What happened to the leg lock revolution that was supposed to occur in MMA?

What about the leg lock revolution that was supposed to happen in MMA? A lot of no gi has has turned into guys rolling around like roaches on their back entangling legs and corkscrewing around until someone can get a tap.

With the new wave of leg submissions and dominance people were saying it was going to make its way to MMA.

That never happened, it is extremely rare to ever see a leg submission in MMA especially at the higher levels. It does happen sure but usually it just results in guys getting stuck in a bad position and blasted in the face repeatedly.

Will leg locks ever be a relevant thing in MMA or are they generally just a bad move with the potential to get beaten down?

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Face punching and loss of position happened.

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Yes of course but many guys were saying with the “new generation” of leg lockers being so innovative and damn good that it would translate to success in MMA and make some waves.

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No one has a good enough guard or safe and well thought out enough entries to consistently keep themselves safe while attacking the foot at the same time besides Hall and I would assume Tonon.

And aside from them, who in current MMA is even a renowned, high level leglocker? Most heel hooks you see in MMA are Hail Marys that are successful more so cause the victim doesn’t know what to do rather than the attacker doing something amazing imo

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Paul Harris was a beast

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The “revolution” was largely based on 50/50 guard which is a major positional flaw. 50/50 isn’t good odds and it isn’t a good position. Single leg x (ashi garame) is far superior to attack / sweep / recover position but that wasn’t the trend.

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Completely disagree with this.
50/50 is a great proposition when you are dictating. Everyone is finishing from backside 50/50 nowadays and the stalemate position is gone from people that know what they are doing. Great pathway to the back or route to top position.
Id wager you actually see way less finishes at a high level from single leg x

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I’ve been training leg locks heavily for 17 years, primarily from single leg x and the progressive steps from there. I pre-date the revolution. I’ve seen countless low level and high level matches where the 50/50 instigator ends up being the one who gets submitted. That should never happen with superior positioning. No offense, I don’t know your background, but people who got into leg locks during the revolution obviously don’t see or don’t want to see the flaws.

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It happened during the machida era

I think it will take a little more time. People were basing this off the most recent batch of leg lockers who largely impacted the grappling world. Arguably it’s a little late in their careers to revolutionize MMA after that too. I still think it will happen. Much like what was highlighted above, more entries into the legs off single legs etc.

I’m not offended at all (truthfully) but I’m directly adjacent to the highest level of leg locking that also predates the DDS renaissance.
While I’ve heel hooked a metric shit ton of random competitors in local tournaments, I’m by no means an expert on any leg entanglement positions myself, just a little better there than your average bear.
Also not meaning offense, have you put the 17 years worth of knowledge into practice in MMA, or other high level competition?

In my direct experience, failure in the 50/50 comes mostly from treating it like a seesaw position and allowing yourself to be vulnerable without understanding the fluidity of the position, the transitions, the up/downs, etc. We are at the very beginning of grasping the potential of the position, it has, even in usage at high levels, been dangerously underdeveloped.

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I think Kenny trained with Ryan Hall at 50/50 didn’t you? Perhaps he has some bias towards 50/50 due to his association.

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There have been a couple “revolutions” really. The 50/50 and what spawned from there and then the Danaher DDS new age revolution with ashi garami Gordon Ryan, Eddie Cummings, Tonon etc.

Whoever mentioned Palhares good call I totally forgot about him. People were terrified when he would grab hold of their leg. Partly because he didn’t know what a tap was.

If leg locks were a path forward to high level success in MMA I think people would be making moves with them now. That hasn’t materialized.

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Palhares brought it to the fore in MMA. Then it was easily countered (Belcher?). And then no consistent success from anyone since then.

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Yup! No bias though (truthfully). I’ve developed the position a bit more than say saddle, but it’s just a position to me, no special reverence. I like being able to move more fluidly than being “locked in” like one is with saddle.

I think MMA is a numbers game though. How many MMA guys are good enough at Jiu Jitsu to be comfortable working from the bottom. And if that number, how many are proficient in leg attacks and treat those entanglements as their own positions? I can think of 3, all of which have been successful to various degrees.

I guess you can almost look at it like a spinning wheel kick. Flashy on the outside, rarely used for a period of time, but once people started figuring out how it works and where it fits, it’s become very useful. There was a time where people thumbs down that technique too

Also as far as consistent success, Iminari has down well, Held despite being overrated as a leg locker has down pretty well, Tonon has a heel hook finish and I bet he would have more if he wanted them. Watching his fights it looks like he’s purposefully developing skill sets rather than playing his A game to win… and of course Hall has 4 heel hooks in MMA, and imo would probably have had 2 more if not for the illegal kicks against Maynard/Minner, but most importantly, in all his fights who has been able to successfully crack him (legally) when he is attacking the legs?

Edit: sorry, typing from phone and I’m very bad at it.

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To be fair, outside his eagerness to pounce on your foot and rip it with all his roided out might (same way he finished Kim it’s etc), how good was he actually at foot locking people… or really Jiu Jitsu in general? I think when he ran into Belcher he a) finally wasn’t allowed to be the bully b) was the first time he encountered competence in those positions.

It’s funny, I think a lot of guys like Galvao or Shields/Fitch made him look to be a lot better than he was at grappling by meeting him head on. Then little William Tackett comes along and whoops his ass in style.

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I think jiujitsu guys need to learn to clinch before leg locks will make a significant impact. Probably a few takedowns as well. Imanari rolls are great, but they look much harder to pull off when you opponent knows it’s coming.

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So at Ruas Vale Tudo and CSW we did lots of leg locks since 2002. I think a lot of today’s guys are trying more complicated and longer set ups.
I believe in keeping it simple

Defense should also be simple

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By the time it rolls around everyone will have already been training the defense(s) for years

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Leg locks work if a) you are up against a naive opponent. b) your opponent willingly plays the leg lock game with you. c) you can stop them extracting the knee.

Not many MMA guys belong to those groups.

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