Chael Sonnen believes Mikey Musumeci and Cleber Sousa’s match was the biggest in grappling history

Retired MMA legend and renowned MMA analyst Chael Sonnen has been raving about the recently concluded world title submission grappling bout between Mikey Musumeci and Cleber Sousa at ONE on Prime Video 2. 'The American Gangster' commended how ONE Championship is changing the game of submission grappling like no other.

The bout between Musumeci and Sousa was the first world title bout in submission grappling hosted by a major MMA promotion. Though ONE labels itself as a martial arts organization, as it showcases four different sports on its cards, it has found its foundations in promoting MMA.

No other fight league has ever held hybrid promotions like this on a mainstream level and become successful. This is huge.

In a video uploaded by Chael Sonnen to his YouTube channel, he spoke about ONE's revolutionary efforts to change submission grappling. The former UFC fighter also commended the newly-crowned ONE flyweight submission grappling world champion Mikey Musumeci.

Sonnen said:

"ONE Championship just did more for grappling than perhaps anyone has ever done for grappling in history just for holding this contest. You got Mikey and you got Sousa. Now Sousa understands this, he gets fully locked in. Forget about Abu Dhabi, forget about the trials, I’m studying these rules, I’m studying this one opponent. Now I love that, I love that theory and don’t forget guys, this was the third time that they [have] met."

Chael Sonnen likes the idea that ONE skirts the tournament format popularized by IBJJF and ADCC. In ONE submission grappling, fighters will only have to worry about one opponent and focus their entire fight camp there. It's one against one.

In this way, the fights have the same gravity, drama and hype similar to pro MMA fights. This subtle difference alone makes ONE submission grappling matches different from the rest.

Watch the full video below:

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Chael Sonnen commends ONE Championship's simplistic submission grappling ruleset

Another thing that Chael Sonnen loves about ONE submission grappling bouts is their ruleset. The Singapore-based martial arts organization employs a ruleset that caters to a wider set of audiences.

'The American Gangster' explained:

"And now they're going to go in ONE Championship, which means they're going to go for [10] minutes, and we will have three expert judges. They going to gurn in a card should the [10] minutes elapsed. And they're going to give that [win] to whoever tried to finish the fight more. Whoever was more aggressive. Trying to pass, trying to catch, trying to break, trying strangle, okay? So the rules, they're very straightforward. Everybody's going to understand that."

Chael Sonnen concluded with:

"It [the ruleset] was quite possibly my favorite thing about this because I knew it was going to work. You can't just put grappling on display. People have tried for a very long time [but] you gotta explain the rules to people... ONE took the confusion away."

It's true - you cannot simply explain to a casual fan the difference between ADCC's hybrid rules and IBJJF's scoring system and have them instantly excited about it. These organizations cater to their own sets of rules and submission-only systems, but mostly appeal to just a niche audience.

A ONE submission grappling match, on the other hand, has two basic rules: you only win via submission or by having the most number of legitimate submission attempts once the time expires.

ONE Championship did something so obvious that no one else thought of it - they're bringing submission grappling back to what it's supposed to be about: submissions.