HOUSTON, TX, April 16, 2012 – The 2012 edition of Elbert Hebron’s Texas International Grappling Festival concluded this past Saturday at Summer Creek High School in Northeast Houston.
It was a long day of action which was highlighted by several super fight matchups that were much anticipated in the area. Local instructors Travis Tooke (Team Tooke) and Renan Chavez (Zion MMA) faced off in the main event of the day with plenty of onlookers attending the event to watch that fight specifically. Both these men coach UFC fighters in Andrew Craig and Daniel Pineda respectively so many wanted to see how their skills fared on the mats. In the end, it was Travis’ day as he was able to the decisive takedowns to secure the victory.
Next up in super fight action, perennial world-class competitor Pablo Silva (Gracie Barra) showed up to take on Team Lutter’s Chris Westfall. Chris and several of his students/teammates made the surprise trip from Dallas to roll at the event to get ready for upcoming events like the IBJJF Dallas Open and the World Championships coming up at the end of May. This matchup saw Silva display some outstanding guard work en route to the fight-ending triangle choke.
Also competing at black belt, one of Houston’s most consistent competitors Alvis Solis (Solis Martial Arts) took on out of town challenger Todd Pisarich (Helio Soneca). The Houstonian was able to pick up the victory in this one with an exciting score towards the end of the match.
Last but not least, Julian Vega of Elite MMA faced off against Alvin Tillman of Gold Team in the tournament’s main brown belt attraction. The end came when Julian latched on a triangle for the win to start off his day that also included a win over Chris Westfall and several others on the way to bringing gold back to Baytown.
Elsewhere in action where a ton of other highly-skilled brown / black belts – including 2x world champion Brandon Mullins who took home the gold in his No-GI bracket and Spenser Gilliam who turned in an awesome submission over Westfall in their own match. Likewise, Paradigm / GFTeam’s Igor Santos was able to claim victory in his own division with several exciting performances. In addition to Santos, several other GFTeam out-of-towners also came into town to roll in this one with physical specimen Victor Silvério doing well to beat out the competition on the day, including TX 3rd Coast MMA’s Jason Soliz in one of the most fast-paced matches of the day.
Full team and individual results from the tournament should be forthcoming from Grand Prix Grappling later in the week. For now, check out our complete photo coverage of the event on the TXMMA Facebook Page along with a select number of upper belt match videos on the Texas Grappling Channel.
Texas International Grappling Festival 2012 Photo Galleries
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Texas International Grappling Festival 2012 Super Fight Videos
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