BJJ rocks at Rio de Janeiro
By Samira Bonfim and Bernardo Seabra
Surprises happened at Tijuca Tennis Club, in Rio de Janeiro during the Brazilian Championship by Teams on last November 25th. Last year the Nova Geração team and Gracie Barra BH were the great names of the competition, but at this time Gracie Barra dominated the light ones and Brasa was the big name of the heavy ones.
Brasa & Gracie Barra: the heavy duel
In the semifinal, the Brasa team got Igor Silva, André Galvão and Rodrigo Comprido, guaranteeing the team in the final with Gracie Barra, that defeated Brazilian Company by 3x1, with victories of Antonio Braga, Paulo Nogueira and Macio Pé-de-Pano.
The so waited final was decided in four bouts. In the first one, Alexandre Dantas lost to Robert Drysdale by 2x1, by advantages and Antonio Braga drew to Barra submitting Igor Silva by choke at 8:12. In the best bout of the event, André Galvão defeated Márcio Pé-de-Pano by 4x1 by advantages and Theodoro Prata closed the victory defeating Paulo Nogueira by 8x0.
Brasa dominates the light category
Beyond making the final of the heavy category, the Gracie Barra team didn’t have adversaries in the light category and got no defeats. The first victim was the team Empório da Luta/ Nova Geração, that declassified the Infight team in the previous stage. The Gracie Barra won by 3x0, with victories of João Rangel, Leonardo Leite and Celso Vinicius.
The first bout of the final was between João Rangel and Wallace Castro, and the athlete from Gracie Barra won by 5x0. After that, Rodrigo Magalhães defeated Denilson Pimenta by only 2 advantages. In the last bout, Leonardo Leite, Gracie Barra brown belt of only 21 years old, repeated the good performance of the semifinal and won Teodoro Canal by 2 x 0. In the end of the fight, the team mate of Leonardo, Celso Vinícius, didn’t like that the Brasa team didn’t have any athlete in the category light. “I wasn’t training, I wasn’t even fight at this Championship, I decided to fight when I knew that the Brasa athletes were going to fight, but nobody showed up”, said him.
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