Recently Mahamed Aly won the European BJJ Championship and then the Brazilian Trials for the 2017 ADCC, securing a spot at the September event in Finland.
After taking down the 99kg division at the Trials, he talked to Graciemag about his strategy and more.
I’m very happy in this new category. Last year I tried to fight over 99kg, but my weight didn’t go up. So this year I decided to go back to my original weight, and it’s all working out. Last week I won the Euro, and this week the ADCC trials. I did four fights and got two submissions. The other two were won on strategy. It’s something I don’t like doing, but I was afraid to open up the game and get the worst of it.
Aly also explained how he used an ADCC-specific rule in his favor.
The ADCC rule is a little weird — points only count after the first three minutes of the fight. So I used those first three minutes to try to tire and wear out my adversaries. It worked, and, when the points kicked in, I managed to impose my wrestling, take down and control on top.