This weekend before Anderson Silva or Chris Weidman even stepped in the cage there was a lot of great matches that took place on the July 4th weekend. Except those matches did not take place in the Octagon, but instead they were on the mats. The mats of the Grapplers Quest Tournament that took place in conjunction with the UFC fan Expo, and had a good mixture of well BJJ practitioners and MMA superstars. Here is the results from those nine super fights.
In the first match, former UFC flyweight Ulysses Gomez was able to defeat Kristian Woodmansee by submission. While Gomez was not able to perform up to his abilities during his UFC tenure, he was able to come away with a win on Friday which is a good thing since he professed to be nervous for the match on Twitter.
Next, two former number one contenders in the UFC met up on the mats, but they compete in different weight classes. TUF winner John Dodson took on bantamweight competitor Scott Jorgensen in an entertaining battle. It is unknown if Jorgensen’s size advantage or background as a division one wrestler helped, but there is no way it could have hurt his chances in the match.
Joe Stevenson’s black belt Marcelo Mafra continues to impress, because not only does he hold a perfect 4-0 in MMA record but competes in Jiu Jitsu as well. In fact, he almost won gold at the 2013 Pan-Ams, but was tapped out at the last second by Clark Gracie. He was making sure that did not happen this weekend, because he finished his opponent, Javier Torres, in just 23 seconds with an Ankle Lock.
There was also a four man tournament taking place over the weekend, and in the first round Dean Lister took on Kyle Griffin. The veteran was able to pull out the win over Kyle Griffin who trains with the Drysdale team in Las Vegas. Lister went on to compete the next day in the finals.
Who he competed against was determined by a match between Joao Assis and Ricardo Abreu. It was truly a close match that was only won on points. Assis was able to secure Abreu’s back at one point which gave him four points in the amtch, and in the end he won by two since Abreu could not mount much against him. Assis went on to face Lister the next day.
Two of the best MMA grapplers took each other on when Cole Miller faced off with Jim Miller. Surely a Miller was going to win, but it would be Cole that would come out on top. Despite being at 145 now, he was able to best one of the top ten lightweights in the world, and this is not the first time that Cole had bested a great grappler. Just look to his match with Jorge Gurgel for an example of that.
In the only female match of the weekend, Amanda Lucas took on Tracey Goodell and it did not last long. Goodell trains with her husband and grappling all star Mike Fowler which may have helped lead her to the win. It is possible that Lucas may have just gotten caught though since she was finished in just 37 seconds by Kimura.
In a match that was sure to please the grappling fans, Jeff Glover came to match grappling wits with third degree black belt Fredson Paixao. This is essentially Glover’s house with him only being defeated four times in nearly nine years at Grapplers Quest matches. He came out on top again in an entertaining battle between two grappling masters.
Lastly, the final between Lister and Assis took place, and as is with Glover it seems that Assis is making a name for himself in superfights. It was only a few years ago he became the first man to submit Jeff Monson in nearly a decade before UFC 114, and now he won the 4 man tournament beating out Dean Lister.