AUSTIN, TX, April 24, 2012 – It was a full day of fun and intense competition inside the Austin Sport Center this past Saturday as 900+ competitors showed up to partake in Fight to Win / World Grappling Circuit’s 3rd annual Texas State Championship tournament.
This year it was Paragon Texas taking the team title previously held by 2011 champion Gracie Barra and 2010 champion Team Trinity. Led by Lora Hallock, Fred Reyes, Roger Narvaez, Jose Portillo, and many others, the Paragon contingent amassed a whopping 153 team points, almost doubling the next closest score.
Solis Martial Arts, Gracie Barra, Paul Thomas BJJ, and Team Ronny Lis would round out the top-5 respectively in this year’s edition of the annual event.
Tournament organizers Seth Daniels and Brett Boyce did an exemplary job in tabulating individual results, which can already be found here on the Fight to Win page.
Here’s what we observed personally as far as impressive grapplers on the day in select divisions.
2012 F2W/WGC Texas State Championship – The Highlights
Brown/Black Belt
Marra Senki’s Gustavo Carpio really shined using his vaunted spider guard game to defeat both Travis Orr and Donald Park of Gracie Barra Humaita. Very technical matches and all three of these guys are a joy to watch.
Likewise, Ronny Lis and Chris Spicer looked impressive on the day with some awesome performances. Spicer in particular impressed with a collar choke from guard that rendered his opponent Nael Chaves unconscious in one of his matches. World champ Brandon Mullins, Jarrod Clontz, Mike Braswell, and Jeremy Loflin round out the top performers for these divisions in the gi.
Purple Belt
The purple belt divisions brought about some spirited matchups in almost all divisions. One of the most hotly-contested was the 170-184.9 class than included a ton of competitors. Elite MMA’s Mitchell Norton won an awesome match with Team G’s Dustin Snow to take gold there while Garret Scott of Team Ronny Lis won 3rd after impressively choking out Jose Llanas of Team Tooke earlier on.
Other impressive performances at purple were turned in by Jason Reyes, John Ramseier, Jose Portillo, and several others.
Blue Belt
At blue belt, the first thing that comes to mind is the incredible matchup between Arsenal’s Roman Hernandez and Paragon’s Michael Esquivel. Young Roman competed in over 20 matches on the day and won them all, taking an incredible 5 gold medals back to South Texas. This was perhaps his best match of the day. Giving up sweep points, Hernandez came back to win with an incredible triangle choke as the clock ticked down to nearly zero in this one.
As for the rest of the faixa azul classes, Cruz Ybarra (BTT) impressed with a terrific armbar over Jordan Burton (GB) to take gold in his division while guys like Ralph Sebexen (AFC/SMMA) and the pink fight short-clad Taylor Montgomery (TPC) did their own parts to claim gold.
No-GI Advanced Divisions
As it happens often, the No-GI advanced divisions brought the show with some of the top grapplers present competing in these brackets around mid-day. Most notably, the Genesis dynamic duo of Albert Hughes and Tony Tipton closed out the 155-169.9 after some great matches with Mike Braswell (Gracie West Monroe) and Clay Copeland (TPC). Roger Narvaez (Paragon), Ronny Mercado (Team Ronny Lis), and Travis Orr (Gracie Humaita) also did well to secure gold in each of their respective divisions while Brandon Mullins easily took gold in the 134.9 class which included both intermediate and advanced competitors.
The Ladies – Female BJJ on Display
First of all, it was pretty awesome to see the amount of female competitors that turned out to compete in Austin this past weekend. Specifically at the white and blue levels along with the kids, the growth of women’s BJJ in Texas was clearly depicted this past Saturday.
As far as top competitors, that honor would have to go to Paragon’s Lora Hallock who won gold in blue/purple over Kat Harrison (Brasa) and Ketra Barek (Gracie Humaita). Ashley Westfall also impressed at blue with gold in the 119 class while Katie Spicer (Relson Gracie), Chelsea Tompkins (TPC), and a host of others impressed in the white belt divisions.
It went pretty much the same in No-GI with Hallock and Westfall doing well to win gold in the advanced and beginner classes respectively. In the intermediate class, MMA fighter Kristy Kester did well to win gold in her class in advanced of her upcoming fight at Ascend Combat on May 19th. Katie Terhune (Genesis), Amanda Castillo (ECS), and many others closed out the women’s divisions with gold medals in their own respective divisions.
Kids/Teens
As for the kids, there were many too many running around for us to stick around and watch individual matches but what we can say is that the level of competition is steadily rising here in Texas, even at the youth levels. Check out the full results to see who shined this past Saturday in the juvenile divisions.
Photo Gallery and Select Match Videos
Click on the respective links below to go directly to the albums.
Likewise, select match videos (35+) are now up on the TXMMA-sponsored Texas Grappling Channel on YouTube. Make sure to subscribe to us for more from the top tournaments statewide. As a teaser, here’s our TXMMA Submission of the Day courtesy of Chris Spicer.