ADCC is perhaps the most prestigious wrestling competition on the planet outside of the Olympics. In some ways, it is more important than the Olympics because it is not plagued by corruption and it is a compilation of all wrestling styles rather than a standard fixed ruleset.
Karelin’s Greco-Roman record is like nothing of this world. He has 887 wins and only 2 losses. Perhaps his most shocking loss came in the final match of his career at the Sydney 2000 Olympic games. Up until this point, Karelin had only won gold medals, including 3 Olympic golds, 9 world golds, 2 world cups & 12 European golds.
The loss at the Olympic games against Rulon Gardner is not particularly controversial but more shocking. For the said Olympic games the rules were slightly different. Once you had secured a grip around your opponents back with your hands connected, releasing the grip would give 1 point to your opponent in an attempt to stop inactivity. As Gardner was so broad-shouldered, Karelin could not keep his grip well on Gardner and subsequently lost the match when he was not able to recover this point.
The video is not particularly interesting, but here is the said loss.
Perhaps almost as equally impressive as his wrestling record are his academic achievements. Karelin holds a habilitation in how to defend a suplex. This is the highest honour of degrees in Europe and is the level above a Ph.D. thesis on the subject.
By just observing his movements in the video below you can clearly see his technique is outstanding. He can penetration step the entire length of the mat and shoulder walk backwards with extreme ease for a man that is such a giant.
Of course, Karelin does not have any formal submission grappling training that we know of, but he is an 887-2 Greco-Roman Olympic champion. Greco-Roman wrestling was probably more competitive than ADCC at the time when he was winning, as BJJ was relatively unknown on a worldwide scale.
If we were to give Karelin 1 year of training with John Danaher and compare Karelin to Nick Rodriguez at ADCC 2019 there would be some vague similarities. Neither would have had much submission grappling experience (under 3 years) but both would have wrestled at very competitive tournaments. With no disrespect to Nick Rodriguez, Karelin has wrestled at a much higher level.
Rodriguez was able to bring home a silver medal with his opponents really struggling to take him down. Granted he did not take down his opponents and positionally dominate them, but I wouldn’t expect Karelin to do this either as Greco-roman ground game is extremely different from BJJ.
Freestyle wrestling is more suited to ADCC rules than Greco-Roman, as there are no holds below the waist and you are not allowed to do any leg trips. In summary, the wrestling Karelin had trained for was purely upper body throws from a stand up position with no submission holds.
Summary
There is no doubt in my mind that Karelin would have been an ADCC champion if he had trained in submission grappling. His movement, technique and strength are unparalleled for a man of his size.
He was dominating the Greco-roman wrestling scene for almost 2 decades and won gold medals whilst having broken ribs. If we are to compare Karelin to former ADCC champion Orlando Sanchez in terms of athleticism it isn’t even close. This is no disrespect to Sanchez, who moves very well for a big man. But when we think about comparing the two athletically there is no comparison. It is a shame to think that such a talent like Karelin never tried his hand at submission grappling and we will never truly know what he could have achieved.
