ONE Championship's Mikey Musumeci and the art of leg locks

Analyzing the leg locks of Mikey Musumeci — one of the highest level jiu-jitsu grapplers in the world today.

At ONE Fight Night 10: Demetrious Johnson vs. Adriano Moraes 3 earlier this month, grappling phenom Mikey Musumeci once again put on a show as he displayed his excellent guard, leg locks and back attacking skills against the current IBJJF World, Pan No-Gi Champion and ATOS black belt Osamah Almarwai. We take a deeper look at one of the most complex yet devastating techniques in the grappling world in leg locks, Musumeci’s entries during the match and leg lock entanglements in general.

The false reap: Musumeci’s first entry into the legs and the saddle

Over the last year or so, the false reap has quickly become the new meta for leg locking entries in BJJ. This is mainly due to the false reap leading an opponent directly into the worst positions possible against a leg locker — the saddle.

The saddle is so dangerous as it is notoriously difficult to escape, and inside heel hooks are never too far away either. There is also the threat of “double trouble” — a principle popularised by John Danaher where a competitor controls both of his opponent’s legs which allows complete control before locking in a submission which becomes almost inevitable.

Double trouble is especially dangerous as Danaher claims the vast majority of resistance comes from the secondary leg in the saddle — or cross ashi garami, if you’re fluent in Danaherisms.

Double trouble: One of the founding principles of my leg lock system is that of double trouble. This is the idea that for any given leg lock attack, the overwhelming majority of my opponent's defensive reaction will come from the OTHER leg. AND I CAN DOUBLE THE AMOUNT OF TROUBLE HE FACES IN ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE. The clearest demonstrations of this principle in operation come from cross ashi garami situations, where the second leg can be bound up to totally negate an opponent's defensive options and create a quasi pin that rivals even the best conventional pins for control over movement. When my students began using this approach, observers were amazed to see them totally controlling even very talented opponents for long periods of time before finishing. Note that double trouble is a principle - NOT A MOVE - thus it can be applied in many situations and in many different ways. Making it a core element of your leg game will greatly increase your control over struggling opponents and make for more high percentage finishes.

— John Danaher

As an example, Gordon Ryan, one of the original Danaher Death Squad members who pioneered systemising leg locks in no-gi grappling as it became the meta in from 2016 onwards, used the saddle position and the idea of double trouble to completely disable Mahamed Aly before submitting him in the 2017 ADCC World Championships.

Back to Musumeci and his match against Almarwai, he wasted no time using a false reap to quickly transition into the saddle.

Musumeci proceeds to attack a straight ankle lock from the saddle. Being a representative of the ATOS team, a gym run by the legendary Andre Galvao and whose members are notoriously hard to leg lock, you’d expect nothing different from Almarwai.

After breaking the isolation and turning away to free the knee line, Musumeci threatens a calf slicer as his opponent stands before utilising a leg lasso, a technique commonly used by the great Felipe Pena. Almarwai turns back to face Musumeci, who is then knocked back down.

Musumeci then establishes double trouble as he has Almarwai’s left leg bear trapped and his right leg secured with his arms. Musmeci applies a heel hook and reaps his right leg in an attempt to re-establish the saddle.

Almarwai is aware of the imminent danger — he realises he is in the worst possible position he could find himself in. Musumeci has established double trouble and is cranking on a heel hook. Luckily for him, Musumeci’s foot was in the hip and hadn’t locked a proper figure four around the leg. As a result, this allows Almarwai to once again peel Musumeci’s foot away, remove the isolation and clear his knee line.

Free from double trouble and the submission threat, Almarwai now finds himself in another position which was a staple of Musumeci‘s gi BJJ career — the double guard pull position.

Musumeci notably holds the record for the fastest submission in IBJJF history with an ankle lock taking him all of 12 seconds against Rodnei Barbosa — set up from the double guard pull.

The double guard pull is typically a neutral position. That is, unless you’re on the mat against Musumeci who made it a staple of his game. He will move into leg entanglements, take the top position to rack up sweep points if the format allows or pull off Berimbolo back takes.

To avoid the previously mentioned scenarios playing out, Almarwai makes his way back to his feet which prompts Musumeci to insert a reverse De La Riva hook.

The reverse De La Riva guard is an excellent guard which prevents knee slice guard passes, sets up leg entries and back takes.

In the video below, Mikey Musumeci demonstrates the Kiss of the Dragon back take reverse De La Riva players often use:

After establishing his reverse De La Riva guard, Musumeci begins to invert and would be able to threaten the Kiss of the Dragon, but the cage is in the way. Musumeci instead continues the inversion and re-enters the saddle on Almarwai’s right leg.

Musumeci has the saddle locked up and controls Almarwai’s other leg — utilising double trouble and finishes a sweep with the saddle still in place.

Due to the entanglement and there being no possible way for Almarwai’s heel to be exposed as he was standing, sweeping was the only option for Musumeci in this situation.

If Musumeci had used a different leg entanglement such as a single leg x guard, heel exposure would have been a viable option and could be played off in a dilemma with the threat of a sweep.

Elevating hips into an opponent will threaten sweeps, and will usually cause a push back reaction to keep their balance, which makes it easier for the guard player to redirect his hips and create an exposed heel.

Gordon Ryan played off of this dilemma in the 2022 ADCC Championships against Roosevelt Souza in a match lasting just 11 seconds — the fastest submission in the tournament’s history.

The backside 50/50

Later on in the exchange, Musumeci eventually transitioned to another incredibly powerful heel hooking position — the backside 50/50.

The backside 50/50 has taken back off in recent years due to Lachlan Giles and his performance in the 2019 ADCC open weight division after he used the position to submit UFC veteran Chris Lytle in a 5-on-5 elimination jiu-jitsu tournament.

Giles eliminated all five opponents on his own and submitted Lytle using a K guard entry to backside 50/50 heel hook in less than 40 seconds.

This was just the start of Giles’ popularity skyrocketing. Later on at the 2019 ADCC Championships, Giles entered the absolute (open weight division) and submitted three ultra heavyweights, including the 2019 99+KG and the 2022 -99KG ADCC champion, Kaynan Duarte.

Giles also utilised the K guard and got many decent bites on the heel of Patrick Gaudio before finally settling into backside 50/50 and finishing the heel hook.

Likewise, Musumeci was also able to get to the same backside 50/50 and attack heel hooks on Almarwai who reacted in a more intelligent way than Gaudio who was clearly in panic mode.

Musumeci attempts to re-establish a saddle, but Almarwai keeps the legs separated. In response, Musumeci turns into a backside 50/50. Almarwai continues to keep the legs apart and also controls Musumeci’s hand to prevent any grips being formed.

Leg lock entries create counter back take opportunities

This is due to inversion-based entries into inside leg locking positions (such as the saddle) that naturally expose your back.

During the match, Almarwai did try a counter back take from a failed outside heel hook. Trapped in an irimi ashi garami, he strips Musumeci’s foot from his hip which ruins the isolation and frees him from submission.

Musumeci, in response, keeps the heel hook grip and changes his leg configuration as Almarwai turns away and pins Musumeci’s hips to the mat with his shin and attempts a berimbolo, a rolling back take.

To successfully pull off a berimbolo, you need to stay tight with your position as you invert to get around the hips and get under to take the back. Almarwai’s technique saw him fall away and become too loose.

As a result, he was unable to elevate Musumeci’s hips and expose the back. Almarwai having a grip on Musumeci’s right leg would have helped with rotation, hip elevation and back exposure, as would having a gi and especially a belt to grip.

Interestingly, in two of the three matches between Felipe Pena and Gordon Ryan, using these counter back takes led Pena to victory against his biggest rival twice.

Jiu-jitsu prodigy Nicky Ryan also made a whole instructional based on back takes as a counter to leg locks:

But going back to Musumeci, he has only been competing in no-gi competitions since 2021 after becoming the first American to win multiple IBJJF world championships (4) and the first American to win world championships in two different weight divisions.

To date, Musumeci has only had 16 matches without the gi in his career and he cycles through intricate leg entanglements (many which are illegal in the gi) in a way which would make you believe he’d have been competing on the no-gi stage forever.

Musumeci should finally be entering the 2024 ADCC World Championships after having to withdraw in 2022 due to emergency surgery. He has many great potential opponents such as the reigning 66kg champion Diogo Reis, 2022 silver medalist Gabriel Sousa, Fabricio Andrey as well as AOJ’s whizz-kid Cole Abate and 2019 77kg bronze medalist Garry Tonon.

Despite ADCC heavily emphasising wrestling and Musumeci being a guard puller who still has only been training no-gi for a short period of time in comparison to the competition, him winning gold wouldn’t be a shock to anyone.