Top-ranked UFC strawweight veteran Angela Hill just confirmed that she will be entering ADCC Trials this year. Hill has been a professional MMA fighter for over a decade now and has spent almost the entirety of her career in the UFC. She made her UFC debut back in 2014 when she was just 1-0 after a stint on The Ultimate Fighter and although her first run there wasn’t successful, she bounced back better than ever. Hill went 1-2 before being released from the UFC but she then enjoyed a four-fight winning streak that led to her becoming the Invicta FC strawweight world champion and earning a second chance.
She has been a mainstay in the UFC strawweight division since returning in 2017 and now holds a solid 18-14 professional record. Although Hill has always been known as more of a striker than a grappler, this wouldn’t be the first time that she’s competed in an ADCC Trial. She actually mentioned her past experience when she was asked about competing in it this year:
“Yeah, I’d love it! Now that I understand the rules a little bit more, I feel like I could at least get past the first match. My ADCC trial last time was kind of a dud. I got penalized and then I couldn’t pass, and the it just ended up being a whole thing where I’m like ‘I don’t understand, I hate this, this is stupid!’”
She’s not alone of course, the ADCC ruleset is notoriously difficult for competitors to understand and many people have been left unsure of how scoring works after losing a match. Hill spent the time to figure that out though:
“Now that I kinda get what happened, that match actually forced me to get better at passing guard and I feel like every time I get out there and compete, I learn a little something that makes my MMA game a lot better.”
Angela Hill wouldn’t be a favorite in such a stacked event like the ADCC Trials of course but she might surprise people given that she’s been working with some of the best grapplers in the world lately:
“I’ve been grinding in the Jiu-Jitsu department. I’ve been training with Alliance (Jiu-Jitsu) a lot. PJ’s opened up his 10th Planet too, PJ Barch, he’s opened up his 10th Planet just down the street from where I live too. So every now and then I’ll sneak in there and get some lessons from him and then J Flo, Justin Flores, he’s been teaching a lot too right down the street from Alliance so I have a lot of sources to pull my grappling from.”
The full interview with Angela Hill where she confirmed that she would be competing at ADCC Trials was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Alex Wendling:
