By Felix Rodriguez, Staff Writer / Photographer
Grand Prix Grappling Delivers Smooth Day of BJJ and No-Gi Grappling in Houston
HOUSTON, TX, October 27, 2013 – The Grand Prix Grappling Texas State BJJ & NO-Gi Championships took place on Saturday October 26th, 2013 in Channelview, TX. Heading into the tournament, Elbert Hebron and his staff at Grand Prix Grappling took into careful consideration all of the feedback they received from competitors at their last tournament and made sure to provide athletes with a smooth running and extremely well organized event this time around.
Elbert Hebron, the event organizer, told TXMMA that in order to ensure that everyone got on the mats quickly he took it upon himself to create the brackets and was personally in charge of scheduling this time as well. The tournament began promptly at the 9am start time and the 230 martial artists in attendance were all done competing and on their way home by 4:00pm. Athletes from schools like Paradigm, Zion BJJ, Gracie Barra, Rivas BJJ, Elite MMA and many others were in attendance today and representing their patches with pride.
Revolution Dojo’s Matt ‘The Red Dragon’ Kim was one of the most exciting competitors on the mats today. Kim took gold in the blue belt absolute division after a series of fast-paced matches where he displayed some great sweeps and even landed some terrific techniques set up by the berimbolo. Jeff Messina is an excellent coach and his 18 year-old pupil clearly has potential. We look forward to seeing him progress on the mats in the future.
Also in the adult division Trent Draper also had a good showing at the tournament. The Elite MMA Baytown product was the highest-ranking athlete in his bracket and it showed today. Draper listened to Julian Vega’s coaching on his way to winning the purple/brown belt absolute.
It was also fun, as always to see girls like Cora ‘The Triangle Queen’ Sek and Paul Thomas BJJ’s Julie Rodriguez display their skills on the mat today along with the Deleon sisters. We have a strong crop of female fighters coming up the ranks who will be representing the state with pride for years to come, and we can’t wait to see what they all do next! TXMMA would also like to commend the guys and girls who spent their Saturday competing and or supporting their teammates.
There were many exciting matches throughout the day and we’ve posted many photos and videos from GPG’s Texas State BJJ & NO-GI Championships. You can view a full gallery of photographs from each division of the tournament soon on our Official TXMMA Facebook Page. If you haven’t liked us there yet, please do so in order to gain access to full albums of the events we cover throughout the state, news and more.
The complete album of high-resolution photos from the event can also be found for print and download purchase via mikecalimbas.com here – http://www.mikecalimbas.com/BJJ/GPG2013TXStateChampionship
Stay tuned to Grand Prix Grappling for complete individual and team results early next week.
Grand Prix Grappling – October 27th Photo Gallery
Grand Prix Grappling – Select Match Videos
