1. No points means that you can keep it playful if you want: The fight between Caio Terra and Jeff Glover started off very playful with both fighters disregarding dominant positions and making jokes. Jeff Glover turned his back and Caio pinched his butt and the crowd burst out in laughter. As time went by, Caio started to take it more seriously and ended up tapping out Caio. The rest of the fights were not playful as all the fighters were really trying to win and not giving up positions. Ryron gave up the mount a few times but immediately sweeped Andre afterwards.

2. The deep water strategy can be very dangerous against high caliber opponents: Jeff Glover, Dean Lister, and Ryron Gracie put themselves willingly in some dangerous positions and also gave up positions with a goal to frustrate their opponent and prove a point that they could not be submitted. While Ryron did this very well and wasn’t in danger, Jeff and Dean got caught in deep arm-bars (Lister miraculously escaped). This way of rolling is ok for the academy when you are rolling against less skilled opponents but against killers like Caio and Xande this is very risky.

3. The stadium wasn’t full but the crowd was loud and very knowledgeable: It was a big stadium with a 16,000 capacity but was only 1/3 full. However with the great show that was put on display, we can expect the next edition to be to full house.

4.The Gracies were out to prove a point: Helio Gracie’s branch were out to prove a point about how Jiu-Jitsu matches should be fought and they achieved that tonight to a certain extent. The time format and no points changed things as around the last 5 minutes of the fight, a lot of submission attempts happened, as some fighters would get tired and some were urgently trying to finish. positional dominance doesn’t always mean that you are winning a fight. Finishing means a total victory.

5. All members of the community were represented: Gracie Barra, Check Mat, Gracie Academy, Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu, Paragon, Cesar Gracie, Rickson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, ADCC champion Dean Lister (Gracie Humaita) were all present. It was nice to see all of them fighting for Jiu-Jitsu and the mutual respect present.

6. Next time make it 30 minutes fights: Some fights ended in a draw, and may have ended in a submission had the fight lasted 10 more minutes: like Buchecha vs Roger for ex or even possibly Galvao vs Ryron.

7. Some fighters are programmed to fight 10 minute format. You could see that some fighters would start to tire after the regular IBJJF 10 minutes were passed. Most of the subs happened around the 12 to 15 minute mark. The longer fight takes out of the equation the athletic advantage for strong muscle types like Galvao or Otavio Souza and favors patient marathon fighters like Ryron Gracie for example (who was more active in the last minuites). Kron also finished strong, passing and submitting towards the end of the fight.

8. There was some tension after the Ryron Gracie/ Andre Galvao fight. During the post fight interview, a frustrated Galvao said that he dominated the fight and had accepted “Ryron’s rules” , and that he wanted a rematch under his rules “IBJJF”. The crowd booed him loudly after that.

9. Sport Jiu-Jitsu or Gracie Jiu-Jitsu don’t define the athlete, the athlete’s mentality and style define the athlete. We can’t say that there are typical styles for pure Gracie Jiu-Jitsu athletes or pure Sport Jiu-Jitsu athletes. Each fighter has their own style. Buchecha is typically a sport jiu-jitsu athlete but he always goes for the submission sometimes before position is established whereas someone like Xande or Roger will go for position before submission. At the end of the day it’s all just Jiu-Jitsu.

10. Sport Jiu-Jitsu (IBJJF) Rules are still the more reasonable tournament format but Metamoris is great for superfight (individual matches): In my opinion, the Metamoris rules are great for superfights as you can really see who was the better man. However from a practical tournament side were you have to advance through rounds, the sport IBJJF rules set is a good option with time constraints. We just need to practice both styles to be complete.

Please feel free to share your thoughts abouthe the event.