The Abu Dhabi Combat Club’s 12th Submission Fighting World Championships are on the schedule for September 23rd and 24th in Helsinki, FInland. As usual, six tournaments of 16 men are on the bill and several superfights are listed as well. Several Bookmakers is the only sports book out there carrying lines on this elite grappling tournament and below are the odds as they currently stand.
The tradition of the ADCC superfight sees the champion defending his superfight “title” against the winner of the previous competition’s Absolute or open-weight tournament. The current superfight champion is Andres Galvao, who won the open weight back in 2011 and has already defended the superfight title in 2013 and 2015. His challenger is Claudio Calasans, who won the Absolute tourney in 2015.
This match pits two men whose Jiu-Jitsu pedigree comes from the same branch of the tree, as both men received black belts from disciples of Osvaldo Alves. This could lead to a highly competitive match or it could lead to a stalemate, so beware. Galvao is now 35 years old but he has been dominant for years now and is considered one of the top competitors of the modern era. Calasans is a few years younger at 32 and he has judo black belt on his resume as well, but he is going to need for Galvao to slip a little if he is going to break through.
The second superfight was originally advertised as Frank Mir vs Chael Sonnen, but Mir is a scratch and Sonnen will now be facing ADCC veteran Leo Vieira. Credit Sonnen for competing under any rules at anytime, but the ADCC has long been Leo Vieira’s world. The main thing here is that Vieira’s best days as a competitor were in the under 66KG division and he is going to be more than 10 kilos bigger for this. Sonnen is strong and he just may be able to outmuscle Vieira for the time limit.
A third superfight is listed and it is a classic as Renzo Gracie takes on Sanae Kikuta in a fight that has not been issued a line as of yet.
Superfight #1
Andres Galvao -345
Claudio Calasans +275
Superfight #2
Chael Sonnen +455
Leo Vieira -550
