WAXAHACHIE, TX, January 16, 2012 – After a successful start to our 2012 coverage of the BJJ/Grappling scene with TOC 9 in Houston this past weekend, we move on to Dallas / Fort Worth area with aKiller App’s BJJ Winter Classic scheduled for next weekend at the Waxahachie YMCA.

Based on feedback from a few people we talked to this past weekend, many teams and top competitors are planning on doing this tourney for cities all around the state so it should be a good one – a very competitive tourney with a lot of talent vying for those elusive medals.

In advance of this upcoming event, we talked to promoter Brandon Quick regarding what he expects for this, his third tourney in the DFW area. With the emphasis on IBJJF rules and a few other wrinkles he’s thrown in specifically for the Winter Classic, this should definitely be an event to check out.

Interview – Brandon Quick of the 2012 BJJ Winter Classic

Hey Brandon! How are you feeling about the BJJ Winter Classic this weekend? How would you compare it to the last one in terms of size?

We are excited!! Our registrations are double from the Nogi Fall Classic, October 29th. Chris Carlino (co-founder, Killer Apps) and I absolutely love the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and whole heartedly are trying to push the sport forward. Of course there is always logistics that can be not as fun as the event itself but we do not feel like we are ‘working’ when we enjoy what we do so much. It’s awesome to see the positive reaction we are getting as well. That is confirmation that the path we are on with our tournaments is a good one. Our medals are in and look sick!! We have a few more days of registration and can’t wait for Saturday.

I spoke to a few people at TOC 9 this past weekend and many of them said they’re planning on making it to Waxahachie for this one also. Are you expecting this to be your best tournament yet?

I’m glad people were talking about it at TOC 9. Brett and Seth are friends of mine and allow us to put out the flyers and F2W/WGC does the same with us. A big thank you to Jordan Burton for doing that for us. I’m honored people are talking about it. The BJJ Winter Classic should definitely be our best one yet! We are growing in numbers, popularity, and experience. People like our style of format, weights and rule set (IBJJF). I also think it will be better because more people in pure sport BJJ prefer gi. The Nogi Fall Classic also had the IBJJF style ranked rashguard & shorts requirements. That is how American Nat’ls Nogi, Nogi Pan & Nogi Worlds is run and it was new to TX grapplers that have not competed at those events but it looked very professional at NFC. We will have our 1st gi only event (BJJWC) and it will be great to analyze the two. The Winter Classic has positive feedback, numbers and we are leaving no stone unturned when we look at improvement.

What is your feedback on the Texas BJJ Scene as far as what we accomplished as a whole in 2011 and what do you hope to bring for grapplers in 2012 to add to that?

Being a California native and having moved to Texas in ’07 I can definitely say that TX is the biggest BJJ state outside of Cali. A lot of organizations are represented here and well, let’s be honest, Texans like to scrap!! 2011 was a great year for us. Out of TX came more MMA fighters making it into big shows, IBJJF adding a day to Houston Open, added the Dallas Open, ADCC Pro Trials came, Grapplers Quest, NAGA, Killer Apps and F2W were all successful. I would like to bring a standard to grapplers in 2012. Our standard is quality over quantity.

Our tournaments will follow the IBJJF weights, rules, ref standards, format and uniform requirements BUT we are not the IBJJF and recognize we are a regional tournament and we want people to get the most out of their experience at our events. That is why we are keeping the rules, format etc; but we will have people fight for 3rd place, have superfights, absolute cash prizes, a FREE kids consolation mat that is reffed and runs all day, online rules with no day of rules meeting, black belts compete FREE & are allowing Juvenile (16/17) white belts to have an absolute and Juvenile blue belts to be any weight & enter absolute. (IBJJF only allows juvenile blue belt middle weight and up to compete in the Open). This is a standard we hope people continue to enjoy and we will keep bringing it!! The other thing that I love about this style is it makes it even harder to medal collect and sandbag. People will always find a way but thru BJJ recognized rank its one step harder.

Anything you want to announce or people should know about the comp next weekend?

1 – Similar to my last statement: we are offering a white belt juvenile open class, the blue juveniles to register for open no matter their weight
2 –  We will also have $$$ absolute prizes for this tournament to encourage competitors with an extra reward for the win !!!

How can people register if they haven’t done so already?

Registration ends at midnight January 18th!! NO DAY OF REGISTRATIONS!!! www.AKillerApp.com

Thanks to our sponsors:
DOM Fight Gear
Fear Tapping Out
Powermax Training

Check out Killer Apps BJJ applications for your mobile Droid and Apple devices!

LIKE TXMMA on Facebook for more in-depth news and coverage of the MMA & grappling scene along with fan contests to win great prizes courtesy of TXMMA.com and much more. Also feel free to check us out on Twitter and Google+ for even more in the world combat sports!