LONG BEACH, CA, June 7, 2012 – Another tournament has passed with the 2012 IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Championship taking place at the CSU Long Beach Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, CA last week from May 31st to June 3rd.
Also known simply as “the Mundials,” the recognized world championship of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu typically brings out all the stars of the sport and this year was no different. Most of the major players were present to compete outside of those that were out due to injury (e.g. Marcelo Garcia) or, in the case of Andre Galvao, unfortunately disqualified.
Overall the action was exciting and a few guys came out of this event looking like absolute studs.
There was Marcus “Bochecha” Almeida of CheckMat who became the new king in the black belt divison with his double gold in the ultra-heavyweight and open divisions. Bochecha was able to beat Léo Leite, Rodolfo Vieira, Bernardo Faria, and many others on the way to gold. Not bad for someone who’s only been competing as a black belt for two years.
Then there was Keenan Cornelius of Team Lloyd Irvin who did the unthinkable by accomplishing the grand slam in the purple belt division with a double gold at the 2012 BJJ Worlds to add to his double gold in every other major IBJJF event of the year. It was definitely a highlight moment for the tournament when he jumped into his sea of supporters after beating Paulo Miyao in a very strategic final match while they all chanted “USA, USA..”
Many others impressed on the day as well.
Here are full results courtesy of the IBJJF.
We’ve also got full galleries from each day of the event up on SmugMug along with the ‘best of’ album as seen below.
Enjoy.