There is a corner of grappling history that most people have never heard about, and there is a reason for that. During a recent episode of the Simple Man Podcast, Robert Diggle brought up one of the more fascinating and quietly buried results in ADCC history.
Norwegian grappler John Olav Einemo beat Roger Gracie in the semi-finals of ADCC in 2003, and the footage of that match has since disappeared.
The story itself is almost impossible to believe on paper. Einemo was not a product of a polished academy or a high-profile program. According to what Diggle uncovered, he was training in a garage with a group of Norwegian guys. He then flew to Brazil, competed at ADCC, and worked his way through the bracket well enough to beat one of the most decorated names in the sport.
When one of the podcast hosts asked directly, “How do we know he won?”, the answer was straightforward: all of his other matches from that event are still available online, and the results are documented on the ADCC website.
Diggle stated, “All the other matches are online. You can see them and you can go online and just see the the results. They’re on the ADC website.”
What is not available is the specific match against Roger Gracie. That footage is gone, and no one seems to have a clean explanation for why.
Diggle, who has an extensive personal archive of grappling footage and a well-documented interest in the historical data of the sport, went out of his way to find out more. Through teammate Tommy Langaker, he was eventually able to make contact with Einemo’s wife, who shared the story of how he won ADCC that year.
Einemo himself has no social media presence, which only adds to how little trace he has left online. Today, he is reportedly working as a fisherman.
As for how Einemo actually won the match, Diggle noted he believed it came down to points, possibly off a takedown, though he was careful to add that he did not want to state that with full confidence without being able to pull up the original message.
Diggle noted, ” I think it was points. I could pull it up the message he sent me, but it’s like I think he took him down or… I don’t know 100% but he but he won, right? And then the video vanished.”
Diggle’s comment on the podcast summed it up well: “There’s a lot of videos of that event. I don’t know where that one went.”
John Olav Einemo beat one of the greatest grapplers to have ever competed. He did it at a major world-level event. And then, for reasons that remain unclear, the record of it effectively fell off the face of the earth.
The disappearance of the Einemo vs. Roger Gracie is not the only missing match involving a Gracie family member from ADCC’s early years. During a recent appearance on the MMA History Podcast, host Mike Davis claimed that several tapes showing Gracies losing had allegedly vanished over the years, saying some bouts had “just disappeared” and were even absent from official DVD releases.
He said, “I enjoy conspiracies even if it means I make them up myself, which this falls into that category.” He added, “My crazy tinfoil head headset tells me the Gracie family had an incredible line to Sheikh Tahnoon in the beginning [ADCC] tournaments.”
Davis claimed there were multiple instances where footage of Gracies losing had disappeared, pointing to one example by saying, “So much so that when Hobin lost to Eddie Ruiz, Tank Abbott’s buddy, there’s a couple instances where some of the Gracies lost where the tape just doesn’t exist anymore. Like it just disappeared. It’s been subtracted from the DVD.”
He also suggested that a previous grappling session between Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz, Rickson Gracie, and Allen Albright may have cost Schultz an invitation to ADCC, saying, “My belief is that this experience between you and Rickson and Allen Albright excluded you from ever being invited to an ADCC tournament as a combatant.”
Schultz did not dismiss the idea, replying, “I can buy that. I think that’s probably right. They kind of rigged it.”
