Grapplers Quest and Naga results for some of TLI

Grapplers Quest and Naga results for some of Team Lloyd Irvin

Over the weekend Ivey League MMA sent teams to both the Grapplers Quest and Naga grappling tournaments. The GQ was held in North NJ while the Naga was held in South Virginia. Both tournaments are great and offer some students the chance to test BJJ skills with students from other academy’s across the USA and even sometimes the world (Brazil, Japan and Europe tend to send fighters from time to time)

Lets start with results from the Grapplers Quest (GQ):

Coach Henry and Danny Red hit up NJ and Henry came back with a good medal in the Men’s Masters Brown Belt Division. Henry used solid Judo takedowns and good guard passing to claim victory again. Henry has been on a tear, winning the naga, GQ and the NY Open, way to go Henry!

Also at the GQ, Team Lloyd Irvin fighter DJ Jackson placed second in the open pro division (all weights combined). DJ scored a major upset when he tapped world silver medalist Bill “The Grill” Cooper with a heel hook in the semi finals. DJ is also coming off a world title at purple belt middleweight. Look for more great things from this amazing young man!

At the Naga in Hampton, VA Team Lloyd Irvin was there with teams from Chad Lebrun’s academy in VA, OutFox MMA, Crazy 88 and Ivey League MMA. Ivey League kids started the day. We ended up with a lot of silver medals and a gold medal from young Billy “Big B” Bowmann. This was Billy’s first tournament (Billy has been training for 8 weeks) and he showed true grit in winning the title. Miss Teresa has to get a lot of credit for the kids, she’s been putting in overtime with the teens and it showed. All the kids that competed were:

*Holden Murphy
*Alexia Lara
*Austin Dalton
*Billy Bowmann
*Alex Coe
*Milaan Tabb

For the adults we snagged a silver medal from Ross “Worlds strongest man” Racciatti. Ross, who is the father of a new born son (congrats again!) had 4 matches, going 3-1 for the day. This was his first time in blue belt masters(Ross was promoted 7 weeks ago). Ross did great and showed why he’s so good at BJJ. Using strong (and we really mean STRONG) guard passing skills to make the finals. Ross is 38 years young and shows that age is just a number.

Other Ivey League students that got out there to show some skills were Scott Keller, Rob “Crazy Rob” Torrison and Mike Murphy. *side-note on Crazy Rob, Crazy Rob does pretty much all Muay Thai Kickboxing. I have never seen him do Brazilian/Gracie Jiu-Jitsu before. He did 1 hour of training and showed up to compete at the Naga. Now, I would in most situations never let this happen, but CR was insistent, so off he went. Pretty funny and he made it back just fine and learned some things, so maybe he’ll join us in BJJ class now….

The highlight of the Naga was Jose Villarisco’s student Brandon Curry hitting a beautiful arm throw on a 265 pound opponent to win his weight class and take the title. Look for big things in the Va Beach area from Kru Jose’s new group.

Good work guys. Next up will be the Naga Battle at the beach in August. Back to the training room to build and learn.

“You have to hate to lose but learn from loss and move on” – Master Danny Ives