Recent happenings in the worlds of sambo, judo, Brazilian jiu jitsu, submission grappling and/or collegiate/freestyle wrestling. If it takes place on the ground and it's interesting, it should be here.
Hello, devoted Bloody Elbow readers - and those mesmerized into reading this by the power of the awesome banner image (obrigado, Anton). The week since you last saw Matwork! has been a busy one. The U.S. Olympic wrestling team had a trial run at the London Test Event, the Tokyo Grand Slam happened over the weekend, a prominent BJJ tournament went off in New Jersey and more.
First, Adlan Amagov, the Strikeforce fighter scheduled to face Robbie Lawler on January 7th, competed in the Grapplers Quest tournament held last weekend. He took second in the Men's Expert Absolute division (while Lloyd Irvin grapplers Keenan Cornelius and DJ Jackson bracketed him for gold and bronze). One of his matches was a pretty rowdy affair with a couple of dubious calls:
After the jump, I have the aforementioned judo results, collegiate wrestling highlights, submission grappling tournament results and the best animal throw gif I have ever seen. It's pure pandamonium...
If you have any links of your own, questions or comments, leave them below or get word to me at DefGrappler on Twitter. Please let me know if I missed anything major and I will fix this, that and the other thing.
A list of official crew Twitter accounts is right here for your pickings: BloodyElbow Twitter, Luke Thomas, Kid Nate, Brent Brookhouse, Leland Roling, Richard Wade, Jonathan Snowden, Chris Barton, Damon O,Scott Broussard, Tim Burke, Matt Bishop, Fraser Coffeen, Dallas Winston, KJ Gould, Matt Roth, Anton Tabuena.
Wrestling News:
Over the weekend, the 2012 London Olympics organizers held a series of Test Events for Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestlers. The Men's Freestyle results can be seen here, the Women's Freestyle over there and click that for the Men's Greco-Roman results. The U.S. sent a team only for the Men's Freestyle and the athletes came back with two bronzes, two silvers and one gold medal amongst the seven divisions. Brent Metcalf won the gold in the 66 kg division over Kotaro Tanaka of Japan. Here's the video (six minutes of freestyle beastliness):
Next, the NCAA Division I wrestling shooting star at 133 lbs that is Jordan Oliver of Oklahoma State put on a highlight reel performance last Sunday. Thanks to Flowrestling, we can take a look at the speed, the leg-based attacks and the super-quick pin of Derek Geiges, his Oklahoma University opponent. All in under 20 seconds. Click that play button... Click it...
Watch more video of Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State on flowrestling.org
Ben Askren and his brother Max put on a display of how real bosses scramble in yet another great Flowrestling video.
Watch more video from Ben Askren on flowrestling.org
The InterMat rankings are updated and up for your perusal. Not too much upheaval and they'll likely change as the season progresses and teams prepare for Midlands and beyond.
What's odd about this event is that it was a mixture of the medal favorites and usual names in the mix winning - but with a healthy dose of people who hadn't competed more than once or twice in the past year coming out of relatively nowhere to win medals. The European Judo Union has some good coverage here, here and here on the event. Tomoko Fukumi was denied her fourth straight Tokyo Grand Slam in the U48 kg finals by Haruna Asami, who won the Paris and Rio Grand Slams. Musa Mogushov piled on some more points to finish the year as the top ranked U66 kg judoka (one of three Europeans to hold the top rankings this year).
Maybe I don't look pretty doing my techniques. Maybe I don't have the best-looking, most impressive clinics. I've heard people comment sometimes after clinics, "That guy looked a lot more impressive and taught a lot more techniques. His looked a lot better than hers. I thought she was supposed to be good. I wonder how she ever won that much."One reason, I guess, is that I was only worried about winning, in any way the rules allowed, and not at all about looking good.
Great afternoon with the Mendes Brothers. It is inspirational to see Rafael and Guilherme's passion for progressive Jiu Jitsu. - with Gianni Grippo, Garry Tonon, Maximilian Bohanan and Joseph Capizzi.
To get back the irreverent tone I love so much, I give you the best thing the animal kingdom has to the Tim Boetsch throw from UFC 135:
Silly baby panda, sneak attacks only get you thrown off the bamboo patch for massive ippon. Gotta come correct next time.
Almost everybody who follows grappling stuff has seen this already, but on the off chance I have new converts, check out The Most Intense Taekwondo Match Ever:
We have the makings of a future Dennis Siver here...
Andre Galvao, current ADCC Absolute champion and badass submission grappler, picks Lesnar over Overeem on his Twitter all the way from Brazil. Andre's biggest reason for picking Brock Lesnar over Alistair Overeem? Cardio. Is his logic screwy? Let him know. Or us here in the comments...
Nate Jackson, a wide receiver/tight end for the Denver Broncos from 2003 to 2008, wrote one of the hardest hitting personal stories about painkillers and elite sports that I have ever read. Read the beginning and tell me this doesn't hit you and make you wonder about MMA, wrestling or grappling:
THE former professional football player is confused. It is difficult for him to pinpoint, after the pads have come off for good, the precise cause of his aching body and his aching soul. He knows that the game did it. But what part of the game? Was it the physical violence? The psychological warfare? The realization that his life peaked in his 20s? The drugs he took to stay on the field? Whatever the cause, there is always the pain. The pain is constant in football and as a result it is constantly being manipulated.
Sorry to end on a sadder note, but this is real. CTE, lingering injuries and painkillers are going to be a part of this sport we love and follow for a very long time. It is probably best we be more honest and aware about it than the NFL and boxing have been for decades and we can learn from their mistakes.
People, I always need more awesome Odds & Ends. Videos, gifs, links, whatever. Do not hesitate to send them my way on here or on Twitter.
Def Grappler out!
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