WNO 29: Some Observations of Gianni Grippo vs Max Hanson
Some context: Pasting these quick notes from RoamResearch. This was from the WNO 29 event where Gianni was scheduled to fight Owen Jones but ended up facing Max Hanson. I don't know much about Max Hanson, but I've somewhat followed Gianni so I was curious how he was going to do in his debut on WNO. The timestamps below are from the beginning of the match until Gianni comes up on top. Gianni tends to play guard, so I wanted to just focus from his point of view and how he was creating destabilization. Also I'm not a black belt, so if there's something anyone notices I say that is off, let me know!
- Each time Gianni destabilized Max (either hands on mat, knees to mat, or hips to mat) somewhat substantially:
- @14:47 seemed like a DLR with other leg under hips and lift
- no follow up from Gianni though
- @14:09 seemed like Gianni cycled from RDLR to his right and then DLR to his left to get Max's hand on the mat
- no follow up from Gianni though
- @13:30 another DLR and lift above head
- seemed like Gianni wanted to weave his DLR leg inside but Max shut it down by switching hips while posted on his hands
- @13:03 another DLR and lift above head
- closest so far that Gianni came to getting both legs inside and coming up on top though it end up in neutral
- @10:19 RDLR to a foot sweep to put Max on his hips
- Max may have accepted being on hips but Gianni didn't exactly follow up with an attack from that
- Gianni went to closed guard for a unsuccessful k guard attempt
- @8:15 another DLR and lift above head
- seems like Gianni wants to lift to hands and then get his DLR hook to inside position but Max uses his hand post to switch his hips in the air and shut that down
- @6:50 this sequence was more initiated by Max attempting to go under Gianni's non DLR hook leg (what should that be called) and Gianni just pulled him to his hip
- Gianni tried to invert off of this and maybe go for a berimbolo but Max shut it down
- actually seemed like Max threatened or faked a back take to get into cross ashi
- Gianni tried to invert off of this and maybe go for a berimbolo but Max shut it down
- @5:19 Gianni comes up on top!
- @5:34 off of Gianni's DLR it seemed like Max was threatening a backstep into cross ashi but Gianni inverted got inside position and came up with a single leg to get on top
- @14:47 seemed like a DLR with other leg under hips and lift
I guess I could try to break it down into what entries and outcomes I noticed from the beginning to the @5:19 min mark from Gianni. Gianni seemed to alternate between RDLR and DLR to move Max left/right or above his head. The times he was able to achieve an off balance or destabilization, it seemed like Gianni wanted to gain inside position with his DLR hook and enter the legs. Or Gianni wanted to berimbolo to threaten the back or come up on top. I would want to go back through and look at it from Max's perspective to see how much progress he made in terms of passing Gianni's guard. I believe Max entered into cross ashi at least twice off of a scramble or inversion from Gianni. The times Gianni got Max above his hand with hands posted Max just switched hips and shut down inside position access. Those are some quick thoughts from the first section of that match and Max made a point at the end to say he should done more loose passing in the beginning, so I'd be interested in exploring why he would think that.