BJJ Digest Episode 49 (extended?) - More Kasai Ref Backlash, Small joint manipulation or wrist lock?, Kayla Harrison's future....

Penalizing anyone for stalling felt pretty disingenuous after watching Canuto circle to the boundary and BS his way through literal minutes at a time of various matches. Literally came to score a takedown or 2, and maybe a guard pass across 4 matches and get a belt and call it a night. The crowd booed like crazy (still wondering if that came through on the broadcast because it got loud in the Lutes/Vagner match, the Canuto/Barch match, and TBH I left before the final because I felt like I had taken an Ambien after the Palhares/Jones non-match, and had seen enough of Canuto's dance steps across his 4 matches up until that point.

The prelims, and the superfights (minus Palhares' abortion of a match) all brought serious grappling and the majority of the Grand Prix felt like competitors looking to make it sporting. I had a blast. That being said, the reffing....has been a consistent issue across all 3 events and I'd be disingenuous to say otherwise (having been in person at all 3 events and heard and been a part of the crowd).

Kayla Harrison Steamrolls Opponent in 2nd MMA Fight

'Twas another dominating performance by the Olympic gold medalist. She showed ground n' pound, takedowns, a need for higher grappling control acumen as her opponent was able to create frantic scrambles and escape during some submission attempts, but altogether, a great performance by the ever improving fighter (who's not been swooped up by the UFC or Bellator). 

PFL 2 Broadcast: Recap & Analysis

Odds and Ends: the added factor of how fighters win granting them 5 points for a sub vs 3 for a decision win, and no points for a loss, gives it that "pool" feel wherein how you win across each match matters. The 80's Rocky style theme music and the polo shirts for the interviews felt a bit middle aged, complete with a random window background warehouse and him kicking a heavy bag and shadowboxing. Nijem's interview made it sound like he's facing a bracket of cans and a very submittable opponent, but alas, I have digressed. Anyhow, a touching intro for Foster referencing the passing of a sibling, usual banter of "living the life of a fighter," et cetera.

Kayla vs Whoever - got home from teaching class just in time to see a replay of Kayla predictably winning by armbar. She tucked the shin behind the head to facilitate the armbar into the standard cross body pin, then began fighting the opponent's grip.
Within 10-15 seconds, Kayla had Elkins pressed against the cage. Not surprising that was the gameplan, but Elkins didn't circle or even dance a bit to make Kayla chase her. At any rate....Kayla hit a nice short, powerful Ouchigari (underutilized in MMA) from the tie-up, and after that, it was pretty predictable with her years and years of grappling acumen against other legit, world class grapplers (we throw that term around in Jiu-Jitsu, but Kayla won 2 Olympics. She won in a sport where athletes have to qualify to even make it to the Olympics in one of the most contested, and represented sports (total athlete and country participation wise). I'm sure going in there with someone roughly her size who perhaps picked up a rounded skillset in the past -10 years, isn't much work for her.

Foster vs Nijem
After some jumping knees in the 3rd round, Foster gets a stoppage/TKO. First two rounds close with both guys getting to top position, Foster ending the first round chasing a kimura from top side control, et cetera.

Firmino vs Brooks
Brooks used takedowns and an ability to scramble/sweep/get to top, to grind out the rounds for a decision. Firmino swung for the fences and stayed dangerous throughout, but Brooks showed his ability to get to top and stay there in taking the nod.

High vs Escudero - didn't see the fight, but apparently High disputes the tap, and shoved another referee (not his first infraction). 

Throwback to my 2nd MMA Fight

Foot Sweeps, Takedowns, & Throws

Here's a compilation of my foot sweeps, takedowns, and throws from blue belt until now, and some B-Sides of me making Judo work in MMA mixed in as well.
Enjoy.

Judoka in MMA Alert - Karo Parisiyan vs Rick Hawn booked

The two are set to square off at Bellator 95, April 4th

Rick Hawn Profile & TMA Friday

With "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey making waves for both women's MMA and Judo in MMA, there's so much press I'm working on a longer post about her for later.

In the meantime, with all the coverage in MMA magazines about the Olympics, former Olympians in MMA and future potential-MMA fighters coming from this years Olympics, Rick Hawn deserves a full fledged profile.

In 2004, Hawn placed 9th in the Olympics. He came away dissatisfied, moved to train with Jimmy Pedro, and made a run at the 2008 team but missed out due to the selection process. He doesn't elaborate, but blamed the politics of Judo for his not being selected. Rousey has had similar things to say about the politics and the money behind USJA as far as how much goes to athletes (according her the amount is next to nothing) and how much goes to the travel expenses, food budget, and lodgings of those who are basically administrative staff for the USJA on trips abroad as opposed to athletes.

At any rate, Hawn moved over to MMA, quickly racking up an impressive record before moving to the big show.
His first big splash on the national scene was a shoulder throw to hammerfist TKO win in Bellator:

Hawn opened his MMA career at Delagrotte's Sityodong gym but has since made his way to GSP's home away from home, Tristar in Montreal. Hawn recently walked away with Bellator's 155/Lightweight tournament title and will now face Michael Chandler for the belt Chandler himself recently won via finish/upset over Eddie Alvarez.

----

TMA Friday:
I've made jokes in the past about TMA (traditional martial arts) as so much of it is based on theory rather than application. I do this, in part, b/c I went through the tough but necessary realization that what I had learned in Wing Chun Kung-Fu (how I got started in Martial Arts FYI) left quite a bit to be desired in fighting other trained fighters. If I had to pick a martial art to teach someone who was fighting other "street fighters" and non-trained fighters, Wing Chun is actually not bad. It's against trained fighters that I found Wing Chun started to have some holes. That being said, my biggest beef with traditional martial arts is the lack of full-scale sparring (or close to it) and the belief that you can simply know how to do something rather than train your body by doing it thousands and thousands of times.

That being said, it's hilarious to see there's nothing wrong with a look into what those wacky TMA guys are inventing as of late.

Takedown Defense (I guess against someone with no wrestling experience but who tries to grab your legs?)

Tournament Proof Tuesday: Single leg/Outside Trip & the Bulldog Choke

This was my first fight in MMA. I start off in the corner to the left of the frame, wearing the white Muay Thai shorts.
I had driven up to see some fights with a buddy of mine and had my gear with me in case we stayed and I was going to do some training at a local gym.
Turns out, some of the fighters backed out.
They asked if anyone in the audience would step up and I thought "why not?"

My opponent cut down to 145, I stepped on the scale weighing 138. As I overheard from the guy who was wrapping hands upstairs my opponent had a fair number of amateur boxing and muay thai bouts to his record. Ah, Virginia and the days of the ringer.

At any rate, I'd done some amateur boxing, done smokers for boxing (unsanctioned fights in gyms, that are essentially unrecorded fights), and been consistently training  Muay Thai to complement my Judo.
I'd wrestled briefly in college as part of a club team, occasionally putting on my Gi to do Jiu-Jitsu after Muay Thai class, and had never rolled NoGi. I'd never done any kind of MMA style sparring or putting it altogether. I was diligent about Muay Thai but I did not have the patience for Jiu-Jitsu. I liked the bang bang bang pace of Muay Thai and Judo and honestly, had not realized the benefit in training Jiu-Jitsu as a result of the influence of some of my coaches up until that point.

To think that I took an MMA fight is pretty laughable in retrospect, but I wanted to try the things I did over the years in training, and fortunately it worked out.

At any rate, you'll see in the first round how basic my ground game was at this point. It consisted of turtling up to avoid punishment and exposing my back to escape being mounted. I managed a single leg off of a kick, but my opponent got back up and then managed a body lock/reversal but over-rotated and ended up mounted.

The most tired I've ever been in my life was after the first round.
I remember thinking, "how in the *&^% am I going to survive another 3 minutes?"
Fortunately, the slowest single leg ever I pull off was something I'd gotten to doing while working on my mat work in Judo to counter a sprawl.

I'd seen several of the guys fighting before me that day completely expose their necks/backs and I remember thinking, if my guy does that, I'm going to jump onto the neck like a rattlesnake.

Well, every dog has its day.

Tournament/MMA Proof Tuesday: Haraigoshi and Uchimata in MMA

This bout is from nearly 3 years ago. At that point, I had been doing Judo for roughly 4 years.

A lot of the internet will tell you they can't use Judo and get countered Judo is hard to use in MMA, that it doesn't have self-defense applications.
They'll say that the whizzer/overhook gets them taken down will get you taken down. 
That they can't do it in training only high level players and Olympic level athletes can use it.
Not true. I've never claimed to be nor would my training partners and coaches tell you I am a gifted athlete.


Highlights:
1:45 uchimata counter to a  body lock/trip attempt from my opponent

4:01 uchimata counter to single leg attempt from my opponent

6:45 haraigoshi counter to body lock by my opponent

Takeaways:
I had spent little to no time training without a Gi before this and my previous MMA fight.

The Judo throws were decisive tools for me to secure top position and win rounds in front of the judges by  not only being on top in the mat work, but some of my best punches landed from dominant positions on top, on the ground.

My opponent clearly had wrestling experience and kept after the takedown the whole fight.
My Judo helped me negate those attempts and gain top position when he closed the distance and nearly took me down.