U.M.A. G.B. II
OPEN NATIONAL GROUNDFIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS (With Gi)
SUNDAY 14th SEPTEMBER 2008
MOORWAYS SPORT COMPLEX, DERBY. UK.
Since taking up the Chief Officer role for the UMA at the start of the
year, I had my fair share of ideas and ways to take the UMA on to bigger
and better things; naturally coming from a grappling background, it is
my desire to bring to the UMA my many years’ experience in and around
the BJJ and MMA scene, which has taken me all over the world from LA to
Abu Dhabi.
Making friends along the way and many useful contacts, I came up with an
idea to bring two grappling associations together and host two separate
grappling competitions under one roof and after many hours behind the
scenes work with Jim McSherry and Ebe Ghansah, we were delighted to host
the UMA’s second National Groundfighting event (with gi) alongside Ebe
Ghansah and the FILA UK National Grappling Trials; the idea behind this
was to give the UMA guys a chance to see what is needed to take their
grappling to the next level and to see some brilliant matches along the
way and for the FILA/MMA crowd to see the standard of competition in the
UMA event and to give their younger students the chance to compete in a
national level competition and the juniors sure enough did not
disappoint.
The day for yours truly was, as always, a busy affair, this time the
busy factor doubling with a host of old friends to say hello to on the
FILA mats and try and sneak in a few matches before my refereeing duties
came along; on the FILA mats I watched Theo Blackledge calmly take an
impressive victory in one of his early fights, a carbon copy of his much
uglier brother Tom (I love you really mate!). Dublin’s John Kavanagh was
on hand to wow the crowd with some outstanding grappling as was GB
Brum’s Kevin Webb and no top level grappling event would be the same
without the presence of London Shoot, with Paul and Alexis fielding an
imposing team of top level grapplers.
Now it was time to do some work and referee; starting with the juniors I
was very impressed at the skill level displayed by all fighters, a
credit to their coaches and teams and of course sportsmanship, taking
decisions against them with honour and no malice. Gracie Barra and Team
Brasa lent support to the event by fielding large squad numbers for the
juniors, further boosting the events reputation as one of the best in
the UK for junior competition, lets hope we see a continuation of this
great support in future events.
I had the privilege of refereeing the -75, -85 and -95K brackets and all
matches were hotly contested, with the majority of the matches ending in
submissions, making the ref’s job that much easier and once again, when
a decision went against a fighter, they took it on the chin and accepted
the decision. Pivotal to all this in the decision making process is the
fact that all the table judges on the day on both mats are all qualified
UMA gi and no gi referees, which certainly takes a lot of pressure off
the referee in the middle.
The UMA is dedicated to running smooth, efficient competitions,
officiated by competent and qualified referees and the UMA takes on
board all feedback, both positive and negative and I found that many
issues had been acted upon since the no gi comp in May early this year.
Coaches and competitors from the FILA mats were impressed at the event
and level of players in the brackets and had a lot to say about the
whole day itself and were able to kill two birds with one stone by
having their seniors fight in the FILA event and the juniors compete in
the UMA event.
From myself, Jim and Ebe, thanks to all involved on the day, the UMA
credits are at the bottom of the results section link and am sure Ebe
will have his thank you list out ready on the relevant forums (www-dot-cagewarriors-dot-com/forums
and www-dot-bjj-dot-eu-dot-com/forum).
Until the UMA II British Open National (No Gi) Grappling Championships
on the 7th December!!
UMA Chief Officer, Senior BJJ Officer and UMA Press Officer: Carl Fisher
Click here for the Full Results
