(The previous edition can be found HERE)
Welcome
to another edition of Match of the Week, and the last edition of 2014. This week’s
match is Tim Spriggs vs. Jonathan Satava from the purple belt absolute finals
of the 2012 Abu Dhabi Pro New York Trials.
Tim
Spriggs is a black belt under Julius Park and fights for Crazy 88/Team Lloyd
Irvin. Tim has being making waves in the Jiu-Jitsu community since his days as
a purple belt, and is especially known for his fast and explosive style of
Jiu-Jitsu. Over the past few years, he has won dozens of titles and as a
result, he received his black belt in August 2014.
As I
mentioned earlier, Tim has won numerous titles over his relatively short career
in the sport. He is a four time Pan American Champion (2014 brown weight &
absolute, 2013 & 2012 purple), a three time European Champion (2013 purple
weight & absolute, 2011 blue), a two time Pan American NoGi Champion (2013
brown weight & absolute), and a one time World (2014 brown), World NoGi
(2012 purple), and World Expo GP Champion (2013 brown).
Tim is an
excellent guard passer. He passes people’s guards like they are nothing. Once
he has passed, the pressure he uses is incredible and easily transitions from
side control to the back or mount. In particular, Tim seems to favour the mount
as his dominant position of choice where he likes to set up a cross collar
choke. He is also very good at takedowns, and you will often see him start off
the match with a takedown before going into one of his signature passes.
 |
| Tim Spriggs Source: GracieMag |
Jonathan
Satava is a brown belt under Marcelo Garcia and fights for the Alliance team.
He is part of Marcelo's illustrious brown belt 'dream team', with each member
either winning or placing on the podium of nearly every brown belt division of
each competition they enter. His impressive competition record has caught the
eye of the Jiu-Jitsu media, and was recently invited to compete against black
belts in the 2014 Copa Podio Middleweight GP.
Jonathan
is a two time World NoGi (2014 brown, 2012 purple) and Pan American NoGi
Champion (2013 brown, 2012 purple absolute), and a one-time New York Spring
Open (2014 brown), Boston Winter Open (2013 purple), and Boston Open Champion
(2012 purple). He is also a two time Pan American NoGi (2014 weight &
absolute) and New York Spring Open silver medalist (2014 brown absolute, 2013
purple), and a one-time Pan American silver medalist (2014 brown) and a Worlds
bronze medalist (2012 purple).
Coming
from Marcelo's academy, it’s only natural that Marcelo’s style of grappling
will rub off on some of his students. Actually, Jonathan's style of Jiu-Jitsu
is very similar in some aspects to Marcelo's. In his matches he uses a lot of
butterfly and x-guard. He also attacks the back very well and uses the crucifix
position to great effect.
 |
| Jonathan Satava Source: GracieMag |
This
match is a very dominant performance from Tim Spriggs. Jonathan is a very good
and experienced competitor, and uses the x-guard and single leg x-guard well,
but it’s simply not enough to prevent Tim's relentless passing and extreme
pressure. For the first few minutes, Jonathan manages to hold Tim off, but once
Tim passes, it’s only a matter of time before he gets a submission.
The video of the match can be found below. I hope you guys enjoy!
See you next week!
(If you are viewing on a mobile device, please click HERE)
See you next week!
(If you are viewing on a mobile device, please click HERE)
As I said at the beginning of this post, this is the last edition of MOTW for 2014, and I'm happy this series has been a tremendous success. To date I've covered 21 separate matches, and there are some of them which I'm very proud of and did extremely well. Thanks for the support with this series and MOTW will continue the first Monday of 2015.
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