Matwork! 12/15/11

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 10:01 AM EST in Grappling News

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.

Judo News:

Follow JudoInside on Twitter for the quick happenings in the Judo world. No Judo feed does it better.

The International Judo rankings are updated and out. I say "updated" because the Tokyo Grand Slam just wrapped up and the points have to be awarded, standings adjusted and opinions changed. Quite a few of the top 50 in every division possible competed this weekend at the Grand Slam.

The event is also known as the Jigoro Kano Cup and a prize of $5k for gold was awarded - which may explain the enthusiasm for competition this late in the season. The Japanese dominated the medals, with 27 of a possible 56 medals going to competitors from Japan (including 11 of a possible 14 gold medals). Only three divisions did not feature a Japanese competitor in the finals. The individual results can be pored over to your heart's delight by clicking this link.

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).

JudoInside has a cool statistical tool that can be manipulated to do all kinds of things. One of the normal usages for the tool is to create a list of medal-winning nations for 2011 as a whole. Japan is number one, Russia number two and Mongolia is third.

This is probably rapidly approaching a crush, but you should be paying attention to the blog of Dr. Ann Maria DeMars. She does it again with a great post (possibly a preview of her upcoming book?) titled "My Stuff is Ugly, But it Works". A short excerpt:

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.

This brings to mind all kinds of MMA techniques and patterns - Dan Henderson's right hand set-ups, Cody MacKenzie's prayer chokes and Chael Sonnen's entire career. Also, Joakim Noah's jump shot.

Submission Grappling/Brazilian Jiu Jitsu News:

The Grapplers Quest tournament held on Saturday, December 10th in Asbury Park, New Jersey featured several high level grapplers from elite teams. Individual results can be found through clicking on this link.

As mentioned above, Adlan Amagov competed in the No-gi Advanced Cruiserweight (winning bronze) and Absolute (winning silver). He looked good, but Keenan Cornelius had a better day with three gold medals in the gi cruiserweight, No-gi Advanced cruiserweight and No-gi Advanced Absolute. DJ Jackson took first in brown belt cruiserweight and the No-gi Advanced cruiserweight divisions and third in the No-gi Advanced Absolute. Matthew Maldonado, a friend of mine who was awarded his brown belt last week by the Alliance NYC team, won first place in the brown belt flyweight and second place in the No-gi Advanced flyweight division. Nyjah Easton, Jen Flannery and Sijara Eubanks all had strong showings, with Eubanks continuing her winning ways from the recent Abu Dhabi Pro trials. Flannery came into this with a win from the NAGA Virginia event - also where Ryan Hall finished all three of his opponents to win the Expert welterweight division.

One of the more unusual storylines from this event was the five division ordeal for Travis Stevens - who is a four time USA Worlds competitor and 2008 Olympian in judo. He won the Advanced Judo division, won the blue belt cruiserweight, won the No-gi Intermediate cruiserweight, won third in the No-gi Advanced Middleweight and took second in the No-gi Advanced Cruiserweight - while apparently not going for a throw in the BJJ divisions.

The NAGA Worlds apparently took place in Texas over the weekend too, but they have no results, photos or videos up yet. Hang on a bit and I will see if they pop up soon.

David from the Jiu Jitsu Laboratory brings us Part Two of his stupendous breakdown of Rodolfo Vieira's passing game. If you grapple, you must read this or receive stern looks of disapproval from everyone you know. Everyone. Pay particular attention to the Faria and Cobrinha matches. All of the videos are battles between titans of the grappling world, but those two showcase some truly interesting variants of grappling games and how Vieira deals with them both.

In seminar news, the Mendes brothers were in the NYC area last week and got some training time with Ricardo Almeida - who happens to be a multiple time ADCC medalist and phenomenal grappler in his own right.

via Ricardo's Fbook page

The caption Ricardo put up:

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.

Odds and Ends:

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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Comments

Great stuff, again. Brent Metcalf made Tanaka look like a scrub, dude was faaaaast.

BTW Ben I bet I’d make a great son in law. Just sayin’. HI RONDA. HI MAMAROUSEYDEMARS.

"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

by menckenstein on Dec 15, 2011 10:18 AM EST reply actions

Dude. Amazing. Such a great piece. Thank you.

by TruthJunky on Dec 15, 2011 10:20 AM EST reply actions

Grapplers Quest

I really enjoyed it

by InternetRacist on Dec 15, 2011 10:24 AM EST reply actions

This is the most underrated feature on BE. Needs a little bit of work, but wow, what a great piece of publishing. Keep it up!

Follow @SBNLukeThomas

by Luke Thomas on Dec 15, 2011 10:33 AM EST reply actions 2 recs

Will make the easy/small fixes to improve future editions.

Twitter: @DefGrappler
InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 12:14 PM EST up reply actions

Awesome work as usual Ben. I’d say the panda throw looks more like Rick Hawn on LeVon Maynard at Bellator 33, but it’s still awesome.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Dec 15, 2011 10:40 AM EST reply actions

I tried so hard to find the original source video for it. No dice.

Thanks, Burke.

Twitter: @DefGrappler
InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 12:14 PM EST up reply actions

Wow that Jordan Oliver dude is ridiculous. That quick little ankle pick was lightning fast, as was that shuck. And he pins with a textbook standard cradle. Beautiful wrestling.

"I think you'll see my style of man beast will definitely come through" - Brad Pickett

by bcpjkell on Dec 15, 2011 10:43 AM EST reply actions

And that Nate Jackson article is really interesting.

"I don't know where this term "training camp" in MMA came from. There's no campground. There's no tents." - Nick Diaz

My twitter: @TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Dec 15, 2011 10:43 AM EST reply actions

awesome stuff here Ben. Jordan Oliver is a monster btw i would like to see more from that guy in the future.

by youfailme91 on Dec 15, 2011 11:06 AM EST reply actions

Next weeks animal grapple (Grappanimals?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlYEasfMeNI

Also Dr. Ann Maria DeMars blog is awesome.

aimed at the crotch...

Follow @DeoWade

by Damon O. on Dec 15, 2011 11:55 AM EST reply actions

Solid find – starts off slow but eventually very much worth watching. Tabby cat can get that neck…

Twitter: @DefGrappler
InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 12:18 PM EST up reply actions

The bull terrier is a slow starter

But his explosive athleticism wins it in the end.

aimed at the crotch...

Follow @DeoWade

by Damon O. on Dec 15, 2011 12:23 PM EST up reply actions

Has this been posted yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I11GeUeqo4g

"Now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

by menckenstein on Dec 15, 2011 12:29 PM EST up reply actions

Awesome post man

Metcalf is so freakin’ fast (Hawkeye wrestling FTW!). It’ll be interesting to see where Oliver goes from here, whether he pursues wrestling on the world stage or make the transition to MMA.

by mictlantechutli on Dec 15, 2011 12:37 PM EST reply actions

Fairly sure he goes the world stage route.

There’s Byron Tate, a D3 All-American from Wartburg, who is training MMA while still in college. He’s a beast who can and does hang with and beat quite a few D1 wrestlers right now.

Twitter: @DefGrappler
InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 2:18 PM EST up reply actions

Tate is very good

and Wartburg has a strong program. Don’t know if you saw the All Star Classic, but I think it was an eye opening experience for Tate. Honeycutt is top 5 D1, and he made pretty short work of Tate.

No offense to Team R.O.C., but when Tate eventually moves on to a better MMA program, he should be able to make some serious waves.

by mictlantechutli on Dec 15, 2011 2:35 PM EST up reply actions

That pin was super-fast.

Remember how Jones started with Bomb Squad and then got out of there ASAP? Might be a similar situation with Tate.

Twitter: @DefGrappler
InStrength dot com.

by Ben Thapa on Dec 15, 2011 3:17 PM EST up reply actions

Possible. Sometimes we see guys start off at a smaller camp and migrate once they’re making some more money.

by discoandherpes on Dec 15, 2011 10:54 PM EST up reply actions

Hello

I enjoyed this weeks edition of Matwork!
The grappler’s quest match was fun. A backflip, a tapping controversy and blood; what more could you ask for without being greedy.

Every time champion!

by S.S on Dec 15, 2011 4:32 PM EST reply actions