The Toukon Challenge is an elite, invitation only grappling event; Featuring exciting competitors from around the world. It is the first of its kind to appear in Europe, with an experienced team to execute a highly professional event. Viewers will have the chance to either attend the event or watch the live PPV on toukonchallenge.com.

The number of BJJ fighters participating is a staggering 40! The date will be November 23 at London’s Clapham Grand.

BJJ stars such Lucio Lagarto, Kywan Gracie, Kywan Gracie Behring, Luca Anacoreta, Darragh O Connaill, Thiago Monstro

Borges etc..have been confirmed.

BJJ Eastern Europe spoke with Toukon Challenge founder Gus Oliveira. He promises that this event will be unforgettable.

Hi Gus, can you present yourself to the European BJJ community

 My Name is Gus Oliveira, I was born in Rio started BJJ back in 1991 however had to stop training for a while due to my move to the UK in 1995. I run Grab&Pull LTD and BJJ247 LTD which is responsible for the Tournaments and events we have.

What was the idea behind the upcoming Toukon challenge?

Since 2009 when I was invited to deliver the Live streaming for the ADCC in Barcelona, I have been thinking about this project and how it could be done in a way that would be cost effective and also high quality, I had to think outside of the box. I knew that BJJ was in need of a professional event for us to change from an amateur to a pro, so the main goal behind Toukon Challenge was to create another platform for fighters to earn money and be another stepping stone to the road of professionalism. We have created a site where to buy the PPV o door tickets, our clients have to chose their favourite fighter from a drop box, the chosen fighter will received his or her % of the sales and they can log on to our site admin area and view all this information, making the whole transaction as transparent as possible. It was amazing to see after 2 days of the site been up we had fighters with £500 and £400 and other amounts on their TKC bank Balance.

 I imagine that putting together such a huge event with 40+ fighters must be a lot of work. What can people expect to see at the Toukon challenge.

I will not deny, it is hard, however it helps the fact that I have been involved in the sport since I was a kid and I knew a lot of people who were willing to help, also the fact that I have been actively working in the industry made the fighters believe in the project. I think people will be treated with an amazing event.

How will be commenting the Pay per View and how long will the event event last ?

The event starts at 6.30pm and goes on till past 11pm.

Once again Contact is everything, my very good mate Dominic is the Live streaming Pionner in UK, he writes for streaming Media and has been involved the setting up the Streaming Pipes for the Olympics  games in London. We have 2 major companies sponsoring the Streaming .

www.streamstar.com , have given us a top system with slow motion and replay and sharp stream allowing us to use their Server streaming, same technology used by Minister of Sound in London, however we did not have to  pay 250K as they did to develop.

What are the fights that you most looking forward too?

I look forward to all of them, it will be a great night.

 Are there upcoming Toukon events and what are your future plans BJJ wise?

We are already working on TKC 2 and the plans for 2015. Our main priority now is to support the transition from amateur to a professional sport, so we will concentrate a lot on those events, in trying to bring big sponsors and so on.