FILA, the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, is the governing body of international amateur wrestling. You may have heard in the past couple of years that FILA has begun holding submission grappling competitions in addition to organizing the world’s major amateur wrestling events. Noteworthy Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors like Ricky Lundell and Felicia Oh have competed at these events in recent years, traveling internationally to represent the United States on the world stage.

Now FILA, and by extension USA Wrestling, has begun holding competitions that are for the most part Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments with a few rule tweaks that reflect their organizations’ origin in wrestling. This week on The FightWorks Podcast we speak with Gary Abbott, a spokesman for USA Wrestling who will explain his organization’s entry into such events as well as what it means for our favorite combat sport. (If you are interested in representing the United States at FILA’s next world championship in either gi or no-gi, the trials are this coming weekend in Arizona!)

In this episode co-host Dan will also give his long-awaited(?) recipe for his muscle-building smoothie for those cutting weight prior to tournaments, in addition to our normal review of the most recent BJJ Poll here on thefightworkspodcast.com.

http://www.thefightworkspodcast.com/podcasts/fightworkspodcastepisode184.mp3