It is a pretty well known fact that we here at CP base our love of female MMA fighters on three things; how they look at the weigh-ins, their willingness to talk trash on the level of their male counterparts, and lastly (and perhaps most importantly), their ability to pull off a beautiful armbar when called upon. Is that shallow, trivial, and more than a bit chauvinistic? Of course it is, but when have we ever been anything but? It’s also no coincidence that Ronda Rousey can do all of those things in her sleep (seriously, we’ve seen her do all three from our window-side perch), hence our absolute devotion to her brand of sexy, arm-destroying justice.
Well, it appears that the gauntlet has been thrown down (at least in the latter category), as Danielle West managed to pull off a beautiful step over/modified flying armbar on Irina Mollukwu in the absolute finals of the Grapplers Showdown No Gi London Open last weekend. The end came just over a minute into their scrap, and was so impressive that even Ms. Rousey would agree with us if she hadn’t filed that restraining order.
Currently 4-3 in her professional MMA career, it appears as if “The Curse” has a bright road ahead of her if she can manage to pull off these kinds of shenanigans inside the cage. Anyone agree?
Check out a full video of the match after the jump.
It is a pretty well known fact that we here at CP base our love of female MMA fighters on three things; how they look at the weigh-ins, their willingness to talk trash on the level of their male counterparts, and lastly (and perhaps most importantly), their ability to pull off a beautiful armbar when called upon. Is that shallow, trivial, and more than a bit chauvinistic? Of course it is, but when have we ever been anything but? It’s also no coincidence that Ronda Rousey can do all of those things in her sleep (seriously, we’ve seen her do all three from our window-side perch), hence our absolute devotion to her brand of sexy, arm-destroying justice.
Well, it appears that the gauntlet has been thrown down (at least in the latter category), as Danielle West managed to pull off a beautiful step over/modified flying armbar on Irina Mollukwu in the absolute finals of the Grapplers Showdown No Gi London Open last weekend. The end came just over a minute into their scrap, and was so impressive that even Ms. Rousey would agree with us if she hadn’t filed that restraining order.
Currently 4-3 in her professional MMA career, it appears as if “The Curse” has a bright road ahead of her if she can manage to pull off these kinds of shenanigans inside the cage. Anyone agree?
It’s like watching a cat toying with a mouse, is it not, Potato Nation?
Robert Drysdale’s BJJ credentials include being a six-time World Jiu-Jitsu champion, ADCC Absolute Division Champion as well as winning over 90 BJJ tournament titles. He has a MMA record of 3-0 with all three victories coming by way of submission, showing his versatility in those fights by using a guillotine, an arm-bar and an arm triangle choke. Within the MMA community he is regarded as one of the best BJJ instructors with a virtual all-star list of hall of famers, former champs and current contenders to support the claim. Names like Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva, Forrest Griffin, Martin Kampmann, and Evan Dunham have all excelled under the tutelage of Drysdale, just to name a few. He was also brought in on TUF season 8 by Frank Mir (a black belt in BJJ himself) to help coach his team. Despite having enough trophies and medals to fill a dump truck while instructing some of the sport’s elite, Drysdale still trains/teaches at his BJJ academy in Las Vegas.
This past weekend, Robert Drysdale hosted a seminar at the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo in Long Beach, California, where he was kind enough to give CagePotato a few minutes of his time.
Cagepotato.com: You have trained the cream of the crop in MMA, both skill-wise and personality-wise. Do you have any personal favorites?
Robert Drysdale: There are a lot of guys that I really like but me and Frank [Mir] get along pretty well. John Alessio is a very good friend and then there is Danny Davis. Forrest [Griffin] is a trip and it’s always fun to have him in the gym. There are so many guys down at the gym that it is hard to name all of them but I get along with all my students.
CP: Are the stories true? Is Forrest really that hairy?
RD: (laughs) He tries to be as hairy as me but he is not winning that fight because I have better hair distribution.
CP: According to your Wikipedia page, you fought in Houston Texas last night. Apparently not everything is true on the internet. What happened?
Robert Drysdale’s BJJ credentials include being a six-time World Jiu-Jitsu champion, ADCC Absolute Division Champion as well as winning over 90 BJJ tournament titles. He has a MMA record of 3-0 with all three victories coming by way of submission, showing his versatility in those fights by using a guillotine, an arm-bar and an arm triangle choke. Within the MMA community he is regarded as one of the best BJJ instructors with a virtual all-star list of hall of famers, former champs and current contenders to support the claim. Names like Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva, Forrest Griffin, Martin Kampmann, and Evan Dunham have all excelled under the tutelage of Drysdale, just to name a few. He was also brought in on TUF season 8 by Frank Mir (a black belt in BJJ himself) to help coach his team. Despite having enough trophies and medals to fill a dump truck while instructing some of the sport’s elite, Drysdale still trains/teaches at his BJJ academy in Las Vegas.
This past weekend, Robert Drysdale hosted a seminar at the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo in Long Beach, California, where he was kind enough to give CagePotato a few minutes of his time.
Cagepotato.com: You have trained the cream of the crop in MMA, both skill-wise and personality-wise. Do you have any personal favorites?
Robert Drysdale: There are a lot of guys that I really like but me and Frank [Mir] get along pretty well. John Alessio is a very good friend and then there is Danny Davis. Forrest [Griffin] is a trip and it’s always fun to have him in the gym. There are so many guys down at the gym that it is hard to name all of them but I get along with all my students.
CP: Are the stories true? Is Forrest really that hairy?
RD: (laughs) He tries to be as hairy as me but he is not winning that fight because I have better hair distribution.
CP: According to your Wikipedia page, you fought in Houston Texas last night. Apparently not everything is true on the internet. What happened?
RD: I was supposed to fight last night, man, but I had a knee injury a while ago and it has been slow to heal so the fight has been moved to July 13th. I have a three-fight deal with Legacy Fighting Championship and that will be the first one.
CP: Is the eventual goal to compete in the UFC?
RD: I guess the UFC is everyone’s end-game but I don’t think of it like that because that’s not the end. I just want to keep getting better. I think that working hard is really the key and everything else is just the consequence of your hard work.
CP: You have said that a person can train in Jiu-Jitsu for their entire life and still not master it. That may be true, but since it is your area of expertise, how are you training in MMA to become a “complete” fighter.
RD: I always thought it was a mistake to neglect your ‘A’ game, which is what a lot of people do. They think, ‘I am going to fight MMA now, so I am only going to work on my hands because my Jiu-Jitsu is good enough.’ A lot of people have told me, ‘Don’t work on your Jiu-Jitsu – just work on your hands.’ But most likely I am going to use my Jiu-Jitsu to win because it is my best weapon. So I want to make sure that my best weapon is always sharp. That being said, it is important to learn other elements of the game even if it’s not your field of expertise. You need to be comfortable enough in that game to be able to hang. That is why I have been putting a lot of time in with my striking to make sure I am comfortable to hang on my feet when I fight because I don’t want to be a one-dimensional fighter.
CP: So take me through an average week for you.
RD: My schedule right now, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach and train from 10:30 am until 12:30 pm. It’s a Jiu-Jitsu slash MMA class. So basically, small gloves, ground and pound, wall wrestling with submissions. In the afternoon, I’ll lift some heavy weights and mix in some conditioning and if I don’t do that then I will do a one hour Muay Thai session. After that I teach a class from 6:30 pm until 8:00 pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I spar from 11 am until 12:30, get some striking drills in as well and then at night I do some more sparring and hit some pads.
CP: You were brought in by Frank Mir during his season coaching on TUF. How do you juggle being a coach and a fighter?
RD: People probably refer to me more as a coach than as a fighter because I teach so many UFC fighters in Jiu-Jitsu at my gym. Being a full-time trainer is something I would focus on exclusively in the future. Right now I am a part-time coach because my focus is on my fighting career and that is what I put most of my energy into. Coaching is something I really enjoy and I think I am good at it but it is not a top priority right now.
CP: We have seen guys like Rashad Evans and Forrest Griffin go from combatants on TUF series to coaching on the show. Did the thought ever cross your mind to go from coaching on the show to being a competitor on the show as a way to fast-track you to the UFC?
RD: I have heard a lot of negative things about TUF from people that have been on it, but I guess I really shouldn’t talk about it. Let’s just say it’s probably not the best route for me.
CP: Like yourself, Ricardo Almeida is also here doing a seminar at the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo and he recently served as an official judge during the UFC on FOX 3 card. What do you think of fighters/trainers operating in that capacity and would that be something you may be interested in down the road?
RD: I would much rather have professional fighters judging. The fact is, I don’t know who these judges are and I don’t want to disrespect them, but it sounds to me that they are either fans of the sport or people that have been around the right people for a long time. So they are like their buddies and then they get hooked up. Then there are others that are boxing experts who don’t necessarily know anything about MMA. I think that Ricardo Almeida being a judge is probably one of the best things to happen to this sport. As far as I am concerned, I think I am unbiased and would make a good judge. I am a reasonable guy and I have refereed Jiu-Jitsu matches before where the match ends in a draw and I have given the decision to the guy who is not my friend. I am that kind of guy.
CP: Where are you after the three-fight deal with Legacy Fighting Championship?
RD: Hopefully with a 6-0 record, maybe get a couple more fights, and then talk with the UFC. Honestly, I don’t think that far ahead. It is hard enough to think one step ahead much less think 20 steps ahead. That is a little ambitious in my opinion. I live today. I live the now, and I try to be the best I can be right now. Everything unfolds and everything is a consequence of me making the right decisions in my life.
In a way, the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo got everything they asked for last night. When you contract Nick Diaz for a bout, you sign on for a fair amount of trials and tribulations; the Nick Diaz package extends well beyond his formidable fighting skills. The very behavior that spikes a promoter’s blood pressure draws media attention and fan speculation—added interest that may not exist were it not for the Stockton native’s puzzling behavior. It’s a trade off, a roll of the dice that you make in hopes that you get the best of both worlds–the amazing prize fighter and the polarizing figure. But there’s a problem with counting on a tortured soul unable to cope with the most mundane aspects of life: you can’t count on him.
If you haven’t gotten the sense that all did not go well for Nick Diaz’s BJJ superfight with Braulio Estima last night, let me spell it out for you: the bout didn’t happen.
The details, as far as anyone knows, are after the jump.
In a way, the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo got everything they asked for last night. When you contract Nick Diaz for a bout, you sign on for a fair amount of trials and tribulations; the Nick Diaz package extends well beyond his formidable fighting skills. The very behavior that spikes a promoter’s blood pressure draws media attention and fan speculation—added interest that may not exist were it not for the Stockton native’s puzzling behavior. It’s a trade off, a roll of the dice that you make in hopes that you get the best of both worlds–the amazing prize fighter and the polarizing figure. But there’s a problem with counting on a tortured soul unable to cope with the most mundane aspects of life: you can’t count on him.
If you haven’t gotten the sense that all did not go well for Nick Diaz’s BJJ superfight with Braulio Estima last night, let me spell it out for you: the bout didn’t happen.
It’s almost an exercise in futility to try and figure out why, but we can certainly try. Things seem to have started unraveling when Estima failed to make the contracted weight the evening before the bout. Though it’s clear that he wasn’t prepared to make 180 lbs on Friday night, the decorated BJJ champion claims that the weigh-in time was never clearly outlined. Rumors have Estima hitting the scales at 189 lbs, then renegotiating a catch weight of 185 lbs, though both the man himself and Diaz’s coach Cesar Gracie claim he hit the contracted mark on Saturday morning.
As for why Diaz no-showed, Gracie was less certain. “I don’t know,” Cesar told MMAFighting.com. “I know he was mad when he was told Braulio would not make weight last night. No one has seen him today. Braulio ended up making weight this morning.”
Making this turn of events a bit more glum is that Diaz had volunteered to donate his purse to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, but let’s go ahead and wipe that look of shock off of our mugs. This is par for the course with the elder Diaz, and if he didn’t play hooky for drug tests and press conferences and bouts, we wouldn’t be as interested when he actually does bother to show up. Fans were looking forward to a BJJ match that–on paper at least–was incredibly lopsided simply to see what sort of crazy antics Nick Diaz would get into; I’d say we weren’t disappointed.
Stay tuned in the days ahead for the Diaz chronicles to unfold. Something tells me he’s charging up his camera, fueling up his ride, and preparing a statement as I type.
For those of you who were too busy watching Jon Jones outgun Rampage Jackson to retain his light heavyweight title or Ben Rothwell fall to 0-1 at the hands of Mark Hunt this weekend, you may have overlooked the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championships, which transpired in Nottingham, England of all places.
Andre Galvao easily had the best night of the bunch, taking gold in both the Under 88kg and Absolute tournaments, defeating Rousimar Palhares and Pablo Papovitch, respectively. Speaking of “Paul Harris”, he continued to prove that his mind is a fragile, ticking time bomb in his submission victory over David Avellan in their quarterfinal match. Things began to go off the rails when Palhares dove for his signature heel-hook-of-death on Avellan, and continued to crank it after the two rolled out of bounds and the referee yelled for a restart. I’ll let David’s brother Marcos, via his Facebook, explain the rest after the jump:
(As if I needed an excuse to use this photo.)
For those of you who were too busy watching Jon Jones outgun Rampage Jackson to retain his light heavyweight title or Ben Rothwell fall to 0-1 at the hands of Mark Hunt this weekend, you may have overlooked the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championships, which transpired in Nottingham, England of all places.
Andre Galvao easily had the best night of the bunch, taking gold in both the Under 88kg and Absolute tournaments, defeating Rousimar Palhares and Pablo Papovitch, respectively. Speaking of “Paul Harris”, he continued to prove that his mind is a fragile, ticking time bomb in his submission victory over David Avellan in their quarterfinal match. Things began to go off the rails when Palhares dove for his signature heel-hook-of-death on Avellan, and continued to crank it after the two rolled out of bounds and the referee yelled for a restart. I’ll let David’s brother Marcos, via his Facebook, explain the rest after the jump:
It was a weird situation right after… Palharas started to celebrate, thinking the match was over, and came over to hug my brother, but as he hugged my brother, he slapped him across the head really hard. So one arm went out for a hug, the other went for a slap on the head (lol). My brother was naturally pissed by the heel hook and the slap.
Palharas seemed genuinely confused, both about his cranking after the ref said stop and by the rejection of his post fight “hug”. I think he was sincerely genuine, I just think he is crazy, like bi-polar or something.
After the restart, Palhares went on to quickly kneebar Avellan, possibly injuring him. And if you aren’t yet convinced that Palhares is a danger to sound minded people across the globe, the oddities continued in his finals match against Andre Galvao, when he was accused of trying to wrench Galvao’s thumb in order to avoid a hold. Personally, I’ve had about enough of this guy’s apparent ignorance to all things legal and holy. He’s like a T-1000 with the brain of Corky from Life Goes On, sent from some horrific future in which appendages are the last form of human resistance.
In other news, Dean Lister made an improbable run to secure the Under 99kg title, finishing Xande Ribeiro and Jaoa Assis with successive leglocks to claim gold. Lister’s age and lack of recent competition had all but killed his chances before the tournament even began, so big ups to “The Boogeyman” for his win. In the Over 99kg finals, former TUF 8 finalist Vinny Magalhaes survived a last minute armbar attempt by Fabricio Werdum to secure a victory on points, besting his two previous bronze medal efforts in the 2009 ADCC Championships.
In the women’s Under 60 kg tournament, Kyra Gracie secured her third ADCC title with a beautiful omaplota/rear naked choke hybrid finish of Michelle Nicolini. The win adds to Kyra’s incredible list of credentials, which includes four World BJJ Championships, five Pan American, Brazilian, and New York State Championships, and one Asiatic BJJ Championship. Damn, girl.
The bad luck streak continued for former Strikeforce Middleweight and 2009 ADCC Superfight Champion Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, who was routed in a tentative 3-0 loss on points to 2009 ADCC double gold winner Braulio Estima. Full results for the event can be found here.
Ultimate Fight Night 25 provided us with a good deal of highlights this past weekend, but while you were watching Jake Shields trying to single leg Kevin Mulhall or Alan Belcher beat the tar out of Jason Macdonald, you may have overlooked the textbook kimura sweep that Lance Benoist pulled on Matt Riddle in the first round of their Fight of the Night earning scrap. Personally, it was my favorite highlight of the fight, and I loves me some brokennoses.
Ultimate Fight Night 25provided us with a good deal of highlights this past weekend, but while you were watching Jake Shields trying to single leg Kevin Mulhall or Alan Belcher beat the tar out of Jason Macdonald, you may have overlooked the textbook kimura sweep that Lance Benoist pulled on Matt Riddle in the first round of their Fight of the Night earning scrap. Personally, it was my favorite highlight of the fight, and I loves me some brokennoses.
Though not the most technical video we have offered, the kimura sweep is a fundamental tool for any fighter who finds themselves on the losing side of a takedown and either looking to gain a dominant position or simply stand back up. Submissions 101 has long been one of my favorite consultants for BJJ techniques, and their Youtube channel alone offers guides for even the greenest of Jiu Jitsu practitioners. In the above video, 10th Planet and Gracie Jiu Jitsu purple belt Ari Bolden demonstrates the kimura sweep from the full guard, as was the case in the Riddle/Benoist fight.
Speaking of Kevin Mulhall, did you know he runs his own gym in New Jersey that’s open to the public and children as young as five? All I’m saying is, Jake Shields is lucky he came to his senses before Mulhall decided to armbar the dickens out of him. As a bonus, I’ve provided you with the promotional video for his gym, Jersey Fight Club, because you deserve it Potato Nation. Enjoy.
Sure, we know that Wanderlei Silva is a high level BJJ black belt, but his last submission win was a decade ago. When Wandy tapped out Bob Schrijber in the opening round of the 2000 Pride Grand Prix with an RNC, Jon Jones was snitching on playground kids for doling out Pixy Stix, and Rory MacDonald was still watching SpongeBob.
Actually, some of us are still watching SpongeBob, so perhaps that wasn’t a great illustration. Whatever.
Point is, Wanderlei’s submission game is talked about, but you never expect to see him wrap someone up in his guard. It’s sort of like being told that Paris Hilton has a sister who is both intelligent and uninterested in chasing fame. You could believe it, but you really want to see some proof to make sure.
Anywho, check out this video of everyone’s favorite fighter and some other dude practicing some arcane martial art known as “Brazilian Jui Jitsu” in what appear to be pajamas.
[RX]
Sure, we know that Wanderlei Silva is a high level BJJ black belt, but his last submission win was a decade ago. When Wandy tapped out Bob Schrijber in the opening round of the 2000 Pride Grand Prix with an RNC, Jon Jones was snitching on playground kids for doling out Pixy Stix, and Rory MacDonald was still watching SpongeBob.
Actually, some of us are still watching SpongeBob, so perhaps that wasn’t a great illustration. Whatever.
Point is, Wanderlei’s submission game is talked about, but you never expect to see him wrap someone up in his guard. It’s sort of like being told that Paris Hilton has a sister who is both intelligent and uninterested in chasing fame. You could believe it, but you really want to see some proof to make sure.
Anywho, check out this video of everyone’s favorite fighter and some other dude practicing some arcane martial art known as “Brazilian Jui Jitsu” in what appear to be pajamas.
