Saturday, the adult blue belt division was dominated by a group of young stars leaving the podium looking more like a juvenile division. Isaac Doederlein (Gracie Humaita) and Jordan Landry (Gracie Fighter) marched their way to the finals of the light feather weight division leaving many submissions in their wake. The two squared off in the final match leaving the young fighter from Humaita the victor. It was a very tight match with Doederlein only pulling it off by one advantage. In the light weight division another youngster, Michael Liera (Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu), took home the gold. Liera looked very impressive, submitting everyone in his weight class. The Ribeiro brothers’ prodigy returned on Sunday for another impressive performance in the open weight category. Liera went all the way to the finals, closing out the division with his team mate.
Also on Saturday, was the main event, the black belt open weight division. Surprisingly this division was taken by a light feather weight, Caio Terra. Terra keeps looking more and more impressive, with this being his second open weight title at black belt. Terra got a bye first round and then went on to submit Rodrigo Simoes with a nice flying triangle. In his next match he faced the tough middle weight, Marcelo Mafra. Terra ended up taking this bout 6-2 and almost catching an armbar at the end before Mafra escaped. On the opposite side of the bracket was the always game super heavy weight from Nova Uniao, Bruno Bastos. Bastos’ first match was the resilient feather weight, Rodrigo Ranieri. Bastos took this match with a half guard sweep, winning 2-0. In his next match he took on Leandro Santos from Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu, winning with a foot sweep in another 2-0 victory. Eventually, Terra and Bastos met in the end bringing about a pretty lack luster, ‘David and Goliath’ final. Terra pulled guard and shot up a few oma platas, but Bastos proved to be too strong for those and easily stood up to defend. The very passive Bastos was penalized for his lack of movement giving the win to Terra on the negative point.
There were also many other noteworthy matches throughout the weekend. One being Zak Maxwell, in his black belt debut, vs. Phillipe Della Monica. A match which I thought would be a very tough test for the young, recently promoted Maxwell. Zak passed with flying colors defeating the Gracie Barra athlete by a score of 10-2 in pure dominance. As Maxwell advanced to the finals, Della Monica’s teammate, Rodrigo Simoes, would come looking for revenge that he would wind up getting. In a very exciting final, Simoes took the lead early with a beatiful, old school, Pe de Pano style cross guard sweep. As the match went on Simoes hit another cross guard sweep making the score 4-0. In the final moments Maxwell swept back and began trying desperately to pass, but could not pull it off, leaving the final score 4-2 Simoes.
My personal experience was not the best at this tournament. I entered the Purple/Adult/lLightweight division. I won my first match against a tough Jaxon Smith (Machado JJ). I pulled guard really bad, without good grips and had to recover from there. Smith is very srong and I ended up winning 2-2 with one more advantage than him. It was a very tough match and at times I didn’t think I could pull it out, but I just kept telling myself I could and that helped me through. It’s amazing what some self affirmations can do. My next match I pulled bad again and my opponent took advantage and passed. Eventually he caught a choke that I seriously thought about tapping to, but I fought out and we scrambled to our feet. I took the time tying my belt to regain what was going on and recognize what I had to do. I was down 5-0. I tried to get a good grip to get a better pull, but in taking my time he pulled first. I knew I had to do something so I stood up in his closed guard and made a mistake with my grips, he took advantage and caught me in an armbar. It was a very disappointing tournament for me considering I trained so hard, but I tried hard and learned what I need to work on from my mistakes. It’s like my favorite quote says, ” Broken dreams are built to make you strong.”
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