Cyclone Submission 2005, December 11th: Pequeno’s brother chokes in seconds; Bastos wins at absolute. America F.C. Gymnasium at December 11th.
Well-booked super-fights, 6 tournaments, and the absolute 8-man tournament were the ingredients that attracted a lot of media attention to the Cyclone Submission 2005 event
Tournaments in five different weight class categories were dominated by BTT’s fighters. They ended up with a lot of champions such as Hudson Rocha (-60kgs), Leandro “Tatu” Escobar (70kgs), Matheus Trindade (-80kgs), Sergio Cohen ( 90kgs), and Wagner Ribeiro (+100kgs). The only category not won by a BTT fighter was the under 100kgs, captured by Paulo Samoa from Gracie Barra.
The audience and media had the chance to see a battle of little giants, as Rocha (the virtual champion at -60kgs) dispatched Aritano Barbosa (RFT) with a guillotine choke in 20 seconds in the semi-finals. It nearly made Barbosa unconscious. This was the second time in Rocha’s career that he made Barbosa tapout. In the finals, Rocha defeated Roberto Matsumoto (who had schooled Rocha’s teammate William Parrudinho by an 8-0 score).
In the other weight categories, teammates wouldn’t fight each other at the finals, so this became a boring atmosphere. It made the reputation of them go down a little bit.
Bruno Bastos in the Absolute tournament showed why he has built up a big name for himself in the 2005 submission season. He advanced in round one when his first opponent (Leonardo Lucio “Chocolate” Nascimento) refused to fight in absolute due to a protest against the organization. Chocolate had a student disqualified by what he thought was unfairness and due to this, he didn’t fight. The rest of the competitors squared-off in intense fights, with wrestling versus Jiu-Jitsu in the first match as Jorge Britto (Gracie Tijuca) got a referee decision over wrestler Marcelo “Zulu” Santos of Niteroi Wrestling. The fight went to three overtimes without any points scored. Leopoldo Serao was taken down in his fight by Roan “Jucao” Carneiro, who found his way to the semi-finals against Fabio Leopoldo (who choked out Gracie Humaita’s Marcelo “Nigue” Sandes).
Bastos went on to face Britto (who was not 100% recovered from his first fight). It was a war on the ground and Bastos assured his place in the finals with a reversal. Jucao and Leopoldo re-matched in a long-awaited fight. The first time they met was in the ADCC Brazilian Trials 2003 semi-finals and Leopoldo choked Jucao out in seconds. This time, a more focused and diligent Jucao managed Leopoldo’s strongest moves and beat him by a 2-0 score.
In the finals, Bastos and Jucao had a war which showed an amazing amount of submission and takedown attempts. The fight was decided in the golden-goal 5 minute overtime period (when the first point scored decided who the champion was). Bastos won when he put Jucao on his back on the mat and grabbed the R$1,000 prize money and title as absolute Cyclone champion.
In one of the show’s superfights, Pequeno’s brother (Leonardo Nogueira) faced off against Eduardo Pessoa. Nogueira wanted to sink a tight guillotine-choke onPessoa’s unprotected neck and got the tap-out in 40 seconds.
Adriano “Nasal” Pereira and Fabricio “Morango” Camoes fought a chess-match based on guard-pulling techniques. They tried to fight off sweeps and sunk some guillotine chokes after guard-pulling. However, these two well-rounded BJJ black belts didn’t jeopardize themselves enough to provide a submission attempt. Nasal won the match by referee’s decision.
The co-main event featured Rodrigo Damm and Daniel Moraes in a BJJ/wrestling bout. These two fighters are black belts, but they are also known for their special techniques in wrestling. Damm came in with a few more accolades for his wrestling wins. However, his wrestling experience didn’t stop Moraes’ better fight strategy. Moraes accepted a fight with neck-clinches and took Damm down by his usual double-legs technique twice, winning the contest.
The most anticipated match of the show was the last super-fight between Alexandre “Cacareco” Ferreira and Alexandre “Cafe” Dantas. They already were teammates, but for now, they were adversaries. Cacareco started showing his powerful double-legs attempts that Café tried to stop, but couldn’t and Cacareco had a 2-0 score. Cacareco scored two more takedowns and got the score up to 5-0. So Cacareco made a gesture to take a coffee (making fun of his opponent, as the word coffee in Portuguese is “cafe”). This nearly caused a brawl. Cafe Dantas argued with Cacareco about this, and Cacareco apologized after a period of tension. Cacareco captured the Cyclone’s belt like a winner of the superfight. Cyclone 2006 will provide us with Cacareco vs. Bastos in the main event and OnTheMat.com will be there to bring you all of the action!