In a shocking recent revelation, Mark Robinson, a former ADCC champion & high level South African grappler, has accused officials from the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) of attempting to bribe him to lose a match in the 1999 tournament. The former judo champion and sumo wrestler disclosed these allegations during an appearance this week on the “Lytes Out Podcast.”

Robinson recounted an incident where a representative from the ADCC approached him with a bribe of $65,000 to deliberately lose his upcoming match against Sean Alvarez. He rejected the offer outright and even considered pulling out of the competition in protest.

The situation escalated the next day when the same representative visited Robinson’s hotel room, this time with a briefcase containing $1,000,000, purportedly the tournament’s total prize fund. He was told he could keep the $10,000 winner’s share if he agreed to throw the match. Robinson expressed his disgust over the bribery attempt.

Choosing integrity over complicity, Robinson withdrew from his match, allowing another competitor to take his place in the tournament. This decision highlighted his commitment to fair play.

This allegations if indeed true would have happened 20+ years ago, when ADCC was directly run in and from Abu Dhabi. Those were different times. Nowadays, the ADCC organization is under different leadership, extremely professionaly run and with full transparancy. Such accusations would be inpossible nowadays.

Robinson, who later won the 2001 ADCC World Championship in the +99 kg category, has been a respected figure in the grappling world.