Toro Cup 9 was a great day filled with 25 action-packed matches! We had a few technical issues, but were able to capture all the matches (that’s the good news). Thanks to Andrew Faherty of Remington Place Productions, we’re going to have high-quality video of all the matches, featuring commentary tracks.
The bad news — which is also good news for Betsy and Jeff — is that we’re leaving for Ireland for two weeks! We don’t want to leave you bereft, so we’re going to list all the results and some early, rough video of a few matches here. Enjoy, and see you in two weeks!
Hey y’all, Jeff is leaving for a week for work, so the Toro Cup 8 matches are going to come in pieces. We don’t have them all, but we’ll post what have on Facebook and update this post as they get uploaded. Enjoy! Continue reading “VIDEO: Toro Cup 8 Matches”
The Abu Dhabi Combat Club worlds is Sep. 23 and 24 in Finland. Last year, we ran an ADCC picks contest with prizes: this year I want to experiment with a new format, one that will be a little simpler. At least at first, this is just for bragging rights, but if all goes well, we’ll go back to offering prizes next year.
RULES: You have 10 total points to pick a “team” of up to three athletes in each division. You cannot have more than three athletes in a division. You might choose to have fewer than three athletes, but the only firm rule is that you can’t spend more than 10 points. For an example of how this works, let’s take the Men’s Under 66 KG division: Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles: 9
Marcio Andre: 7
Augusto Mendes: 4
Bruno Frazzato: 4
Justin Rader: 3
Paulo Miyao: 2
Any Fighter Not Listed: 1
You could take the favorite, Rubens Charles, and one other athlete from the field for one point. Or you could take Marcio Andre and Justin Rader. In each case you’d have two athletes. Or you could pick Augusto Mendes, Bruno Frazzato and Paulo Miyao for three guys on your “team.” Make sense? We have a catch-all “Any Fighter Not Listed” because there are often drops and adds.
You pick a team for each of the divisions below and post your team in the comments, or email it to cagesidewhup at gmail.com. Your picks have to be in and final by 6 p.m. eastern time on Sep. 22.
SCORING SYSTEM: Each gold medal scores three points, each silver medal two points, and each bronze medal one point. At the end of the event, we tally up whose team has the most points and give awards accordingly.
Excited yet? I know I am! Here are the point values for each division: choose wisely.
I have a confession: I really, really like gambling.
Not the type of gambling where the house inevitably wins over the long term. That act holds no thrill for me. It’s like watching a film that has a few thrills along the way that you know with certainty ends badly for everyone. You won’t see me playing slots or most table games.
But games where you can play against others, where the outcome is uncertain and hence more interesting, and you have a mathematical chance to make money along the way? Sign me up.
That’s one reason I’m glad more sports books are offering grappling bets. Because I can play games I like while watching the matches I want to see — and pass along my thoughts on where the smart money is. Plus, we can have another blog and podcast contest. Everybody wins!
ADCC is coming right up in Finland, and if you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ll be watching. Why not play along at home? Here are the odds offered at a particular online betting spot, where I’ll be placing my (imaginary, just for fun) wagers. Let’s talk about the current odds at BetDSI.eu (with the proviso that there are always drops due to injury and late replacements very close to the event). Come back tomorrow and we’ll get to the free contest, where you can play along without the taste of online degeneracy. Continue reading “ADCC: What the odds tell us”
As a five-day countdown to our hundredth show, we’re going to be posting two blog items a day until Friday, culminating in two big giveaways, one big announcement, and finally our 100th show. Stick around for the top two announcements for sure — I think you’ll be as excited as we are.
TODAY: SEVEN MOST POPULAR VIDEOS
We do a fair amount of video here, most of which are housed on our Facebook page, and a few on our YouTube Channel. Some of those are instructional videos, some live matches from events like Toro Cup, some nutrition videos, and some potpourri.
Wild fact: on Facebook alone, our videos have been viewed for more than a million minutes (1,036,000 to be precise, with more than 1.5 million video views.
What are the most popular videos? I’m glad you asked, because that’s next on the countdowns. Some takeaways: people like a variety of things, from educational videos to montages of show content to live matches. People especially like Toro Cup 6, since many of the top clips are from that event (it remains to be seen if Toro Cup 7 will eclipse that one). And Greg Walker features in two of the top seven videos, so people like watching Greg compete.
In just a few short days, the 2017 Mundial championship will give us a metric ton of high-level jiujitsu to watch. Until then, we’re going to have to rely on previous matches.
A blue belt friend of mine is disappointed he won’t get to see Rafa Mendes compete this year, and asked me for some must-watch Rafa match recommendations. I chose 6 matches that cover the span of his black belt career, trying for some diversity — hence the span from 2009 to 2016, with three gi matches and two nogi matches.
Yes, there are three matches with Cobrinha here, but that’s because this was an epic rivalry between two of the best ever (and who would have bet on Rafa retiring before a man who is a decade his senior? If you think I’m rooting for Cobrinha this year, you’d better believe it).
MATCH ONE: Let’s start with the match that earned Rafa his first, ADCC title, the 2009 finals versus Cobrinha. Both Rafa (who was just 19 years old here) and Cobrinha submitted all of their opponents before this match. This match, one of the greatest nogi matches ever, went to double overtime. This one set the tone for years to come.
MATCH TWO:Cobrinha is one of the absolute best ever. At black belt, he’s only been submitted twice. One of those was by Rodolfo Vieira, a man who has 60 pounds of solid muscle on him. The other was here, in 2012.
If you watched that 2009 match, you saw Cobrinha’s defensive prowess on full display. Rafa threatened a number of submissions, but Cobrinha always had an answer. In the gi Pan Ams, though, Mendes executed an armbar perfectly and fought through Rubens Charles’ valiant and courageous defenses. No other person close to his weight has ever done so, before or since.
MATCH THREE: Before we complete our trilogy with Cobrinha, let’s go back to the 2009 ADCC, where Rafa fought the legendary Leozinho, Leo Vieira (another man worth studying hours of film on). Mendes’ relentless attacks keep coming, and his rise is on full display here.
MATCH FOUR: I had the pleasure of watching this one live, at the 2015 worlds. It really showed the growth of Rafa’s game. Cobrinha had beaten him at ADCC in 2013, and you could tell that the rivalry meant a lot to each man. I was on pins and needles for this one — but Rafa took charge from the beginning. pulling guard and implementing his game with seemingly little effort.
Well up on points, it looked like Rafa had Cobrinha caught again toward the end of the match. But after Cobrinha escaped, he kind of wagged his finger and looked at the crowd to say something like “not today.” There was a terse exchange of words between the two men. At a seminar years later, I asked Rafa about what they said to each other. I’m going to leave that right there for now. Maybe I’ll talk about it on the show sometime.
MATCH FIVE: Okay, you hate the double guard pull. I hate it too, honestly. But we can’t ignore the prominence of the dueling berimbolo game in the mid-2010s, and two masters of it put their skills on display at the 2014 European championship finals. I’m including this match with Paulo Miyao for that reason (it’s reflective of the time), because of the interesting Mendes-Miyao dynamic, and because it’s a rare example of this genre that features very little stalling. (Higher quality link here, but one that won’t let me embed).
MATCH SIX: Let’s close out with a match from 2016. Rafa is at the height of his powers, in the prime of his life at 26, and is just clearly a level above both his opponent in his weight class final at the Rickson Cup and his absolute final opponent, Ichitaro Tsukada. This isn’t anything against either of these men. It’s just a statement of where Rafa’s game is relative to even regular competitive black belts. You see his movement on full display here, against Yuto Hirao. He flows to the best option so effortlessly, it looks almost like he’s drilling. This isn’t a man with anything left to prove.
Toro Cup 6 was the biggest and — in my view — best version of Toro BJJ‘s local grappling superfight cards. Featuring 22 matches, including four black belt clashes and four women’s matches, the event had something for everybody. With about 450 people in attendance, the day for a real showcase for the growth of the jiujitsu scene in the Carolinas and beyond.
We had competitor and Pedro Sauer black belt David Porter in the studio live to break down his match with CJ Murdock and to share his personal highlights from the day: that was tremendous fun, as always with Mr. Porter, and is one of two Toro Cup podcasts coming. With so many folks concentrated in one spot, we did numerous interviews we think you’re going to love — so check this episode out, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher if you don’t want to miss future shows! Video of the matches below.
