The seed that gave birth to ADCC India: Siddharth Singh reveals the story

ADCC India has been a huge boost for the grappling community in India. The ADCC India Nationals which was held back in February 2020 at the DLF Avenue in New Delhi had seen healthy participation and also saw a string of exciting grappling showdowns between the participants.

While what happened in the tournament was there to be seen, what went behind the scenes is something equally interesting.

Siddharth Singh, who is the founder of Crosstrain Fight Club and the co-founder of ADCC India, in his latest Instagram post, has detailed what led to the birth of ADCC India. You can read the story from Siddharth below.

“The worst organized tournament of my life. Long before International tournaments, back in 2015/16 at the Delhi State championships, we had trials for Indian Grappling nationals.

It was COMPULSORY for us to win Delhi State to qualify for the Indian national. We asked the organizers if we could go directly to the nationals and it was a direct NO from the organizers... Only Indians and only those who qualify their respective States by winning would be permitted to participate. We had 35 fighters in No-gi and 30 in gi (entry fee INR 3500 per head per category). That's a lot off money. Trials were in both Gi and No-gi.

Started with no-gi and the boys from @crosstrainfightclub cleaned the house. They won everything. I surprisingly had an accomplished Scandinavian fighter in my weight class (note that this is Delhi State championships to quality for Indian national or India passport holders). That shit made no sense. Anyway, I won my weight class in Nogi and now it was time for gi for which we had already paid for and actually trained for.

I was informed by the organizers that since our gym was the only one taking part in the gi category in Delhi, we would all be qualified- no need for refunds and no fights. Come nationals half of the winners from no-gi hadn't qualified and almost all Gi names including mine were removed and replaced by people who didn't even compete.

To make matters worse a number of academics who hadn't competed at their respective State championships were also permitted to participate in the Nationals. As a coach, I felt I let my team down as I couldn't explain to them that the sport we do love was run by 'karate' scammers. That's the day I lost faith in these local tournaments and I decided that we would organize a transparent tournament and no bullshit scam to loot academies off money. That's the seed that gave birth to @adccindia, one of India's top tournaments,”

What do you think of the story and the situation of grappling in India? Let us know in the comments below.

Image Courtesy: Facebook/ADCC India

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