By consensus, the co-main event at Who’s Number One: Gordon Ryan vs Vagner Rocha is going to be a wrestling showdown between two of the best takedown artists in the heavyweight division.

Nick Rodriguez, the no. 4-ranked heavyweight, and Yuri Simões, ranked no. 6, each earned their biggest grappling accomplishments at ADCC, and they each did it blending sharp wrestling and calculated jiu-jitsu. If their backgrounds are any indication, this matchup will be a shootout, but who has the better wrestling?

In his first visit to the ADCC World Championships in 2019, Nicky Rod shocked the world with three sequential upsets, beating Mahamed Aly, Orlando Sanchez, and Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, before falling on points to Kaynan Duarte. He climbed through the division with his explosive wrestling and with flashy backtakes, earning the moniker “The Black Belt Slayer.”

Watch: The Black Belt Slayer, Nick Rodriguez

But at WNO, Nicky Rod will have a tough test against a black belt with some of the best wrestling ever witnessed in ADCC.

Simões is a two-time ADCC champion. He won it in 2015 in the 88 kg division, and again in 2017 in the 99 kg division. In both years, Simões used his sharp wrestling abilities to systematically outscore the likes of Romulo Barral, Keenan Cornelius, Jackson Sousa, and Felipe Pena.

If ADCC is any indication, Simões may be the better wrestler than his upcoming opponent. ADCC has one of the most difficult scoring systems in the grappling world. Nicky Rod made it to the ADCC final in 2019 without scoring a single point. While somewhat surprising, that’s not particularly unusual. There are several conditions which must be met in order for the ADCC judges to award points for any given technique, meaning it is rare for an athlete to score points.

Scoring is made even rarer by the fact that, in the first half of any ADCC match, no points are awarded for offensive maneuvers. Still, Nicky Rod made his way to the final in 2019 through forward movement, and getting to near-scoring positions.

Despite the challenge competitors face in scoring at ADCC, Yuri Simões has scored a total of 16 points in his three trips to the ADCC World Championships. Yuri has earned points in six of his ten ADCC matches. Of the four matches in which he did not score, he won two of them by submission before the points period began. He won one match by decision, and suffered his only loss in his career at ADCC via points to Kaynan Duarte.

Kaynan beat Yuri by a score of 3-0, taking Yuri’s back after a takedown exchange which went out of bound. During that exchange, Yuri injured his knee. 

Kaynan is not just the only person to score on Yuri in a ten-match run; he’s also the only person who put points on the board against Nicky Rod in 2019.

Watch: What Can We Expect From Nicky Rod vs Yuri Simoes? | WNO Podcast Clip

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Despite the fact that Nicky Rod was unable to secure points at ADCC, his wrestling was a powerful weapon with which he dominated his matches to earn decisions. On most occasions, he seemed to favor heavy snap downs into knee picks, or else spearing double legs. Perhaps his most successful takedown of the event was a knee pick against Orlando Sanchez.

There is a larger sample size of Yuri Simões takedowns at ADCC, but he’s also demonstrated preferences for particular techniques. Yuri’s takedown of choice has appeared to be a single leg, and when he secures that takedown, he has proven routes directly to side control or to his opponent’s back. But Yuri can mix it up. He hit a massive fireman’s carry against Romulo Barral in the semifinal in 2015 which scored the go-ahead points and eventually won the match.

While Simões has demonstrated his ability to put points on the board with his wrestling, his upcoming match against Nicky Rod will not be under ADCC rules. The WNO ruleset rewards meaningful attacks as the first priority. An athlete scores more on a takedown with which they begin to progress than with a takedown which ends in a stalemate. And while Yuri has more scoring takedowns and more submission in his ADCC career than Nicky Rod does, Nicky Rod trains in one of the most offensive-minded rooms in the world.

He took out two ADCC champions in his first run without scoring a single point or collecting a single submission. Against Yuri, he has a chance to sink yet another ADCC champion. This is an opportunity for him to show how much he’s grown in the 18 months since ADCC. But Simões has all of the tools to nullify Nicky Rod’s A-game. 

This is a perfect stylistic matchup.