Copa STONE de Submission 2005 at Nov. 13th – Review &Picture gallery
November 13th at Colegio Lemos Cunha Gymnasium -BRAZIL Copa Stone began its submission promotion return after 3 years of total absence to the Colegio Lemos Cunha Gymnasium at the district of Ilha do Governador. It’s a fact that the last Copa Stone(the second edition) held in same location (Ilha do Governador) was a deep chapter in the Brazilian submission scene,when 21 submission contests marked an epilogue in the rivalry between Luta-Livre and Jiu Jitsu. The challenge was accepted and taken by Jiu Jitsu in a dominant 14-7 score against Luta-Livre. This time, the event didn’t showcase the same “glamour” of the last one since the organizers managed the date between some huge happenings in Rio (a big holiday), plus a few cancellations from the original card.
Different from last time, the event sponsored by Stone FightWear adopted beginner, intermediary and professional tournaments, and single-fights between Gracie Ilha’s soldiers, head coached by Marcelo Clemente (a Royler Gracie black-belt), against two BTT & two Luta-Livre fighters.
While Gracie Ilha and BTT tied their matches by 1-1 the newcomer Diego (the brother of multiple times submission champion Daniel Moraes) surprisingly submitted (rear-naked-choke) the BTT’s Leandro Escobar; and Flavio Sefarin, who schooled Felipe Varella by a score of 14-0. At the rest of the single fights, the unorthodox Ricardo Cordeiro (Soc. de Lutas) mixed a kind of keylock plus a triangle on the throat of his opponent (Anderson) to finish the fight. Sometimes, Cordeiro seemed to be funny by showing very weird movements in the fight, like a cross-armbar which rendered him the weirdest reversal I ever witnessed in my life. In the last single fight of the card, RFT/Luta-Livre’s specimen Leonardo Lucio”Chocolate” Nascimento came back to Rio from Germany (where he fought MMA and had some seminars) and outmatched Fabio Prado by 4-2. The strength ofChocolate during this fight wowed the crowd.
Up-and-comers in the beginner and intermediary categories of the tournaments put the Charlie Brown Team coming across such as the champion by teams, followed by Ilha Bros, and BTT. Even with action on these two newcomer categories, the capacity crowd wanted to see the pro-fighters in the game. The medals of the four weight-classes (-70kg, -80kg, -90kg & +90kg) were virtually captured by all of BTT’s athletes with the exception for -80kg that had Edson Chulapa (CT Elite) and his usual counter-attack takedowns, which everybody knows that he’ll execute, but nobody can avoid it. Chupala faced off on the finals against Rodrigo Nunes from Gracie Tijuca. And after freeing himself from a catch of the back (without hooks), Chulapa threw Nunes down twice to the despair of Jiu Jitsu guys that expected to have all the medals. At -70kg still fresh of the single-fight, Escobar was determined of erasing his performance and he got it, by winning with Fernando Consendey the 1st place spot on the podium. Under 90kg weight class put the addicted on fighting, Flavio Serafin(the most technical fighter of the competition), and the power house Ismael “Guerreiro” Cardoso like the champions. Guerreiro was the protagonist of the funniest moment of whole tournament, when one of his teammates called his name during the semifinal-match, Guerreiro looked at his teammate, forgetting the fight, and Guerreiro’s opponent took advantage of the distraction to shoot in, taking Guerreiro down by slam. It’d be pathetic if wasn’t very-funny for the crowd, even so Guerreiro won by 4-2 and advanced.
The last battle of championship was the collision of big guys in +90 kg in the exciting Mauro Jorge (BTT) versus the diligent Diogo Rocha (Charlie Brown). While insiders hoped to see Jorge in the finals of this category, Rocha walked on the road convincingly by beating IVC veteran Andre Gustavo “Mau-Mau” (BOPE) by suplex. Jorge and Rocha exchanged neck-clinches on the feet and shot in sometimes. Both of them realized that to take each other down would be a tough task, so Jorge pulled to the guard first and attempted a sweep that didn’t work. They returned to the feet and Rocha was working too cautiously, so Jorge looked the Rocha’s grips on the feet and sunk a perfect wrist-lock that made Rocha scream in pain. A smart submission move in a fight class where fighters are known by strength and not by technique.