Copa RipDorey de Submission 2006, the best clash! Sunday, October 22th- at the Hebraica Gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro the best grapplers met each other in 2006 edition of the classic Copa RipDorey. When you look around the 6 mats of the tournament you could see what the Brazil has of the most skilled and talented submission wrestling competitors. Most of the good teams of Brazil were battling at this tournament, and the armies of Carlson Gracie Team/Manimal Family, Nova Uniao, BTT, Gracie Barra, Team Alexandre Pequeno, RFT and many others marked their presence. The level of the tournaments was so high that a few aces from Nova Uniao like Marlon Sandro, Ronny Torres and Akran Diaz succumbed before the finals. The tournaments lost a piece of their ‘magic’, when only two tournaments finals was disputed when Ivan ‘PitBull’ Iberico defeated Washington ‘Espantalho’ by a guard passage in the extra round (gold point) at under 77kgs division. This category had a lot of good talent like Flavio Serafim (BTT) and Jorge Britto (Gracie Tijuca) Gracie Barra’s Antonio Braga Netto beat two Nova Uniao guys Bruno Basto, and Andre ‘Marola’ Candido (Nova Uniao) in the finals by 4-0 at until 99kgs category. Jose Aldo, Marcos ‘Loro’ Galvao, Raoni Barcellos, Rafael Braga, Hudson Rocha didn’t fight the semifinals and quarter finals and of the 66kgs division. I didn’t understand the why of that. The matches involving these fighters would be superb, mainly because Rocha and Barcellos would have to clash against the three Nova Uniao guys. In the super fight number #1 the technical difference between a World BJJ champion and a submission fighter was fitted when Leonardo Pecanha gave no chances to Eraldo Paes. The gi’s experience of Pecanha was too much for Paes who believed in a guillotine choke early in the fight to sink his first attack. Pecanha, calmly, worked to free his head and to score 2-0 by the takedown. Pecanha confused Paes a lot, who had troubles to work with a shy half guard. From the top position Pecanha dictated a pressure until he could pass Eraldo’s guard. The fight came back to their feet a few times, and Eraldo made efforts to take Pecanha down with wrestling moves. But Pecanha managed very well and won the super fight #1 by 5-0. Featured OnThemat.com fighter, the Cagewarriors World lightweight champion, XANDINHO squared-off against two time World BJJ champion Celso Vinicius of Gracie Barra at super fight #3. They started trading good takedowns attempts and XANDINHO nearly got to put Vinicius’ back on the mat. They restored the action with Vinicius grabbing a single leg and XANDINHO escaping of it. Arm-drags were seen, and they tangled on the feet, XANDINHO went to the bottom without points scored. From there he tried a toe-hold over Vinicius, who took advantage of it to stay in the closed guard of XANDINHO. Vinicius used his tenacity to work over the fatigue of XANDINHO and impose a guard passage, XANDINHO turned to not allow that, but Vinicius worked better and took the backs scoring 4-0. XANDINHO breathed intensely showing lack of stamina and Vinicius used his better conditioning to pass the guard. Until then 6-0 in Vinicius favor, who worked for a rear naked choke and nearly got it if the time hadn’t ended-up. Final score, 6-0 for Vinicius.
Female super fight was the last of the single one at Copa RipDorey. Vanessa Porto used her strength to beat the beautiful Ana Maria of BTT by 4-2. The most outstanding fighter of whole competition was the powerhouse of RFT, Leonardo Lucio ‘Chocolate’ Nascimento. This guy fought two different categories, and even he didn’t fight the final of any of them. He beat all adversaries on the road of until 88kgs division and over 99kgs. Only stopping on the final when he shared the first place of 88kgs with Ricardo Bastos and of the over 99kgs with Carlson Team’s Ivan Batman. Before the three super fights held, the event paid a homage to this reporter who’s talking now. They gave me a plate which was a honor for me to receive that stuff and I’ve to thanks the OntheMat.com to make it possible of having me on board of this project. Thanksman and see you in the next cover!