TXMMA Tournament Recap – 2013 Torque Open

ARLINGTON, TX, May 21, 2013 – About 500 grapplers made the trip to the Arlington Convention Center this past Saturday to take part in the Fight to Win and World Grappling Circuit-ran 2013 Torque Open.

As part of Scott Templeton’s long-running Southwest War Games fitness convention, this Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and No-Gi Grappling event actually shared venue space with other attractions including a Cross-Fit competition and other martial arts but no doubt took center stage in terms of activity with competitors flying across the mats all day long. Think it of as a min-version and precursor to the 2013 Europa Sports & Fitness Expo coming in Dallas later this summer.

As for this tourney specifically, one thing of note was the absence of promoter Seth Daniels and his wife Lauren Sugihara, who were at home in Denver celebrating the birth of their new baby boy, Jacoby, just a few days prior.

Congrats guys!

At any rate, Brett Boyce, Fadi Khouri, and crew did an outstanding job facilitating the tournament in their absence and all the competitors were in-and-out before 5:30pm.

Now to the action.

Team results aren’t in yet but we did see some outstanding performances on the mats by many teams from around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Some that stick out include Alvarez BJJ, Brazilian Top Team, Team Lutter, and the contingent from Guy Metzger’s Combat Sports led by their heas BJJ instructor Keiser Girao. Again we’re not sure how the team standings shook out but if they competed as an association you’d be hard-pressed to believe that anyone beat out the Nova União contingent led by head instructor Bruno Bastos, who was also present.

As for individual action on the mats, some of the highlights included a thrilling technical matchup between purple belts Cooper Cardinale (Alvarez BJJ) and Clay Hantz (Bruno Bastos Midland). Likewise, another purple belt duel in the No-GI division between Jordan Burton (GB Texas) and Devin Miller (Fitness Fight Factory) was also a fun match to watch.

Of course there were many other great performances put on overall which will be evident once the results are posted but some of the names that stick out to us based on a review of the match videos we were able to curate from the 2013 Torque Open include Jordan Shepler, Alex Russ, Natalia Biasca, Lance Yager, and Justin Rebolloso.

Here’s all our media from this event.

2013 Torque Open – Event Photo Gallery

A large selection of photos from the 2013 Torque Open is available on our TXMMA Facebook Page to LIKE and SHARE with your social media contacts. Likewise, a comprehensive high-resolution photo gallery is available at mikecalimbas.com for anyone that wants to order prints!

Here’s an example slideshow from all the action in the kids and teens divisions at the 2013 Torque Open.

2013 Torque Open – Select Match Videos

Here’s our playlist of select matches from the 2013 Torque Open. View them one-by-one and see more here.