good bye rio heroes

it was finally shut down awhile back. aside from the fact that the fights were unsanctioned and completely illegal. i think there were running a sports book as well.
but here was the last bastion of real no holds barred fighting. no gloves no time limits. only a gentleman's agreement not to groin strike, eye gouge, or and throat strike. hell, for the first few events they didn't allow tapping to a submission. it was up the to ref to stop the fight.
it was beautiful and pure and now it is gone. you can find downloads of some of there events online.
here is a highlight to see what you missed.

rolling, rolling, rolling...

i competed in this jiu jitsu tournament the other weekend. our school had really pushed us to compete and try to come in first in the team standings. we did a lot of hard training and had about 30 people hit the mats that day.


about a week before the tournament i was at about 135lbs so i decided to get down to 129lbs. that friday i didn't really have anything to eat or drink, other than some coffee. after work i walked into the saunas at 134lbs, two hours later i walked out 129.5lbs. i went to weigh in and then rehydrated.
saturday at the competition while i was getting ready i found out there was no one at my weight and i would be going up to fight. my first match was against a guy from MMA Institute. he kind of looked like a mini chuck liddell. the match started and i immediately pulled guard. i started playing rubber guard. trapped his hand on the mat and moved right into "chill dog". i heard his coach saying, "GET YOUR HAND OFF THE MAT!!!". and i thought..sorry dude. he aint getting his fucking hand back. i tried a few submissions but none really came close. a lot of his weight was forward and i should have been able to sweep him, but kind of froze. we basically stayed that way. when time was running out he managed to shake himself free and almost pass my guard, i recovered and went for a gogo-plata that he had to defend. we both had advantages but since mine was from an attack and his was from almost passing guard i got the decision.
after i was dead. all my muscles had cramped up and i was exhausted. i figured i would some time to rest. scott's match was next. he triangled his dude in 30 seconds. shit. then the next match was about a minute. shit. then i was up again.
i got out there, tried to pull guard but choked the guy stuffed one leg. passed my guard, took my back and rear naked choked me. wow. he told me "good fight" after. i laughed and said, "yeah for you." he then caught scott in a brabo choke. since scott and i were on the same team we decided not to fight it out for 2nd and 3rd. and whe would've beaten me anyway.
i had felt bad for losing until i saw the guy who beat me tooling on dudes in the absolute division that were 70lbs heavy than him. he won all of his matches that day.




so for my gi match i had a choice. both son and i could fight each other at 129 or move up to 139. we decided to stay down since we would get more team points that way. we agreed that neither one of us really cared about winning and were just going to mess around. he told i could start off with a flying armbar. when our match came up almost our whole team came over to watch. we started, i got my grips and threw up a flying triangle. when i was in mid air i could hear people around us go "WOW". it was going to be a race between us to see who could get DQ'd first. son with heelhook or me with a twister. at one point son had me in an armbar and i tapped because i had started sweating.


we ended up crushing in team points. everyone did really well. we had some white belts who it was their first time competing in a real tourney who really impressed me. next time i think they can win their divisions for sure.

i work at Initech

"Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans."