Ana Mayordomo Exposes ADCC's Women's Bracket Problem
Ana Mayordomo has done something almost nobody in BJJ or Jiu Jitsu history has managed: she won two separate ADCC trials events in the same qualification cycle. And under the current rules, it…
Ana Mayordomo has done something almost nobody in BJJ or Jiu Jitsu history has managed: she won two separate ADCC trials events in the same qualification cycle. And under the current rules, it still wasn't enough. To actually compete at ADCC, she needs to win a third.
That's not a scheduling quirk or bad luck — it's a direct consequence of how ADCC structures its brackets. Men's divisions field 16 competitors. Women's divisions field eight. Competing at 121 lbs, Mayordomo won European trials in Poland, then flew to Orlando and won North American trials too. Neither result actually counted, because only the second trials event held in each region awards qualification spots to the women's divisions. She'd done the hard part twice and still needed a third invitation just to get in the door.
A brutal stretch, and a frustrating catch
What makes the story land isn't just the rule — it's what Mayordomo did around it. After winning European trials, she went to Las Vegas for the UFC Fight Pass Invitational, then to New York for IBJJF Pans (gold), then to Italy for IBJJF Europeans (another gold), then back to the U.S. to win North American trials on top of all that. That's four continents' worth of high-level Jiu Jitsu in a few months, against a murderers' row of competition, and the reward for two trials wins was... more trials.
She described the awkwardness plainly to BJJEE: after winning European trials, friends and fans messaged her congratulations, assuming she was locked into the ADCC bracket. "Thank you so much, but no, not really," was how the conversation kept going, followed by having to explain a qualification system that doesn't obviously make sense even to people who follow the sport closely. Read the full interview at BJJEE, and for a look at the level of grappling she's been putting on display all year, see the clip on YouTube.
The real issue isn't Mayordomo — it's bracket size
Her diagnosis of the underlying problem is the part worth sitting with: "We're seeing women's Jiu-Jitsu grow a lot and get a lot of attention. There's a capacity issue. We have too many girls that are very good and not enough spots." That's not a complaint about losing. It's a competitor pointing out that the format hasn't kept pace with the depth of the field it's supposed to test.
Anyone who has watched women's BJJ over the last several years knows this isn't hyperbole. The talent pool at every weight has deepened dramatically — more black belts, more full-time competitors, more athletes with legitimate claims to a spot at the sport's biggest superfight event. An eight-woman bracket made sense when ADCC's women's divisions were newer and thinner. It makes a lot less sense now, when winning a trials event twice over still isn't a guarantee.
This is a pattern Jiu Jitsu has seen before in its own growth, at every level. Gyms that used to run one advanced class now run three because the mat got too crowded for one. Regional tournaments that used to have three-person brackets now need double-elimination just to be fair. Growth exposes whatever structure was built for a smaller version of the sport, and until the structure catches up, the most talented people end up absorbing the cost — flying further, competing more often, and clearing hurdles that shouldn't exist in the first place.
What it means for the rest of us
You don't have to be chasing an ADCC bid to feel the shape of this story. It's the same experience, scaled down, that hits any BJJ or Jiu Jitsu competitor who's ever won their bracket at a local tournament only to find out the promotion combined divisions, or that the next belt up is stacked with people who've been training twice as long. Depth is a good problem — it means the sport is healthy — but somebody still has to manage it fairly, or the people doing the most work end up carrying the biggest burden.
There's a coda to Mayordomo's story that matters: since the interview ran, she's received an invite to compete at ADCC Worlds in Poland this year. The immediate situation resolved itself. The structural question she raised didn't. As women's Jiu Jitsu keeps growing, the sport's biggest events are going to have to decide whether their brackets grow with it, or whether the next Ana Mayordomo has to win trials for a third time too. See you on the mats.
Original report via BJJEE.