Romero Subs, Pettis And Masvidal Draw In Charity Grappling Fights

Saturday night was a pretty quiet affair for mixed martial arts fans, but one event did go down that pulled some serious UFC star power to benefit charity. Dean Toole Promotions put together an internet PPV event on Ryoulive featuring grappling matches between Anthony Pettis and Jorge Masvidal plus Yoel Romero vs. Chris “Huggy Bear” Barnett.

Masvidal is weeks away from a major fight in the UFC against Ben Askren at UFC 239, so it was a bit surprising to see the UFC allow them to go at it in public where pride can result in more roughing up than you’d expect. But both men were consummate professionals and kept things relatively light – minus “Showtime” jumping for a number of submission attempts and landing hard on the canvas.

Most of his enthusiastic attacks didn’t yield more than momentary excitement, although he did manage to ankle pick “Gamebred.” Masvidal kept things more reserved and managed to take Pettis’ back at one point. But as per the rules the bout was declared a draw at the end of the 10 minutes.

In a more definitive end, middleweight terror Yoel Romero submitted heavyweight Chris Barnett with a kimura four minutes into their ten minute grappling match.

And for those who are interested in the affairs of social media personalities, the Instagram sensation known as Supreme Patty was defeated in his debut fight by Rudy Prieto via decision with the judges delivering 29-28, 29-28, and 30-27 scores.

In an interview with BJ Penn Radio, Masvidal explained how the match with Pettis came together for a good cause, the Bully Proof Foundation of Alabama.

”I’ve been wanting to grapple for a while and I really haven’t told too many people about it,” Masvidal said. “And my manager’s trying to ding me and he’s like, ‘Hey, this charity reached out to me. They’re putting together an event, you know’. First he told me what it’s going to support, and that’s to get kids from troubled areas, not such great areas, that can’t afford the gym, they put them in the gym, they buy the membership. They just give them something to do.”

“Man, I was instantly sold, you know. I was like ‘F**k yeah I got to be a part of that, bro.’ If this is what’s going on then count me in, you know.”

You can read more about the Bully Proof Foundation here.