Back in 2019, Paulo Miyao had one of the most iconic ADCC matches ever and eventually went on to a win a bronze medal in his weight class. Here, he took on a young Tye Ruotolo, who was game as ever. Whilst Paulo Miyao was winning for the bulk of the bout, he found himself in trouble during the closing seconds.
Here, Ruotolo managed to latch on to Miyao’s leg and attempt a belly-down knee bar. Clearly, this would have hurt – considering the images and videos that captured the unnatural bend in Miayo’s leg during the leg lock. In true Miyao style, he looked stoic and didn’t panic whilst his leg was literally getting broken. Instead of tapping out, Miyao cooly held on and won the match.
This led to theories that the Miyao brothers had genetically unusual legs and all sorts of strange ideas based on their refusal to tap to lower body submissions. Interestingly, this wasn’t the only deep leg lock that Paulo Miyao had refused to tap to during his competitive career.
Fast forward to 2022, and Miyao released an Instagram message – detailing the knee issues that resulted from his refusal to tap. Although written in Portuguese, here is a summary of his thoughts in English.
Miayo needed to stay on top to win – however he was careless and got caught. After this, his knee popped several times, but he remained calm. Although Miyao won, he couldn’t put any weight on his foot afterward. Miyao couldn’t continue training afterward due to the injury. A medical scan revealed complete destruction of both his ACL and LCL. This resulted in surgery, and also used the opportunity to repair something on his meniscus. Lastly, his advice is to TAP.
Interestingly, Garry Tonon has previously spoken on similar topics involving his kneebar on AJ Agazarm several years back. During this discussion, he also told us that he believed the Miyao brothers had damaged their knees from not tapping. Years later, it now seems that he was correct.
