Well, it's official. This is the card for this weekend's Bull City Brawl in Durham NC. Over the past few years Billy Dowey and Jason Culbreth have been putting together some pretty awesome cards and put on some great events in the Bull City. A few people to keep your eyes on if you end up making out to watch the fights this weekend:
Ricky Saxton
I've seen this guy fight a few times in the past and all I can say is that I have been pretty impressed with his overall skillset. He seems pretty comfortable wherever the fight goes and has excellent endurance. He's won most of the fights I've seen in pretty dominating fashion and usually seems pretty relaxed in the cage. He's coming into this fight with a perfect 5-0 record with three of those wins coming from stoppages. Keep your eye on him, we could see really good things from him in the future.
Cody Maltais
Currently a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and training with Team ROC here in Raleigh, recently came back from living in California where he was training with Team Quest. Currently sporting a 2-2 record coming into this fight, but do not let that fool you. Cody has an excellent skills on the ground and also has good takedowns as well. Watch out for his guillotine.
Official Fight Card:
Kyle Trujillo vs Daryl Jones
Ricky Saxton vs Jeff Roberts
John Telford vs James Ritchie
CJ Murdock vs Antoine Brown
Chad Tyler vs William Brown
James Quigg vs Rodney Jordan
Arthur Rivers vs Marcus Williams
Cody Maltais vs Matthew Probin
Jason Williamson vs Chris Wilburn
Joseph Poteat, jr vs Donald Watts
Marklin Bailey vs Aren Besson
Aaron Voncannon vs Mathew Johnson
Curtis Franz vs Harold Hubbard
Matthew Wetherington vs Bradley Lawrence
Cleveland Mclean vs Humza Ismail
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The case against Lloyd Irvin
I can't help but weigh in myself on this whole situation that has been going on with Lloyd Irvin over the past couple of days. I think honestly at this point Lloyd has been making some mistakes that are going to really undermine his ability to continue to function in the BJJ and MMA community. Whether he was involved in a previous rape in 1989 or not, because he had two of his own instructors rape his own student he is going to have to accept the fact that most women who are interested in learning any type of self defense are going to steer clear of anyone relate to such charges.
I'm not going to get up in arms and rant about how heinous the crime was, but I am more interested in also understanding why Lloyd would jump on such an opportunity to promote his own rape prevention seminars. To me this is plain low. To be so blatant about profiting from the pain someone else has recently experienced to be is pretty appalling. Since the two men allegedly involved in the rape itself were caught on camera, I think it is safe to say that they will be spending a very long time in a very unforgiving place for rapists. This is another reason I am more interested right now in the way that Lloyd Irvin is handling this situation, especially when he should have at least shown some sort of compassion for the victim. Obviously his mind is on something completely different, in this case it seems to be money.
Some would like to argue that Lloyd Irvin is an accomplished instructor that has many elite credentials attached to his name because of his students success in the BJJ and MMA realm. Some would say that his overall success with these sports would mean that he has at least contributed to a lot of lives in a very positive way. Maybe this is true, but it is disturbing to me that he would even think about using this situation for monetary gain.
I sincerely hope that the victim and her family are able to receive any help and justice they deserve. As a part of the MMA and BJJ community we need to do as much as we can to preserve our integrity as human beings. I hope this incident doesn't permanently tarnish our reputation for helping create better people.
I'm not going to get up in arms and rant about how heinous the crime was, but I am more interested in also understanding why Lloyd would jump on such an opportunity to promote his own rape prevention seminars. To me this is plain low. To be so blatant about profiting from the pain someone else has recently experienced to be is pretty appalling. Since the two men allegedly involved in the rape itself were caught on camera, I think it is safe to say that they will be spending a very long time in a very unforgiving place for rapists. This is another reason I am more interested right now in the way that Lloyd Irvin is handling this situation, especially when he should have at least shown some sort of compassion for the victim. Obviously his mind is on something completely different, in this case it seems to be money.
Some would like to argue that Lloyd Irvin is an accomplished instructor that has many elite credentials attached to his name because of his students success in the BJJ and MMA realm. Some would say that his overall success with these sports would mean that he has at least contributed to a lot of lives in a very positive way. Maybe this is true, but it is disturbing to me that he would even think about using this situation for monetary gain.
I sincerely hope that the victim and her family are able to receive any help and justice they deserve. As a part of the MMA and BJJ community we need to do as much as we can to preserve our integrity as human beings. I hope this incident doesn't permanently tarnish our reputation for helping create better people.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Bull City Brawl 11
We're less a month out from the next Bull City Brawl being held at the armory in Durham, North Carolina. As usual I'm excited to see some of the best guys from around North Carolina come out and thrown down. I still don't know as of yet whether or not the card is finalized, but we can rest assured that Billy is going to put something good together for the fight fans here in NC. The Durham Armory is a good place to check out fights because of the size of the venue and the balconies that give you a pretty awesome view of the action. One thing I have also noticed is that it is LOUD in the armory, you can almost feel when someone is getting hit.
I'm going to have to get back with everyone as soon as I get the full fight card and post it here pretty soon.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Merry Christmas Everyone!
I am going to start out by saying that MMA in the south has grown tremendously since I started practicing BJJ close to seven years ago. I have seen countless amateur MMA fights, as well as some larger promotions that had some pretty professional events as well. I have watched a lot of my friends fight and win and also step up to some bigger shows and seen a few friends move away to train specifically for MMA. While this is all great, most of these guys no one knows. I'm hoping that this blog will help change that, as long as give some of the hard core fans some updates and coverage about local MMA events, as well as BJJ tournaments and the like.
That's it for now, expect good things this coming year and I hope that everyone is having a safe and fun holiday season.
That's it for now, expect good things this coming year and I hope that everyone is having a safe and fun holiday season.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Finding the Yeti
I never thought it would go this far.
Hundreds of pages spanning multiple forums. A countless number of photoshop meme's. I think as of right now the total views across all the forums is nearing 200,000 views. James Paredes has become somewhat of a celebrity at this point because of all the attention he has been getting on the internet after the review I wrote on Jiu Jitsu forums (http://www.jiujitsuforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=35292).
I think at this point I need to weigh in on this. The amount of attention this guy is starting to get is beyond ridiculous. There are obviously some people out there with a little bit too much time on their hands. The point was to draw some attention to the fact that there are people out there that should not be teaching martial arts. James Paredes clearly fell into this category but I'm pretty shocked at how far it has gone.
I chose to leave out some details of what I witnessed the day I went to his dojo, so at some point in the near future I am going to do a video response to everyone on the net and give a verbal account of what happened.
A few of my friends actually went back to his dojo to try and get a picture with him and were told that there is no longer a Jiu Jitsu program where he formerly taught. James Paredes deleted his facebook account and is laying pretty low right now. I definitely cannot blame him since he has been constantly ridiculed for inventing his own style of Jiu Jitsu that is clearly useless. I think that he may as well disappear because at this point anyone in the grappling community knows who he is and would probably instantly recognize him if they saw him in public. But being the type of human being I am, I have been thinking a lot about how to make a positive outcome of this entire situation.
First I think the ridicule needs to stop. Second I truly believe that I would like to talk to James personally and have him confront the mistakes that he has made. Others in the Jiu Jitsu community also feel this way, and we as martial artists should reach out to this guy. He clearly needs to understand that there are people out there that want to help, my friend Jack has graciously offered to teach his students real Jiu Jitsu for free.
What I would like to do is this: Convince James to accept his mistakes, put on a fresh white belt and join a legit academy in the area. I think that we need to give this person who is clearly misguided a chance at redemption. I would much prefer to see a happy ending here than to witness a seemingly endless stream of ridicule over the internet forums. I think we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and help this person instead of wasting our time thinking about the next way to humiliate James Paredes.
I hope that some of the other Jiu Jitsu instructors in the area would be willing to work with me to make this happen. I think that this would be a much better representation of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community and would show that we are compassionate and willing to extend our arms in order to help people that really need it, not a bunch of embittered small minded assholes who love to prey on others weaknesses just to get a laugh.
James Paredes, I'm going to stick my neck out for you. I hope that you read this and are willing to accept someone that is reaching out to you.
Hundreds of pages spanning multiple forums. A countless number of photoshop meme's. I think as of right now the total views across all the forums is nearing 200,000 views. James Paredes has become somewhat of a celebrity at this point because of all the attention he has been getting on the internet after the review I wrote on Jiu Jitsu forums (http://www.jiujitsuforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=35292).
I think at this point I need to weigh in on this. The amount of attention this guy is starting to get is beyond ridiculous. There are obviously some people out there with a little bit too much time on their hands. The point was to draw some attention to the fact that there are people out there that should not be teaching martial arts. James Paredes clearly fell into this category but I'm pretty shocked at how far it has gone.
I chose to leave out some details of what I witnessed the day I went to his dojo, so at some point in the near future I am going to do a video response to everyone on the net and give a verbal account of what happened.
A few of my friends actually went back to his dojo to try and get a picture with him and were told that there is no longer a Jiu Jitsu program where he formerly taught. James Paredes deleted his facebook account and is laying pretty low right now. I definitely cannot blame him since he has been constantly ridiculed for inventing his own style of Jiu Jitsu that is clearly useless. I think that he may as well disappear because at this point anyone in the grappling community knows who he is and would probably instantly recognize him if they saw him in public. But being the type of human being I am, I have been thinking a lot about how to make a positive outcome of this entire situation.
First I think the ridicule needs to stop. Second I truly believe that I would like to talk to James personally and have him confront the mistakes that he has made. Others in the Jiu Jitsu community also feel this way, and we as martial artists should reach out to this guy. He clearly needs to understand that there are people out there that want to help, my friend Jack has graciously offered to teach his students real Jiu Jitsu for free.
What I would like to do is this: Convince James to accept his mistakes, put on a fresh white belt and join a legit academy in the area. I think that we need to give this person who is clearly misguided a chance at redemption. I would much prefer to see a happy ending here than to witness a seemingly endless stream of ridicule over the internet forums. I think we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and help this person instead of wasting our time thinking about the next way to humiliate James Paredes.
I hope that some of the other Jiu Jitsu instructors in the area would be willing to work with me to make this happen. I think that this would be a much better representation of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community and would show that we are compassionate and willing to extend our arms in order to help people that really need it, not a bunch of embittered small minded assholes who love to prey on others weaknesses just to get a laugh.
James Paredes, I'm going to stick my neck out for you. I hope that you read this and are willing to accept someone that is reaching out to you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)