of that. The integration between jiu-jitsu and wrestling has improved dramatically and it looks good for the future of the sport.
Reid Connell: And you definitely have to give credit where credit is due. I think you were obviously a very big part, and congratulations on all your DVDs and BJJ Fanatics that you're doing.
John Danaher: Thank you.
Reid Connell: It seems like things have been going super well. And I know in terms of the internet, it feels like everybody's talking about your DVDs and the leg locks especially. So I definitely wanted to congratulate you on that.
Reid Connell: But, do you feel like that ... Do you feel some sense of pride in the way that things that have changed? Because I do genuinely think, and I don't think I'm out of line in saying that you definitely impacted a lot of these changes.
John Danaher: I'm very proud of the fact that my students were able to do this. The truth is, I'm the guy that teaches seven days a week in a basement. If it wasn't for my students, no one would even know what my name was. And so, the people who deserve the lion's share of the credit are my students.
John Danaher: I've shown them a lot that they too are very innovative people. They come up with their own modifications and things that I show and they've done an incredible job of taking what we work here every day, taking it out onto the big stage, and winning matches with it over a long period of time. And so most of the pride that I have is for their accomplishments because without them, no one would know who I was.
Reid Connell: Sure. You mentioned the North American trials, though and we were there for both the East Coast and a West Coast trials. Ethan, of course won the East Coast trials and Nicky won the West Coast trials. Both guys, very impressive fashion. I believe Nicky submitted all his fights and in Ethan submitted-
John Danaher: All but one.
Reid Connell: All but one, so very impressive performances from the junior members of the squad this second time around. But I want to talk about Nicky, specifically. He was, like you said, the youngest guy to compete. I believe 16 years old the last time around. Now he's older, a little wiser. We saw him at the West Coast trials.
John Danaher: He just turned 18.
Reid Connell: Just turned 18, so he's 18 now.
John Danaher: He was 17 when he won trials and turned 18 subsequent.
Reid Connell: Gotcha. Gotcha. Were you impressed with his trials performance?
John Danaher: No, he sucked. No. I'm kidding. No, Nicky is one of the most remarkable people I've ever coached in my life. There's no question about that. I mean, you saw it for yourself, watching him roll this morning. He looks like a human highlight rail every time he steps on the mat. He's like a little guided missile, which has a seeker for the back and the legs and he just plays between those two and it's a nightmare to get away from. He's very, very talented.
John Danaher: He's also incredibly hard working. Just to get here for the morning class, the kid has to beat the traffic to get into Manhattan. He's getting up at 5:00 in the morning and coming in here and he'll workout again and he'll go home to New Jersey and teach at night.
John Danaher: These kids deserve so much credit for the work ethic they show on a daily basis. We were here yesterday slogging out ADCC training and talking afterwards and then he had to drive home. Now he's back here in the morning. They do the work and it's extremely impressive.
John Danaher: At the trials, I watched Nicky's preparation obviously, and again I don't have expectations, but I was very confident he would do well. There's always concerned will a guy translate his gym performances to competition scenarios? And I must say, the Ryan brothers both do an extraordinary job of that. They both have a lot of confidence in their ability to go out and do what I do in the gym out there on the stage. That's not something you can really coach. That's something that comes from within the athlete. I can coach technique, tactic, strategy, but at the end of the day, it's not me who pulls the trigger. It's them. And those moments where you get to pull the trigger, they only last for a fraction of a second and you can either hang back or you can go in and fire and those kids, when the time comes, those two kids fire.
Reid Connell: Yeah. I definitely have been able to witness that. That's been special. But Nicky, like he's mentioned, is getting older and, 18 years old now. He won the trial that at 66 and then a little while later we learned that he was moving up to the 77 kilogram division.
John Danaher: Yeah. That's a big thing. The reasoning behind it is simple. Again, I always think long term. For Nicky to make weight, he could do it, there's no question about that, but to be honest with you, I worry long term about Nicky doing weight cuts during a period when he should be focused on physical growth. When you look at the medical evidence, there's mixed reviews about the effect of weight cuts on adolescents and teenagers who are in growth spurts. And my thinking is, Nicky's got many ADCCs ahead of him. This is not going to be his last ADCC, so let's think longterm and let's focus on trying to use nutrition to be as big as you can so that when you're an adult ... Let's worry more about your adult career than your teenage career.
John Danaher: And Nicky was very much in favor of that kind of thinking. So, he went up a weight division. So he will actually be, I think by far in a way the smallest person in his weight division. That could potentially be a problem but as I said, I'm thinking about Nicky when he's 25, 28, 30-
Reid Connell: Longterm.
John Danaher: Rather than when he's 17 or 18. I would rather see Nicky focus on his adult career, rather than his teenage career.
Reid Connell: Do you think he'll be as big as Gordon?
John Danaher: I don't believe so. If you look at their family genetics, there's quite a bit of variation in height and I think Gordon was the upper end of genetic height potential and Nicky is the lower end. I could be wrong. I've seen late growth spurts. It can happen, but I don't think he's going to be as big as Gordon. I think he'd be more like Garry Tonon's size.
Reid Connell: What do you think is the biggest difference between Nicky in 2017 to Nicky in 2019?
John Danaher: That's a great question. He's significantly better in the standing position. He was already very good on the ground. Mechanically, the tightness of his locks and strangles has improved. That's very important in competition because no one taps for free at world championships. You've got to threaten to break people or strangle them unconscious. So, just the sheer mechanical tightness is there. Guard retention has significantly improved and standing position has significantly improved.
Reid Connell: Wow. And of course, we all know that there's a big emphasis on the wrestling in ADCC. Do you feel like that he lacked that in 2017, or just, he's better now?
John Danaher: He's just better now.
Reid Connell: He's just better now. Yeah, gotcha.
Reid Connell: Another guy, I mean, there's so many guys you've got going to ADCC from the gym and there's a lot of ADCC experience on these mats. But another guy I wanted to ask you about is a brand new guy to the gym and to jiu-jitsu as a whole, I guess, is this Nicky Rodriguez who I believe-
Reid Connell: -I guess is this Nick Rodriguez, who I believe has been been training with you for maybe the past year? I'm not sure it sure. Somewhere around there.
John Danaher: Gordon border man. Yeah, he's a freak.
Reid Connell: What can you tell us about Nick? Because he has just exploded onto the scene. He's a brash personality.
John Danaher: He's quite a character.
Reid Connell: Yeah. Yeah. He's kind of-
John Danaher: I'm going to start you off with literally the greatest Jiu-Jitsu quote ever spoken was from Nick Rodriguez. One day we were doing some back attack scenarios and we have a fairly elaborate back attack system. And my students use it all the time in competition, they're very successful with it. And Nick Rodriguez, goes, well I'm running them through some of them, the back attack system details, and he's doing pretty well with it. And when it's time for live training he's just finishing people left and right. And at the end of it he goes like, yeah, I don't remember too much about that arm trap stuff. But I know one thing, if I can lock my hands anywhere below your eyebrows, I'm going to strangle you unconscious.
John Danaher: Below the eyebrows. I was like, oh, okay. That makes things a lot easier. Yeah, forget that whole system, just get them below the eyebrows kid you'll do fine. And the scariest things is, he's pretty much correct.
Reid Connell: Yeah, he's not lying about it, right?
John Danaher: Yeah. And it's crazy. But yeah, he's very, very talented. People think he was like some kind of crazy expert wrestler who came in with 20 years of wrestling, and he's not. He did one year of wrestling in division three. So he's competent at wrestling, but he's not like a, you know, NCAA champion or anything like that. But I've never seen anyone of that size who is as flexible as he is. He can do a full split. He has the kind of flexibility required for Jiu-Jitsu where you can pull feet and knees in towards your body. At the same time you can back arch perfectly. Normally you have one or the other. You can either be flexible forward for Jiu-Jitsu, or you can be arching backwards for wrestling. He's one of the very few people who has both, and he's as fast as a cheetah. So yeah, he's an extraordinary fellow.
Reid Connell: Yeah, I'm really excited to see how he does at ADCC.
John Danaher: I think what freaks people out ... And at the ADCC trials, what really impressed people is that he's doing moves that you only see in the lightweight divisions, at heavyweight. And I think the heavyweights just literally had no idea what was happening. When they see a guy like cartwheeling over them doing Kimura rolls and stuff, this just never happens to me. And they had no idea how to deal with it, and it was quite shocking.
Reid Connell: Yeah, he's so agile out there for sure. Where do you think his ceiling ceiling is? I know he's very young. He's very new to the sport, but do you see the dedication in him?
John Danaher: Yeah, I mean this is another guy who he lives even further away than Gordon and Nicky do. He's like another hour out beyond them, and still comes in. So people can talk all they want about poo-poos personality. Oh, this guy's brash or does this and does that. I don't care about any of those things. What I care about is the numbers. Okay? And when someone's prepared to drive then three and a half hours, and then three and a half hours back home to get a workout in, that speaks to me a lot more than anything you can say about their personality or what words they use or what have you.
John Danaher: Every day I get people coming to the gym and say, John, I'm going to be the next world champion. I just look at them and smile and walk away, because I don't care. Words mean nothing to me. Show me what you're doing, show me what your actions are. And when someone's showing that kind of dedication, I'm willing to drive three hours to get there and three hours back to get one workout. And that's a statement, and you've got to take someone like that seriously.
Reid Connell: And he has a great division, that over 99 division. I mean with Buchecha, Mahamed Aly.
John Danaher: It's a superstar division.
Reid Connell: Yeah. It really is. There is so many good guys in there. So to see him mix it up-
John Danaher: Mahamed Aly went up this year.
Reid Connell: He did, he went up.
John Danaher: He got a lot bigger.
Reid Connell: He got a lot bigger, but I believe Tim Spriggs, his teammate was in-
John Danaher: Ah that was the reason for it?
Reid Connell: Yeah. So as I believe-
John Danaher: But he won't be a small guy.
Reid Connell: He won't be outside, so I don't think so, at all. But Mahamed was there last year, he fought Gordon in the absolute division actually.
John Danaher: He actually had a very good ADCC. In his weight division he did very well. He'll heal hooked quickly by Gordon and so people tend to remember that. But yeah, in his weight division he has some spectacular matches.
Reid Connell: Yeah. He's another a very agile and exciting grappler to watch. I would love to see him versus Nick.
John Danaher: Anything could happen, he'll probably knock out the referee. The referee will get crushed.
Reid Connell: Need a couple more mats to contain those too. But this ADCC, especially this year, I know, always ADCC is a big competition. It's a prestigious competition. But this year especially, it really feels like that the level is higher than it has ever been at. You know, it being in Los Angeles this time around I think is going to-
John Danaher: It's been a long time since it was in America.
Reid Connell: So I think it's really going to open up the accessibility for fans to watch and follow this tournament. You know, for people who don't know though about ADCC and about the history, maybe the prestige, what is so alluring about winning this tournament? What is the big deal, I guess?
John Danaher: That's a good question. I think any serious sport has to have some kind of world championship. People want to know who's the best guy in the world. There's always that question. Okay, is this guy's good? That guy's good. Okay. Who's the best? Show me who the best guy is. If you look at freestyle wrestling, you look at international Judo, they have an accredited world championship. And everything is ... The big wish, okay, who's the current world champ? That gives you an immediate sense of who's the best guy out there. And people aim for that and aspire towards it. It gives you are very direct goal. So the athletes benefit from it. There's the ideal, I want to be a world champion. And the spectators benefit from it. They know who they should focus their attention on. These are the best people. Nothing crystallizes attention in both the athletes and the spectators like a world championship. Now the problem with grappling is that for the longest time it had no real world championships. Even even the IBJJF world champion is a relatively recent thing.
John Danaher: Jiu-Jitsu had been around a lot longer than the world championships had. And even the first world championships were not that big of an events in Brazil. It took a while but it wasn't until 2000 that they became a big deal.
Reid Connell: And there was a couple worlds championships.
John Danaher: Which one is which?
Reid Connell: Yeah, exactly.
John Danaher: Then one emerged and the sport took off. Okay? Similarly with submission grappling, it didn't really have any kind of accredited world championship. The only people who in the sport, who really had the financial ability to do that were the team in Abu Dhabi. And they put together a first world championship. They were able, using their connections and the finances that they had to put forward a serious event. And the early events had a kind of exoticism to them. They were in the Middle East, which is not really a recognized center of submission grappling at that time.
John Danaher: And like talked about before, suddenly you had teams of the best guys in the world showing up in this rather exotic event. In those days you could only get VHS videos of it, and you would watch, and have these crazy Middle Eastern soundtracks. And you watch people grapple with no commentators. It Was kind of bizarre thing. But in time it matured and became a standout. And in time, by around somewhere between 2003, that was a big one. I believe that was the one in Brazil that garnered a lot of attention.
John Danaher: And by then you had like a mature world championships that people took very, very seriously. And as the sport took off from there. So I think there's just an innate need for a world championship. Both spectators and athletes want it. They want to know, who's the top dog? Show me the best person. That's the greatest motivator you can ever be, you know? And it takes time to develop for both the Gi community, but the IBJF world championship. It took some time with ADCC, it took some time that those two organizations outlasted the competition. And they're still here today and growing and the others are gone. They're dinosaurs. So, yeah. Yeah.
Reid Connell: And unequivocally the winner at ADCC is the best in the world, right? I mean that's-
John Danaher: There's always going to be people who argue, but show me a better criteria. Okay? You go in there, there's many exciting events. There's many events that have a certain kind of appeal to them, but there's no event where you just see, just the sheer depth of talent that you do in ADCC. Nothing else matches it. You'll see some events where there's one or two guys that are damn good, or might even be ADCC champions themselves, but it's one or two guys. You don't go into a locker room and see 45 dudes who are like absolute killers. That's only in ADCC.
Reid Connell: Do you feel like even since you know 2003, when it kind of solidified itself, you know, do you feel like it's gotten better and better? That the level of Jiu-Jitsu, would it be a fair statement to say that in 2019 this is the highest level ADCC has ever seen?
John Danaher: I'm a huge, huge believer in the idea of progress over time. I believe that ... And the ability, the cumulative ability of humans to increase performance levels over time, just as Jesse Owens was a great sprinter. But in no way, shape or form could you compare him to the sprinters of today. Like Usain Bolt is demonstrably faster than Jesse Owens. Now I know there's elements that can sway this. They wore different shoes back then, they ran on different tracks. But don't kid yourself, Usain Bolt is faster than Jesse Owens. That doesn't mean Jesse Owens wasn't a great splinter for his time, but over time humans make progress. And the athletes of today lift heavier weights, run faster than the athletes of yesteryear.
John Danaher: And I don't believe that Jiu-Jitsu is any exception to this. I do believe the athletes of today, if they were put in time machines, went back into early ADCCs would significantly out perform the majority of athletes from those earlier times. It's just the way it works, and it's the way it should work. If it doesn't work that way, that means that coaches and athletes aren't doing their job. We learn from previous generations. If we're not better than previous generations, we're not learning, and then we're failures. And so there must be this progress.
John Danaher: And so I'm always going to come back with the answer, as time progresses, as a general trend, the level of athletic performance will increase. There are some exceptions to that. There can be downturns due to outside factors where a sport can go backwards for a short period of time. But progress and athletics is rather like progress in the stock market. There can be dips and move. But over time as a general upward progression.
Reid Connell: What do you expect to see, I guess, at 2019 ADCC? Because I think we talked ... I remember coming here beforehand, and I feel like we talked so much about the leg locks in 2017, when I was here before. And I think, you know, obviously we're ... I'm sure you're expecting some wrestling, that seems to be the one constant. But in terms of the Jiu-Jitsu, I don't know, if you can maybe extend-
John Danaher: I think the leg lock revolution has spread so far and wide at this point that who does best in ADCC is going to be the ones who react best to the changes in the game through leg locking.
John Danaher: The level of resistance to leg locking is going to be much higher this year than previous years. People aren't naive anymore. And it's not like the old days where you could just go out, throw [inaudible 00:31:42] around me and you won the match. And so who deals best with that kind of resistance is going to be those who do very, very well.
Reid Connell: So maybe not necessarily like leg lock off offense but more specifically-
John Danaher: Counter offense. Ones who can feed off the reactions to a threat. If there's back exposure, you know, I entered, you can expose your back defending the leg lock, or I can expose my back working for the leg lock. These are all the ways in which you can win in ADCC. But it's going to come down to who manages that initial threat based.
Reid Connell: Gotcha. But the leg locks will still be a very big part.
John Danaher: But in a different way.
Reid Connell: But in a different way. Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. Is there any other developments you expect to see?
John Danaher: Who exploits the, we call it the wrestling game, but let's be honest, the wrestling you see in ADCC is significantly different from say freestyle or college styles of wrestling. It has to be because there's submission holds involved, and the the rules for the take down are massively different. And so you'll see techniques drawn from wrestling, but the actual wrestling itself in ADCC, as I said, is significantly different from just pure freestyle or collegiate. And so the athletes who manage that distinction best are going to do very, very well in ADCC.
Reid Connell: There's a couple things I wanted to get your thoughts on here as well. At ADCC there's a big Superfight on that weekend. Of course, the reigning, defending ADCC Superfight Champion, Andre Galvao will be taking on the absolute champion from 2017, Felipe Pena. Both guys, you know, making their mark on the sport. Both, I think fair to say, legends of the sport at this point. You know, one of the biggest Superfights I think you could make in the sport at this point. Wanting to get your thoughts on this matchup. I think this is going to be a good one.
John Danaher: Yeah, it's a fascinating match up. It's complicated by the fact that one athlete is significantly older than the other. So that's always something you have to take into consideration. In terms of physicality, they're both very, very strong physical combatants, and they'll both be in tremendous shape when on the day. When you look at Andre Galvao, he's the master tactician. He's the guy who comes in. He knows what he has to do to win the match.
John Danaher: And when you look at Felipe Pena, you see someone who's technically a whiz, he's not naive about tactics. But he's more of a kind of a pure Jiu-Jitsu, lets go until someone taps kind of a guy. I would give Pena the edge and just pure submissions potential, but I would give Galvao the edge in tactics that can make you win on the day. And so it's going to be this fascinating battle of the young brilliant athlete with a brilliant, brilliant submissions game, versus the older, more aware tactical athlete who knows what it takes to exploit rules, tactics, et cetera, et cetera, to do just enough to shut out talented people and get there.
John Danaher: A good example would have been Galvao's match against Toquinho. I remember when Toquinho came in, and I believe it was in London, ADCC. And he was just tearing up everybody. And finally got to Galvao in the final, and put Galvao under tremendous pressure. Took them down numerous times, almost got to the legs a bunch of times, but Galvao knew just enough tactics and points awareness to take a very, very hard fought match. And he went up against one of the most dangerous guys in submission grappling, shut him down and got the win. And that's to his strong point. That's what he's best at. And I think you're going to see a match of that kind. It's going to be the sort of submissions brilliance versus tactical genius.
Reid Connell: Can I get you to make a prediction?
John Danaher: I never give predictions.
Reid Connell: Gotcha. So not this time either.
John Danaher: Yeah, I'm a coach, not a fortune teller.
Reid Connell: Gotcha. Okay. And then something that we love to speculate about. I don't know. I know you don't make predictions, but the absolute division. We don't know who will be be in there. And I was going to ask you who you think would win the absolute division. [inaudible 00:36:21] who you think will do well in the absolute? We don't know. We can never know who the
John Danaher: Yeah, the absolute division is going to be crazy. It's unlikely Gordon Ryan's knee will be in shape to do the ADCC at this point. I'm not going to rule it out, it's possible. But even if he did come in to the event, he wouldn't have had a good preparation for it. He just won't be ready in the time. So it kind of leaves an open field. There's a bunch of stellar athletes. Obviously most people were keeping their eyes on somebody like Buchecha. He's been there before and he's this absolute powerhouse. He's going to have a significant size advantage over most of his opponents. So he's got to be the leading contender, I think. And he ran into Pena in the last one, and it was a good match, but Pena is dangerous with the submission holds. And he showed that in that match. So I think most people would favor Buchecha for the open weight this year.
Reid Connell: Mm-hm (affirmative). One of the only titles that a Buchecha has not done, captured.
John Danaher: So there's a real motivation for him to go out there and take it. But I think most people would agree he would be the leading contender at this point.
Reid Connell: So we're just about two months away, I believe, from-
John Danaher: Just slightly over two months.
Reid Connell: Just slightly over two months. You know, so I can't believe it's coming up already. But you know, it looked like things were in full swing. Here, you guys are ... Have you started-
Reid Connell: You know, it looked like things were in full swing. Here you guys are, have you started ADCC camp? Yeah. And can you maybe tell me how are things going and I don't know, is there a different emphasis this time around?
John Danaher: The emphasis is more about getting younger athletes ready for competition. Since Gordon is unlikely to be there and Garry is focused on mixed martial arts now it's basically the juniors who are going out. They're also joined by Craig Jones. He's doing the full camp here. He's a wonderful kid by the way, trained very, very well and keep your eyes on Craig Jones for this ADCC. He's added some very, very interesting elements to his game. He's getting a nasty front headlock and a nasty kimura attack and I think he's going to be a very, very tough person to stop in this year's ADCC. We didn't mention him in the interview, but we should have. He's coming along very well.
John Danaher: So getting the juniors ready is what this game is about. And I'm happy with the fact that they're all so young, that this is going to be one of many ADCCs that they compete in.
Reid Connell: And you mentioned a little bit earlier about the points aspect of ADCC. Is that something too that that you guys are focused on or are you guys still focused on the submission?
John Danaher: We're always going to be submissions first. Everything else second. That's never going to change as this is my brand of jiu-jitsu. But we're realists too. And if you're serious about winning ADCC, you've got to be serious about how are you going to score points and at world championship level, the submissions don't come easy. So there has to be this compromise between your desire to fulfill the ideal of the sport, which is submissions and your desire to win a championship, which realistically in at least half of the cases you're probably going have to be by points.
Reid Connell: Is this the the funnest time for you, for a coach?
John Danaher: Oh, yeah.
Reid Connell: Are you living the life? The summer, it's like 105 degrees outside.
John Danaher: Yeah. My life is always the same. It doesn't really change much.
Reid Connell: But do you revel in this time period or this-
John Danaher: There's always something coming up. Right after this Garry Tonon will be going back to mixed martial arts. There's always something but it definitely makes for an interesting week when you've got guys getting ready for world championships here you've got George Saint Pierre thinking about coming back into the UFC and you've Gary Tonon getting ready for his next fight and you've got a whole bunch of competing interests and they're all very, very significant.
John Danaher: And then there's other juniors who are getting ready for submission grappling tournaments around the country and you got to keep them under wraps too. So it makes things interesting.
Reid Connell: I bet. I bet. I don't know how you keep it all straight in your mind with all these different rule sets and MMA and-
John Danaher: One day I'll have a complete meltdown, a psychological breakdown on the mat and then you'll never hear from me again. But yeah. Yeah. No, it's fascinating stuff.
Reid Connell: Cool. I had just a couple non ADCC related questions I guess here for you too. Right off the bat, one that I wanted to ask you about real quick. We talked about MMA and you know, one of the last times I saw you, you were teaching a seminar with Ben Askren.
Reid Connell: And so I know he's a guy that you got to know well and that seminar was, you know, a highlight of my year last year. It was a a great time. I'm wondering if you got to see Ben's last fight.
John Danaher: Yes, I did.
Reid Connell: By any chance. And I think a lot of people talking about it, obviously it was a spectacular kind of finish to the fight, but I don't know, I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts about the ... You've been in NMA a long time and seen a lot of different things and seen people come back from big losses or seeing people overcome types of things. I'm just wondering, obviously Ben's a great competitor, but do you have any advice for somebody coming off of a big loss like that or how to handle those types of defeats?
John Danaher: You've always got to ask yourself after the loss, how does this impact me going forward? Like really the most devastating losses to a fighter aren't the losses that everyone talks about. Like when Ben lost, it was an incredibly eye-catching moment. It was the shortest fight in UFC history. Okay. The nature of the knockout, a flying knee, that's always a highlight reel kind of a finish. But really they're not the most damaging kinds of fights to a fighter's confidence because they all happen in a kind of a spontaneous way. The most damaging ones to a fighter's confidence are fights where you get held down and beaten up for five rounds where you felt helpless because then the problem is one of technique. Okay, where your technique was inadequate. The problem with Ben's fight wasn't technique. It was tactics. Now, tactics you can change in 24 hours, but technique, that's going to take years to change.
John Danaher: Okay, so when a fighter loses, the first question you got to ask is did you lose because of techniques? Or did you lose because of tactics? If it's because of tactics, it's an easy fix. Okay. Change your tactics. It's not that big of a deal. But when you lose because of technique, that's a problem because now it's going to take you six months to a year to learn new techniques or improve the existing techniques to a level where you're competitive. Okay. Ben lost on tactics. Okay. That's just an easy thing to get around. Like when a guy runs at you from across the [inaudible 00:44:00], you can't just put your head down and move forward in a straight line. That's an easy thing to correct.
John Danaher: So the big concern of course is okay, what kind of physical damage did Ben Askren take? That I don't know because I don't know Ben well enough to ask those kind of questions. Now I have seen in combat sports athletes take knockouts that changed them physically. Like there is such a thing as a knockout, just so severe that the fighter is never quite the same again. That has happened, but it's pretty rare. And Ben, from what I understand, in subsequent interviews and everything seems to be fine. It's not like he's walking around staring at the ceiling or anything crazy like that.
John Danaher: And you know, he's led a life and combat sports. He's a tough dude. He's not the kind of guy who's going to get gun shy because he got knocked out one time. So provided there's no actual physical damage, which doesn't appear to be the case based on his behavior since the fight, yeah, it should be fine. Change tactics come back next time and win.
Reid Connell: So it's a not quite as devastating maybe as everybody ...
John Danaher: No. Usually when most people say fighters, [inaudible 00:45:11] career, they do it on emotion. They do it on, you know, "Oh my God, a five second knock out. Crazy. That guy's done."
Reid Connell: Yeah.
John Danaher: So how? Why? You think he's just going to forget how .. The guy won a lot of fights. And he won them in a very convincing fashion. You think he's just to forget that? He's just going to forget that now because of one highlight real knockout? No. And again go back to what caused the locks. Okay. If you're losing on technique, that's a serious issue. It's going to take years to resolve that and you might never resolve it. You might never pick up that dignity. You lose on tactics? No problem. Change the tactics. It's easy.
Reid Connell: I know you're a big fan of wrestling as well and I've been meaning to ask you just about some wrestling. Just because I think you know right now feels like a renaissance for wrestling in United States as well. Would that be a fair statement?
John Danaher: Yeah. The American team, it's insane right now. It's crazy.
Reid Connell: What do you think? I don't know. Do you have any insights or any idea of maybe what caused it? Because you had I believe 2017 they were the world, the team champions. And then just last year they, you know, Kyle Dake and David Taylor finally realized their full potential. Of course, Jordan Burrows is still on the team. Of course, Kyle Snyder's still racking up gold medals. I mean this is an extremely impressive-
John Danaher: Very, very, very impressive. I still think that eastern European countries have a greater depth in wrestling. Like their number 10 guy is still better than our number 10 guy. And that's an important consideration IS depth is very, very important when you're building an infrastructure. But America hasn't had success like this in a long, long time and in fact, this may be even unprecedented in terms of the international success that America's getting. I don't believe I'm the right person to ask as to why this is happening because I think you'd have to go to the Olympic training centers in Colorado and ask there. They'd have a much better idea. But it's undeniable that this is going on and it's a thrilling time to be watching American wrestling right now. In general, just the way guys deal with the rules of freestyle now, it seems to be a level above what it was 10, 15 years ago. And the transition from college to international stars of wrestling seems to be managed much better in the American system.
John Danaher: So it's very, very heartening to see. In a way, it's kind of crazy because the population of people wrestling in United States is very high and yet the numbers of metals America was winning for a long time was comparatively low in comparison with relatively small parts of the world like Chechnya and Dagestan or places like that. So I'm glad to see that America's redressing that and they've got some genuine superstars on their team now. These guys are just unbelievable. And it's also a fascinating time within America to see their competition. They try to represent America. It's like just to get on the American team now, it's hell, absolute hell. And we've gone from a team which had a few outstanding individuals to one where they're, they're strong everywhere and they're strong two or three deep per weight division. So it's really, really great to see.
Reid Connell: And I don't know if you saw this on social media last week, Yuri came out and said that he would like to have a wrestling match or a grappling match with Kyle Snyder who was kind of a-
John Danaher: A wrestling match or a grappling match?
Reid Connell: He said either. He said, "I would like to do both." You know, he's like-
John Danaher: A wrestling match with Kyle Snyder?
Reid Connell: He said he wanted to have a wrestling match and you know, and then we could have a grappling match right after it or, you know ...But he did, he speculated and he thought that he would-
John Danaher: Does Kyle Snyder even know what grappling is?
Reid Connell: I don't think so. I think he's definitely securely a wrestler.
John Danaher: Yeah, I think the wrestling match would be an absolute massacre, like not even vaguely competitive. And I'm not, I don't know what Kyle Snyder's level of grappling is, so I'm sure Yuri Simoes would win that just by submission hold pretty easily. So it would just be a kind of a pointless match where one guy crushes one guy in one area, one other guy crushes the other guy in the other. So yeah.
Reid Connell: I wanted to ask you about how do you think wrestlers would do in ADCC? You know, I mean there's a big wrestling component to ADCC and of course we don't know, like I said, don't know wrestling pedigree, I mean grappling pedigree, but we know he's a good wrestler.
John Danaher: First off they're always going to have enormous potential. If you look at the track record of wrestlers in EDCC, it's kind of a mixed bag. You've got someone like Mark who did extraordinarily well and understand that Mark Kerr was pretty heavily immersed in MMA training at that point. So he was not naive at all. And if I remember correctly h submitted a bunch of ... He submitted Josh Barnett with a kimura. Don't quote me on that. I'm pretty sure he did ...
Reid Connell: We'll look that up.
John Danaher: Look it up and so he wasn't a naive wrestler who just came on with pure wrestling. He was already into his MMA career and had a lot of exposure to Jujitsu at that point. You had Ben Askren and he went to ADCC and he got submitted in a matter of seconds by leg lock. So very good wrestler, but perhaps a little naive on submissions. Chris Weidman got all the way to the finals and arguably beat Andre Galvao. It was very, very kind of weird. I don't know how they scored it, but it could've gone either way and he had only done jiu-jitsu for around six months at that point in time.
John Danaher: Now don't get me wrong, Chris, obviously I know very well. He's a student who trained here for a long time. He did have an unusually good propensity to pick up jiu-jitsu. When he used to come here and train, he would pull guard on people. He could've taken out anyone in the room, but he would just only pull guard and worked from bottom position. So he had a real propensity to learn jiu-jitsu and then add it to his wrestling. So what I will say about wrestlers and ADCC is they're always going to have enormous potential as wrestling breeds athletes who want to win, they're tough, they're physical and in a standing position, they're incredibly good.
John Danaher: And the whole thing is, okay, how are they going to integrate that with jiu-jitsu because ADCC has always been a mish-mash between wrestling and jiu-jitsu. It's the match up of the two. And so they're always going to have that potential. But how are they going to manage the addition of jiu-jitsu to their game? Some guys did incredibly well. Chris Weidman, Mark Kerr, some guys not so much. So my general answer to your question is yeah, they're always going to have potential. But ask me one question, how are they going to deal with submission holds? How is that going to be integrated into their training and how are they going to manage that? Understand too that wrestlers are all very, very different. We talk about wrestlers as though there's one kind of wrestler. There's wrestlers who are very good on the mat and there's wrestlers who are typically very good on the feet.
John Danaher: And I generally find the mat wrestlers tend to pick up the jiu-jitsu game a lot easier than the take down specialists. And so someone like Chris Weidman who was best on the mat, does very, very well. Interestingly Ben Askren was very, very good on the mat but seemed to struggle with submissions. So that was kind of like an anomaly there. But people talk about wrestlers like they're all the same. But there's a lot of variation within wrestling and you see some very, very big changes in style between different kinds of wrestling, different styles of wrestling and even different locations in wrestling. Like the way the Iranians wrestle is significantly different from how the Russian Caucasus wrestlers go to work and from the American college styles. So there's quite a bit of variation there.
Reid Connell: I know we're getting a little late. I know you got a class to teach here in just a little bit. So I'll try to wrap things up, but like we said, two months out from ADCC, I guess what's the plan? Or how will things go from now until the competition? I guess we're starting to to get closer and closer, day by day obviously.
John Danaher: As a general rule, as time gets closer and closer, the main concern becomes physically peaking the athletes for the day or in this case, two days. So when you're getting very close to the events, things like managing weight cuts, keeping athletes active screw or weight cut without injuring them, that's a big issue. But right now we're still over two months away. So right now it's more about technique and tactics. So the emphasis right now is techniques, tactics, trying to keep injury rates as low as possible. That's difficult because it's got to be physical training and as much as you want to reduce injuries, you've also got to keep realism as well. So right now it's about the balance between physicality and safety, techniques and tactics and as we get closer and closer to the event, the concern of the safety increases. Injuries one week before the event are much more serious than injuries two months before the event, along with managing weight cuts and the general rule is things can be pretty physical now, but that physicality will start to diminish as we get closer and closer to the event and hard sparring will be replaced more by drilling.
Reid Connell: September 28th and 29th out in Los Angeles, California. It's coming up very, very quick. You'll be out there of course?
John Danaher: Yes.
Reid Connell: You'll be out there coaching your whole squad and of course we didn't get to really talk about Ethan and Oliver Taza as well
John Danaher: Yeah. Those are two guys. They both get stand out performances and their first ADCCs. And they're both looking very sharp.
Reid Connell: And then Nicky, Nick Rodriguez, we'll see if Gordon is healthy or not, but certainly-
John Danaher: Of course, Craig Jones.
Reid Connell: And Craig as well. Somebody we didn't get to talk about, but a huge squad you guys got bringing out there.
John Danaher: I think once again, we had the most success in getting people into the event and that's half the battle is getting to the event. And for the last two ADCC now, I think we had the most success in getting the most athletes into the event and now the question is, okay, we got there, what are you going to do with it?
Reid Connell: Nice. Well, I absolutely cannot wait for this event. You know, 2017 was one of the best times watching, covering jiu-jitsu for me. So I'm just ecstatic about 2019. I can't wait for it. Of course, it's live on FloGrappling. September 28th and 29th. John, thanks so much for the time.
John Danaher: My pleasure.
Reid Connell: I really, really appreciate it as always, and I'll see you guys next time.