Kasai 4 Results & Reflections

Arrived in time for the first undercard bout. The undercard in general were mostly tight matches decided by a sweep or a guard pass, with a number of submissions occurring. It's always interesting to see guys doing superfight who don't even bother to compete in any of the local/nyc area open events. It typically shows in their performance as a number of the guys wouldn't even win the Grappling Industries Manhattan bracket for their belt/experience. But, I digress. Tony Bergamo and Silvio Duran had a spirited affair with some bottom guard retention resembling kicks to the chest and face, and some rough collar ties and chest thumping, complete with celebrating winning by a sweep that was escaping a back take, and acting like it was winning the Worlds or something. Anyhow, Junny and Rey had a rematch or a third match or whatever, much like their Finishers match, Junny dominated positionally and racked up points, but with no overtime in place as at Finishers Sub Only, picked up a win whereas in the OT at Finishers he lost via RNC with Rey on his back. Rey is apparently opening up 10th planet NYC in early 2019. News came shortly before the main card began that due to NYSAC blood test stipulations, Gordon Ryan's match with Matheus Diniz was off (go see his Igram post about it for a succinct explanation, I don't want anyone to say I misquoted him or misrepresented what happened because there's enough internet trolls misrepresenting what happened already). Kasai did announce an event in Dallas featuring Gordon Ryan vs Joao Rocha for February which is exciting news, as well as 2 more add'l events (a qualifier - though they did quietly cancel the last qualifier the week of, and they announced an Open EGC event). TBH, I started planning to leave early once I saw that Gordon's superfight was cancelled. The bracket played out largely how I expected with Paulo and Gianni and Augusto scoring points and safely winning bracket matches to head toward the final. Augusto came out for his match with Gianni with a limp, tried to shoot a well-timed takedown, but no points, and Gianni attacked some wrist locks from closed guard in an effort to eke out some submission attempt points, but by and large, the Grand Prix matches while tightly contested at points basically resembled NoGi Worlds matches with little in the way of leg lock or submission attempts and mainly passing efforts by more experienced black belts. Crelinsten picked up a win via submission attempt points over Kim Terra, Bruno Frazatto hurt his knee in his first match with Geo Martinez (I couldn't see by the angle if it was a leg entanglement, or as a result of a toe hold attack by Geo). Honest opinion, Geo took some bad calls (1 definite, another more questionable) at this event. Overall, like the 155 Grand Prix, there were no submissions this time around (the 155 had one submission when Celso Vinicius guillotined Enrico Coco).

I left before the Canuto vs Vagner match because if I'd waited around and had to take the express train home after watching Canuto backpedal and slap, and shuck and jive for nearly 6 minutes like last time they had a match, I would've been pissed. So I headed home after the conclusion of the grand prix matches. Lutes beat an outmatched opponent with a north-south choke.
Glad I was there to support east coast pro grappling/jiujitsu/whatever/this format, and the Hammerstein Ballroom is a legit venue for an event. I remember before the IBJJF events were even held every month, so to be in NYC at a venue like Hammerstein Ballroom, with UFC's on every weekend almost, and with Pro events held under a variety of rule sets now, it's pretty cool that this is the norm now for being a fan of grappling.