The first ever Ontario Submission Wrestling Invitational took place in Hamilton, Ontario Canada Saturday December 2003! The first ever Ontario Submission Wrestling Invitational took place in Hamilton, Ontario Canada Saturday December 2003! The event was promoted, organized, ran, produced , and MC’d by OntheMat reporter Riccardo “Baleia” Ammendolia. The format was simple! 11 Matches of Submission Wrestling Abu Dhabi style rules with one women`s BJJ rules match up!
The event featured some of Ontario’s top talent going head to head in single bouts! Winners of the event were treated to a registration to enter Brain Cimmins’ Grapplers Quest event! Winners were also treated to donations from OntheMat, Showdown FightWear, as well as the Sports Nutrition Depot! The Canadian Jiu-jitsu Association sanctioned the event. World Brazilian Jiu-jistu Champion Leonardo Santos was on hand to watch the action and give support for his brother Wagney Fabiano’s team Karma. Some truly awesome displays of technique and skill were displayed for the crowd and several standing ovations were given for the highly technical matches as they unfolded! Here is how the matches unfolded: Match #1: Jeremy Hamilton (Alliance/Team Joslin) was supposed to face off against Pain Peters who is know more for his M.M.A. fights rather than his submission grappling. However Pain could not attend and Jeremy was awarded the victory! This is rather unfortunate as Pain even in grappling is a risk taker and pushes the action whereas Jeremy is known as a power takedown artist who has been working hard on his ankle locks and was looking forward to taking Pain out! Hopefully this match goes down someday as I believe it will be a barnburner!
Match#2: Jesse Richardson (Winner Behring/Shah Franco Martial Arts) faced off against Daniel Elmy (Nova Uniao/Karma). The match started out with the two fighters feeling each other out for a minute or so before Danny shot in for one of his powerful takedowns! Danny scored with it and passed Jesse’s guard a couple of times for the win! Danny made a few submission attempts but Jesse was able to slide out of them! Unfortunately Danny did not allow Jesse to showcase his skills that won him this past years open division in the World Cup of Jiu-jitsu!
Match #3: Marco “Lixo” Costa (Winner Behring/Shah Franco Martial Art’s) had a fast paced technical battle with Shaun Krysa (Marcus Soares/Carlson Gracie/Team Borelands)! Shaun and Marco shot in on each other a couple of times with Shaun securing a single leg. Marco, while balancing on one leg, countered the single leg attempt with a beautiful scissor sweep type counter, taking the Canadian Abu Dhabi Trials winner to his back. The match proceeds in Marcos guard where he finished Shaun with a textbook triangle to armlock combination!
Match#4 Maz Alinejad (Nova Uniao/Rebellion Jiu-jitsu) was matched up with the unknown Vadim (Minorou Dojo). Vadim was coming into the match with a long list of credentials including championship wins in Judo/Sambo and Wrestling. However Maz was the one who brought the match to the floor where he secured a mount position and tried many times to finish the match unsuccessfully. The match ended 6X0 for Maz. Maz is a multiple time Canadian open Grappling winner and Grapplers Quest finalist. He is known for having a slick submissions game but Vadim seemed to be too strong for him to dominate a limb to do so!
Match #5 P.J. “Prime Time” O’Sullivan (Machado/Team Joslin) had an exciting bout with John “Pinky” Loginow (Winner Behring/Shah Franco Martial Arts) P.J. who is known for his triangle chokes, show boating and faced based submissions game, was able to submit Pinky with, you guessed it, a triangle choke. However, it was apparent that John Loginow knew the submission was going to come sometime during the match and was able to fend off the triangle for quite a long time. Perhaps because of the all the footage his team must have of P.J. facing off against his other team mates in the years past competitions here in Ontario. ” Prime Time” didn’t give up on it and was able to change the angle, secure John’s head and execute the move for the finish.
Match#6 Had Antonio “Pato ” Carvalho (Winner Behring/Shah Franco Martial Art’s) against Elliot Bayev (Marcus Soares/Rebellion Jiu-jitsu). Bayev, who recently had a strong showing at Relson Gracie’s Ohio Jiu-jitsu Championships, quickly pulled half guard. The matches continued from there until Elliot turned inwards to Antonio, where “Pato” than jumped on the chance and surrounded his neck to sink the match ending rear naked choke.
Match#7 Vadim’s training partner Misha was originally slated to face off against Nova Uniao’s Scott Lewis. However on the morning of the even, Misha had a terrible fever and was unable to compete! Vadim offered to fight once again and take the place of his friend! After a couple of minutes of takedown attempts, Vadim shot in for a double leg takedown, Scott countered with a front headlock, picked Vadim’s ankle, passed his guard and maintained the top position before getting to Vadim’s back and choked him with a textbook rear naked choke.
Match #8 Known to many by the name “Monkey”, Richard Nancoo proved in little time why he is regarded as one of Ontario’s top lightweight Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters. Monkey ended the match fairly quickly via guillotine choke against Mark “Pequeno Gigante” Loft (Nova Uniao/Ronin Martial Arts). Immediately after the match, Richard addressed the crowd calling out Shane Rice (Rickson Gracie purple belt) who apparently had some words for Nancoo in the past!
Match#9 In the only women’s match of the evening, these two ladies put on a jiu-jitsu clinic! Rebecca Sweeney (Nova Uniao/Canada’s Best) fought a hard battle with Ashlyn (Avozinha) Kanatawy (Winer Behring/Shah Franco Martial Art’s). This was a back and forth battle which won the crowd’s applause on several occasions with every reversal and near score! The match ended 6X0 with Rebecca as the victor, but much can be said for Ashlyn who is only 17 years old and showed that she will be a force in the women`s divisions! A back-to-back Canadian Open Grappling Champion, Ashlyn seemed to have a lot of natural resiliency and aggressiveness, however Rebecca’s experience and technique was better this day!
Match #10 Big Karim “Sugar Bear” Byron (Marcus Soares/Carver’s Martial Arts) tried many sweeps from half guard and almost was able to score on Canadian Wrestling and No Hold Barred Veteran Rob McDonald (Team Tompkins). These two met before with Rob coming away with the victor via takedowns. Many who have seen Karim fight before know that even though he is one of the largest jiu-jitsu fighters on the scene, he always tries to push the action using skill rather than weight. He nearly swept big Rob twice in the match however Rob was able to use his powerful base and stabilize, than ended the match with an inverted kimura. Although Rob is mostly known for his wrestling skills, many believe that if he improved his BJJ game, he would one of the top super heavyweights in Canada.
Match #11 Between Gavin “Heavy Metal” Hesson (Alliance/Team Joslin) and Dom Passero (Nova Uniao/Karma) had it all! Cartwheel guard passes, awesome sweeps and submissions, with “Heavy Metal” coming out on top. Easily the most technical match of the evening, it was a back and forth battle with both men sweeping each other once. But it was Gavin finishing the fight with a triangle choke/arm lock. Hesson, who hasn’t been able to compete in quite a while, proved once again he’s a force to be reckoned with!
Match #12 Rowan Cuningham (Alliance/Team Joslin) was rumored to have finally met his match in the Canadian scene with wrestling and recent NAGA champion Brent Beauparlant (Nova Uniao/Team GAAMA). Brent known for his powerful slams and takedowns, was a last week replacement for Claude Patrick (Nova Uniao) who unfortunately withdrew before the event. For those who know Rowan, know that he does not care who he faces and is always up for a tough match. He played a classic jiu-jitsu strategy, which helped him win in the end. As the match began Rowan pulled guard and chose the bottom position rather than trying to trade takedowns with Brent. From there he tried several umoplata and sweep attempts, without any success. Eventually he was able to score a sit up sweep on Brent but was unable to finalize it as Brent quickly recovered. Than from half guard, Rowan attempted and kimura lock which forced Brent to roll numerous times to escape. Rowan was able to lock out his legs, stabilizing Brent than forcing him to submit!!! The crows went crazy, and Rowan showed once again, why under his instructor Jeff Joslin (Alliance), he is regarded as Alliance Canada and Team Joslin’s, top jiu-jitsu competitor.
Eventually the promoter plans to open up the event to U.S. and or Brazilian fighters who wish to come down and face off against Canada’s best. Canada has never had any events like this and the province Ontario is in a confusing state in regards to combat sports. Hopefully events like this can help the sport and its fighters get more recognition and acceptance just like Judo, Karate or other sports have had for years in Canada.
Canada does have some top talent and that were unable to compete unfortunately. It is quite possible that we may see these fighters in the future! In Ontario alone, there is Jeff Joslin of Alliance Jiu-jitsu (Grapplers Quest, NAGA and Pan Am purple belt champion, Carlos Newton (UFC, Pride veteran and multiple time Canadian grappling champion), and who can leave out Mark “Kidred” Bocek of Nova Uniao (World Cup Absolute winner and multiple time jiu-jitsu champion), who has spent the last year in Brazil training hard and is ready to roll!!! We have Brazilian imports such as Ze Mario Esfiha (Master Jiu-jitsu), Rodrigo Munduruca (Winner Behring) and Wagney Fabiano(Nova Uniao) in Canada teaching and training hard. Who knows what matches could happen in the future! All of the above are still very young and able to compete, so there can only be good things to come hopefully in the future for the Canadian scene!