Monday, 12 January 2015

The Berimbolo Kid's Match of the Week - Week 23 - Mike Fowler vs. Saulo Ribeiro - ADCC 2007

(The previous edition can be found HERE)

It's Monday again, which means it's time for another Match of the Week. This week's match is Mike Fowler vs. Saulo Ribeiro from the U77kg division quarter finals of the 2007 ADCC.

Mike Fowler is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Lloyd Irvin and fights for Atos Jiu-Jitsu. Mike is well known for the speed in which he received his black belt, which was only 3.5 years, and is the third fastest American in history to do so. He is also known for his very unique leopard print hairstyle. Today, he is the head instructor at North Shore Jiu-Jitsu Club in Haleiwa, Hawaii. 

Due to his rapid fast attainment of black belt, it’s not hard to imagine that Mike has done very well in competition throughout his career, winning some major competitions and scoring wins over a few legends in the sport. He is a five time American National Champion (2009, 2006, 2005, 2003 purple weight & absolute), a three time Asian Open Champion (2009, 2008 absolute, 2007), and a one-time Pan American (2003 blue) and US Open Champion (2003 purple). He is also a Pan American bronze (2012) and silver medalist (2006) and took fourth place at ADCC 2007.

One position which Mike seems to favour a lot is the half guard. He is very effective from that position and executes sweeps and submissions from there excellently. Actually, Mike is very well rounded as a fighter. He is good at takedowns, guard passing, on top, on bottom, a very versatile fighter. In terms of submissions, he seems to like the triangle above all other submissions.  

Mike Fowler

Saulo Ribeiro is a true legend in the world of Jiu-Jitsu. He is a 4th degree black belt under Royler Gracie and is also a black belt in Judo. Saulo is the older brother of two time absolute World Champion, Xande Ribeiro. After a long and impressive career in Jiu-Jitsu, Saulo was inducted into the IBJJF Hall of Fame in 2012. 

It’s no surprise to find out that Saulo has won numerous major titles throughout his long career in our sport. He is a five time World Champion (2002, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997), a four time World Masters and Seniors Champion (2013 weight & absolute, 2012 weight & absolute), a three time Brazilian National Champion (1998 weight & absolute, 1996), a two time ADCC (2003, 2000) and Pan American Champion (1998 weight & absolute), and a one-time World NoGi Champion (2008). 

Having a black belt in Judo, it’s not really a surprise that Saulo is known for his throws and takedowns. One takedown he uses frequently throughout his matches is the Kouchi Gari, but he also uses both single and double leg takedowns, especially in NoGi. For the most part, Saulo is a top player. Obviously, at the level that he is, his guard is very good also, but he seems to prefer the top game. The choke from the mount is a favourite submission of Saulo's.


Saulo Ribeiro

I'm pretty sure that many of you have seen this match. If you haven't, I'm sure you will enjoy it. Obviously, coming into this match, Saulo had much more experience than Mike did, and at some points it does show. For the first few minutes, Saulo puts Mike in a couple of bad spots, even taking his back within the first minute. However, Mike doesn't give up and escapes, and from there really shows his skill on the mats. 

The video of the match can be found below. I hope you guys enjoy! 

See you next week!

Please note I couldn't find footage of the whole fight on YouTube, so the link below is for Dailymotion.

(If you are viewing on a mobile device, please click HERE)

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Monday, 5 January 2015

The Berimbolo Kid's Match of the Week - Week 22 - Marcos de Souza vs. Oliver Geddes - 2012 European Championships

(The previous edition can be found HERE)

Welcome to another edition of Match of the Week, and the first edition of 2015. This week's match is Marcos de Souza vs. Oliver Geddes from the 2012 European Championships.

Marcos de Souza is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under his father, Adilson de Souza, and fights for his own team, Bonsai Jiu-Jitsu. An accomplished competitor in his own right, Marcos is also the older brother of standout competitor, Roberto Satoshi Souza. Marcos and his brothers moved to Japan in 2007 from Brazil to open their own academy, Bonsai Jiu-Jitsu.

Just like his younger brother, Marcos is also a very accomplished competitor. He is a four time Asian Champion (2014, 2010 weight & absolute, 2009 absolute), a three time All Japan Jiu-Jitsu Champion (2010 weight & absolute, 2009 absolute), and a two time DUMAU Cup (2010 weight & absolute) and DUMAU International Champion (2010 weight & absolute). He is also a one-time Abu Dhabi World Pro Jiu-Jitsu Champion (2013).

Marcos' strength is definitely his guard passing. He is very effective on top, and seems to favour the knee cut pass above all other passes. If his opponent doesn't pull guard on him, Marcos will usually take his opponent down with an ankle pick takedown. Once he completes his guard pass, Marcos uses great pressure in side control to make his opponent turn away from him in order to attack their back. 

Marcos de Souza

Oliver Geddes (commonly known as "Oli") is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Jiu-Jitsu legend, Roger Gracie. Oli became famous across the UK for being one of the most active competitors in Europe, and has competed in literally hundreds of competitions, picking up a huge amount of medals along the way. After an impressive run at the lower belts, Oli was finally promoted to black belt by Roger Gracie in December 2011. 

Like I mentioned before, Oli has a huge amount of titles to his name, here is a summary of his most major accomplishments. He is a three time European (CBJJE) Champion (2010 brown, 2009 purple weight & absolute), and a two time European (2010 & 2009 purple), World Pro European Trials (2009 purple/brown/black, 2011 brown/black), and British Open Champion (2010 brown, 2009 purple). He is also a onetime British Open NoGi Champion (2009 purple), and a one-time Pan American NoGi silver medalist (2009 purple) and Pan American bronze medalist (2009 purple). 

Oli is simply known for one thing, and that is his half guard. He is extremely effective from that position, in terms of both sweeps and submissions. He is also notorious for using the loop choke from the half guard, a submission he has been very successful with to date in competition. Although, he also sets up omoplatas, triangles, kneebars and kimuras very well from the half guard position. 

Oliver Geddes

This match sticks out in my mind solely because I watched it live. In fact, I would say it was the most memorable match of the whole competition for me personally.

At this point, Oli had been a black belt for just over a month, and Marcos had way more experience than he did at black belt. Nonetheless, Oli does a fantastic job against Souza, holding him off and trying to set up multiple submission and sweep attempts. Overall, a great match!

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)

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Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Saviour Tea Review - Part 2

Hello, and welcome to the second part of my Saviour Tea review. If you haven't seen the first part already, then you can find it HERE.

In this part of the review I will be giving my personal opinion on each of the products and at end there will be an interview with Ollie, the head of Saviour Tea, and a discount code for any of you who wish to try any of the products discussed in this review. 

I covered all the ingredients and my overall first impressions of the product in the first part of this review, so if you're interested in that, then please read part one first. 

Review

I received four different blends in total, each of them containing two tea bags and I tried each of the blends with my brother just to get a second opinion on each of the products. 


One thing I must point out was the sample packs didn't come with any recommended brewing times like you see on most herbal or flavoured teas. It's not necessarily a problem, but I thought it should be something they should include.

All the teas I tested were made using fresh water, and each of the teas was left to brew for exactly two minutes. Here's a tip for you guys; NEVER use reboiled water to make tea. Always use fresh water. Reboiling water loses oxygen from the water and you won't get the full flavour of the tea by using it. 

So without adieu, let’s get into the review.

Hydration

I tried this tea after I got home from an evening’s BJJ class.

In terms of appearance, it’s very similar to camomile, that being a kind or dark orange colour. Again, the smell of it is very similar to camomile in my opinion, almost indistinguishable between the two. 

Surprisingly, it doesn't taste anything like it smells (that being camomile). It has a fruity taste but it’s very faint, you only catch a glimpse of it a couple of seconds after you swallow it. I assume that faint fruity flavour is from the natural orange oil, which is one of the main ingredients in this particular tea. 

Actually, I found this tea very refreshing, and it definitely did quench my thirst. I could see myself drinking this tea for a considerable amount of time without getting bored of the flavour.


Recovery

Just like the Hydration tea, I also tried this tea after an evening’s BJJ class.

This teas appearance is pretty much identical to that of the Hydration tea with that camomile orange colour. However, the smell is very peculiar. Honestly, I can't think of anything to compare it to. It's totally unique to me. 

Equally, the taste is very unique. It's very hard to think of a word to describe it, you just can't really seem to put your finger on it. I think the flavour is an acquired taste, and personally, I didn't like it that much. If I was to drink this every day, it would seem almost like a chore to me.

Looking at the information leaflet later, I was surprised to see that one of the main ingredients was actually camomile because I couldn't definitely neither smell it nor taste it. However, it did show through in its colour.  

Although, I must say that in terms of recovery it did a good job. I took it in the evening, a few hours before I went to bed, and I found it a little easier to get to sleep, and in the morning my body was noticeably less sore. So if you are looking at that aspect of the product, then I think this would be great for you as long as you can put up with the taste. 

Energy

I took this tea first thing in the morning when I woke up on an empty stomach. 

Right off the bat, I noticed that its appearance is exactly the same as green tea. I'm a very big green tea drinker and I would say it’s a carbon copy in terms of colour.  

Two of the ingredients in this tea are spearmint and lemongrass, and those two smells really come through in this tea. The smell itself is actually a very faint lemon and minty smell, and neither of them really are overpowering in anyway. 

To put it simply, it tastes exactly as it smells. The taste of mint and lemon are again very faint. It’s almost like somebody mixed a very weak spearmint and lemon tea together, that would be the best way of describing it. I must say though, that I really did enjoy this tea. It's hands down my favourite of the range and I could happily drink this every morning. 

So, did it give me any energy? Well, I did notice a difference in my energy level and I did feel much more refreshed and less grouchy in the morning. It does say you can take this before working out, but is it going to replace a pre-workout supplement? No, but then again this is all natural ingredients, so I suppose you can't really compare it to that in some aspects. 

Metabolic

I didn't take this tea at any specific time.

Surprisingly, this tea didn't look similar to any tea I've personally ever tried. It was light brown in colour, almost like a very weak English breakfast tea. 

The smell of the tea was a flowery smell with a hint of fruit coming through towards the end. I struggled to put my finger on what fruit it was, but when I saw the ingredients list, I saw it contained pomegranate oil, and pomegranate was exactly what it was. 

It was actually a light fruity tea and was very refreshing to my surprise. You can taste the pomegranate coming through, but it’s light and not too overpowering. You also get a little hint of rose accompanied with the pomegranate and that comes from the rosehip pieces which are an ingredient in the tea. 

The main goal of this tea is weight loss, so I can't really comment on that as I'm not trying to lose weight nor did I try the product for a sustained period of time in order to see any results in regards to weight loss. 

Conclusion

I actually thoroughly enjoyed trying these products, amazingly more than I thought I would. Even though I only tried each of them once, and the review time was relatively short, I really did have blast trying each of them and looking forward to trying the next one. 

Let's get down to price, how much does each of them cost? Each of them individually cost £9.95, or if you want to purchase all four of them together in a bundle, it will cost you £34.95 which is a saving of £4.85. Each of the blends contains in total 20 tea bags which works out at almost £0.50 per cup. 

So, is it worth it? Personally, I think so. You have to remember here, you're not getting your average run of the mill tea here. You're getting a very high quality product, which only uses natural ingredients which have been specifically formulated to enhance one key bodily function. It's intended to support your body the way nature intended it to. 

Who would I recommend this product to? Basically, anybody who lives an active lifestyle. If you fall under this category, I'm sure one of Saviour Tea's products will be perfect for you.

All of the products I tried during this review are available exclusively through the Saviour Tea website. (Please click HERE)

Interview and Discount Code

I thought it would be a good idea to get an interview with Ollie, who is the head of Saviour Tea, that way you can get a better understanding of the products and the reasons behind them. Please take a look below:

What gave you the idea to start a company like this?

The company was born out of a desire to educate. You have probably read my story but just to reiterate. Through negative lifestyle choices I ended up becoming very sick with an illness called adrenal fatigue. I was playing semi-professional rugby at the time and had become injured and consequently reliant on pain killers. I was also running a nightclub in London and was binge drinking up to 3 times a week. Eventually I got sick and was forced to drastically change my life and also re-evaluate what was important to me. I chose to clean myself up and rather than take the prescription drugs offered by the doctors, used a healthy diet, adequate rest and exercise to begin the recovery process. This is where the teas came in. I was recommended certain herbs by an expert in natural medicine to speed up the healing process. They were best taken in tea form but I couldn't find the combinations I needed. I approached a tea supplier and we developed blends that I could use for my recovery. I instantly became hooked and was noticing significant benefits on my general well-being and also training. I was also developing a new passion for life which was nurtured through the teas, healthy living, clean eating and my new love for BJJ. The teas became a part of my lifestyle. I used them as natural supplements to aid my training and no longer needed the chemical based protein and pre-workout supplements, over-stimulating coffees and refined and sugary energy drinks. Instead the teas were naturally working with my body to help energise me, hydrate me, burn excess body fat and send me to sleep in the evenings so that I could recover. I wanted everyone to benefit from the teas and so began the process of creating Saviour Tea and the 'Sports Tea' range. I also wanted to educate people on the importance of looking after your body, mind and spirit which is why it was so important to include my story on the website. I guess you could say that the company was born by taking a negative situation and turning it into a positive.

How much research has gone into selecting the ingredients for your products?

I used the experience of tea specialists that have been in the industry for over 25 years as well as the knowledge from an extremely reputable herbal mediscinist and also conducted my own research. It took me a year to find the right suppliers and to find the quality of tea I was happy with selling to customers.

What is the optimal time to take each of the products?

On a typical training day when my BJJ class is in the evening I go for a Metabolic Tea in the morning to stimulate my fat burning activity. I then use the Hydration Tea throughout the day to make sure I have enough fluid for the evening’s class. I will have my Energy Tea before training to make me feel more alert and naturally stimulated and then the Recovery Tea is best used before bed to relax the central nervous system and calm muscle tension so I can sleep. Some of my sponsored athletes prefer the Energy Tea in the morning as this works as a healthy alternative to coffee. You really can work them around your training schedule and active lifestyle, they are very versatile.

Personally, out of all four, which is your favourite and why?

When I became sick the thing I really struggled with was sleep. Because my body was having trouble to control its adrenaline output I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a racing heart feeling like I had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. I didn't want to use sleeping tablets as they are unnatural and so the Recovery Tea for me was a life saver. The Camomile gently relaxed my central nervous system, the passion flower calms muscle tension and the hops promote sleep. I find after sparring in the evening I have a lot of excess adrenaline and my grips are shot so the tea helps to naturally calm me and the passion flower relieves the tension in my forearms.

How would taking a product such as this benefit someone doing BJJ?

The BJJ community is amazing! To give you an example I recently had a stall at the Body Power Expo in Birmingham. I had just launched the company at this point and so everything was new to me and I was gauging the response of customers for the first time. I was enthusiastically talking to all of these body builders about the tea trying to get the importance of healthy living and naturally supplementing your training across to them but let’s just say most bodybuilders are not concerned with natural products. Feeling a little dis heartened I decided to take some of my products and leaflets next door to the BJJ British Open to see if they would let me put a small stand in there last minute. I ended up chatting to Braulio Estima who was running the event and he was so welcoming. We came to an arrangement and the next day I took my stall out of the expo and set-up at the British Open. One of the best decisions I have made with my business so far, the response was amazing! The BJJ community is full of healthy, happy and aware individuals who pay close attention to what they put into their bodies. They don't want to fill their bodies with chemical laced supplements and energy drinks and instead were welcoming and receptive to the teas, their health benefits and also were intrigued to find out more about me and my story. It was a great day, I met some amazing people and I left the event knowing that I had found a receptive market for my products as everyone was as health conscious as I was. In answer to your question, Using Saviour Tea benefits a BJJ athlete as it naturally works with the body and can be used as a natural alternative to chemical and processed supplements to enhance training performance and general well-being.

What are your future plans in regards to your company?

I am currently working on some new blends for the 'Sports Tea' range as well as new ranges that aim to support and active lifestyle. There are some even bigger goals that I visualise for the company but I won't reveal my plans just yet.

Thanks for taking the time to send me your products; I have had a blast reviewing them. Before we end, is there anybody you would like to thank?

No worries, glad you enjoyed them. Yes would like to thank everyone who has stood by me and continues to support Saviour Tea. Would also like to thank my BJJ sponsored athletes for representing the brand so well. I'm sure most of you within the BJJ community will have heard of them - Sam Gibson, River Dillon and Taylor Pearman. Cannot speak highly enough of these guys. Extremely talented, driven and focused young men who continue to dominate the UK BJJ scene. Looking forward to what the future has in store for them and being part of the journey. 

Is it possible you could supply my readers with a discount code?

Code for your readers to get 10% off is BBKID10%.

This concludes my review of Saviour Tea. I hope you guys enjoyed it! It took a while to get it all done due to various reasons, but I'm glad its finally finished. Remember, if you would like to try any of the products reviewed, use the code above to get 10% off your purchase.

Catch you later,

Giordano   
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Monday, 22 December 2014

The Berimbolo Kid's Match of the Week - Week 21 - Tim Spriggs vs. Jonathan Satava - 2012 Abu Dhabi Pro New York Trials

(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)


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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Friday, 19 December 2014

Stuff You Probably Don't Know About My Blog

This post is going to be something a little different. I thought I would share with you guys some stuff about my blog that nobody knows or very few people do. Maybe in this post I could answer any questions you guys have ever wondered. 

Right, let’s get into it.

I was never originally called 'The Berimbolo Kid'

I started my blog in January of this year, and for about a month my blog was called two different things. For the first week my blog was called 'Giorcardo1394', hence the URL. Basically, my name is Giordano, and my brother’s name is Riccardo. If you split those names in half, you get the name 'Giorcardo'. Also, I was born on 13/11/94, so that's where the last part comes from.  

After about a week, I came to the decision that nobody will ever remember that name, so I decided to change it to 'Giordano Lewis' Blog'. I know what you're thinking; it's a very catchy title. I remained with that for about three weeks and just before I got my first interview with Seymour Yang, I changed it to 'The Berimbolo Kid' and never really looked back. 

How did I get the name 'The Berimbolo Kid'?

This is a pretty weird story. Some of you might not know this about me, but I'm a big fan of competitive Call of Duty. Subsequently, I am subscribed to a lot of gaming YouTube channels. One pretty popular gaming YouTuber is ThatGuyWhoCamps. 

Using that name, I was going to edit it to make it relevant to me. Personally, I'm a big fan of the 50/50 guard, and I wanted to implement that in the name of my blog. So, when thinking of ideas, I came up with 'ThatGuyWhoPlays50/50' and then changed it to 'ThatKidWhoPlays50/50'. I was pretty certain that was going to be the name of my blog, but I didn't like the way it sounded, so instead I got rid of the words 'plays' and '50/50' and replaced it with 'berimbolo's'. That left me with 'ThatKidWhoBerimbolo's'. Then I simply shortened it to 'The Berimbolo Kid'. 

I never solely wanted to be a BJJ blog

I've mentioned this a few times on my blog, but when I started out, I had no initial intentions of solely being a BJJ blog. Instead I wanted my blog to not focus around any topic and I would talk about anything I pleased. I knew at some point I would talk about Jiu-Jitsu, but I definitely didn't want it to be a regular thing. 

If you look at my posts during my first month of blogging, most of the stuff I talk about is not Jiu-Jitsu related. After I got my first interview, I changed to blogging about Jiu-Jitsu full time. Every now and again I talked about other things, but for the most part I've stuck to it.

I'll tell you a kind of embarrassing story. Prior to getting my first interview, I wanted to talk about something 'current', so I looked at what was the big news in UK that day. On that day, everybody was making some big deal about how Geri Halliwell was planning on representing the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest. I figured I would write something about that as it would get a lot of traffic. If wrote about that I don’t think I would ever live it down. 

My logo is based off the Rolled Up logo


First of all, I apologise for the image not being such great quality, but you get the idea. Basically, I got myself a graphic designer and I told him what I wanted, which was a complete circle with a berimbolo being done in the center and the title of my blog on side exactly as you see it above. 

I must say that it took a while to get the one I was looking for. I'll show you all the designs we went through below in order, so the first one you'll see is the first one I was presented and the last is the logo I have now:






I hoped everybody would find me

Yeah, in the first six weeks of blogging, I never posted on social media, Reddit, forums etc. and as a result the most views a post of mine ever got was 30 views. Honestly, at the time I was very pleased with that. I simply saw it as progress. 

Basically, I hoped somebody would stumble across my blog and spread the word and if I stuck with that, I’d be lucky if one of my posts got a hundred views never mind thousands. 

Why? Well, I was just nervous about what people would say about what I was writing or my blog in general. Looking back that was a bit stupid, and luckily most of the feedback I have received has been positive and I'm glad lots of people enjoy what I write.

My brother reads every post before it's published

As I mentioned earlier, I have a twin brother, Riccardo, and he actually reads everything I write before it's published. I think it's good because I can get a second opinion on my content before anybody else see's it and if he thinks its s*** (which has happened a few times), he will tell me. He also comments on the arrangement, images used etc.  

There has also been a few times where I write something and he thinks it’s terrible and it never gets published, but that has only happened once or twice. Luckily, he likes most of the stuff I write. 

At the moment, I can't really think of anymore. If I do, I will do a follow up post in the future. Yeah, so I hope you found this post a little interesting and you learned something new about this blog. If you have any questions please let me know.

Before I wrap up this post, I’d like to say thank you for 125,000 views!

Catch you later,

Giordano
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Wednesday, 17 December 2014

The Berimbolo Kid's Match of the Week - Week 20 - Gianni Grippo vs. AJ Agazarm - 2014 New York Spring Open

(The previous edition can be found HERE)

Welcome to the twentieth edition of Match of the Week! This week’s match is Gianni Grippo vs. AJ Agazarm from the black belt absolute finals of the 2014 New York Spring Open.

Gianni Grippo is a black belt under Marcelo Garcia and fights for the Alliance team. Up until brown belt, Gianni trained under Renzo Gracie but changed to Marcelo's team in March, 2013. Gianni is known for his 'modern' style of Jiu-Jitsu and has built himself a considerable reputation at the lower belts and continues to do that today in the black belt division. 

Gianni is a three time World (2013 brown, 2011 purple, 2009 blue), Pan American (2014 black, 2012 brown, 2011 purple), and Pan American NoGi Champion (2013 & 2012 brown, 2010 purple), and a two time World NoGi Champion (2010 purple, 2007 blue). He is also a two time Pan American silver medalist (2013 brown, 2010 purple), and a one time World (2012 brown), European (2013 brown), and Pan American NoGi silver medalist (2011 brown).   

As I said earlier, Gianni is best known for using 'modern' Jiu-Jitsu techniques. He is known as being part of what’s being called the 'berimbolo generation'. Throughout his matches, you will see Gianni play a lot of de la riva guard and using the berimbolo to great effect. Even though Gianni is very effective off his back, he is also great on top, commonly using the leg drag pass to take his opponents back. 

Gianni Grippo
Source: Mike Calimbus

AJ Agazarm is a black belt under Eduardo de Lima/Carlos Gracie Jr. and is a member of Gracie Barra. AJ comes from a very strong wrestling background and is a former division 1 wrestler. His aggressive, fast paced style made him quite well known during his time at the lower belts, winning numerous titles along the way. In June, 2013, AJ was promoted to black belt by Eduardo de Lima and Carlos Gracie Jr.

AJ is a three time European NoGi (2014 weight & absolute) and American National NoGi Champion (2013 weight & absolute, 2012 brown), and a one time World (2007 blue), Pan American (2012 brown), American National (2012 brown), World NoGi (2014 black), Pan American NoGi (2013 black) and Brazilian National NoGi Champion (2013 black).  

As AJ comes from a wrestling background, it's only natural that this would reflect in his style of Jiu-Jitsu. In particular, AJ favours the single leg takedown over all other takedowns. Even though he has a strong top game, AJ is quite well rounded as a fighter. At blue and purple belt you saw him go for takedowns and mainly play on top, but throughout brown belt you saw him play a lot more guard, especially the lasso guard.

AJ Agazarm

From 2014, this match sticks out in my mind as one of my favourites. The most memorable part of this match is definitely the ending. It's very exciting! Right off the bat Gianni pulls guard and AJ tries to work the double under pass for the first five minutes or so. Then things begin to open up and Gianni starts to play his signature de la riva game. This is where the excitement really starts! 

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)

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