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Watch Out World: Anton Seleznev, 2014 Europeans Double Gold Blue Belt Champ: “I Have A Huge Desire To Improve & Compete”

Watch Out World: Anton Seleznev, 2014 Europeans Double Gold Blue Belt Champ: “I Have A Huge Desire To Improve & Compete”

 

 

 

Could the young Russian blue belt Anton Seleznev be the next big BJJ phenom to come out of Russia?

He is a member of Team Strela from from St. Petersburg, Russia (Brasa- Caio Terra) and at the last Europeans in February, won the adult male open class blue belt gold. After four rmatches, he defeated Reinier de Ridder in the final for the title. Anton also won the ultra-heavy division and impressed all that were present there.

Let’s find out more about this very promising BJJ player:

1. Hi Anton, can you please introduce yourself to the BJJ Community of Eastern Europe?

Hello to the BJJ Community of Eastern Europe, my name is Anton Seleznev, I’m 20 years old, I train in St.Petersburg Russia in Team Strela academy. My top achievement in BJJ is winning European Open 2014 in weight and in open class of course. I also won Finnish Open in weight and in open class last year. And some local Russian tournaments.

Anton at the 2014 Europeans. photo: Graciemag

Anton at the 2014 Europeans. photo: Graciemag

2. What is your combat sports back ground? Please tell us about your Jiu-Jitsu story.

I have been into sports since childhood. When I was 7 I trained japanese jiu jitsu under my first coach Aleksandr Dudko. Later I’ve tried many martial arts – karate, judo, sambo and mma. When I was training mma I really enjoyed ground work, so I decided to quit with mma and started looking for academies teaching ground work. While searching I competed a lot and in the finals of a grappling tournament I was fighting against Konstantin Skachkov. He was purple belt under Renzo Gracie at that moment. His built didn’t look like very strong so I was sure about results of the match. But when we started to wrestle I was surprised. Not only was I not able to do anything, I didn’t even understand what he was doing. He really surprised me a lot. I found out that he was teaching bjj and started training with him. But after 2 weeks he moved to the States and one of his students Yuriy Godynskiy started to teach instead of him. Yuriy is still my master.

3. You blew up last weekend on the BJJ world scene with your double gold at the Europeans. What triggered your success?

Blew up the world scene – that’s not about me, I just train bjj 4-5 times a week and do some weights 1-2 times week.

4.How would you describe your BJJ style?

I don’t really know how to describe my style, I like to fight on top and on the bottom.

5. Please tell us about your academy in Russia, Strela Team and your instructor.

We have a very good team, very friendly, with strong cohesion. Guys have very good skills but quite few did manage to go to European. I’m sure that if we had had bigger presence, we would have got more medals. As I said I train under Yuriy Godinskiy – he is a very good coach. He is purple belt but in my opinion he teaches better than some of the black belts.

Strela Team Russia

Strela Team Russia

6. How far do you want to take your career in BJJ?

Well, I have a huge desire to compete and develop my game. We will see what I will get.

7. What is next for you and your team in 2014?

To become better to keep on training, and winning.

8. If you want to thank somebody or sponsors, feel free

I’d like to thank my family that supports me in everything I do, my academy Team Strela, 4mma.ru fight shop that provides me with best equipment.

9. Thanks Anton and all the best!

Thank you!

BJJ Eastern Europe would like to thank Paul Zakharov for helping with the interview and translation.

Watch Anton in action (toward sthe end of the video):