My friend Kneeblock posted a thread highlighting the Metamoris 6 competitors which takes place later today.
Here is the card of Metamoris 6:
Main Event:
Josh Barnett vs Ryron Gracie
Co Main Event:
Chael Sonnen vs Renato Sobral
Dillon Danis vs Joe Lauzon
Xande Ribeiro vs Keenan Cornelius
Clark Gracie vs Roberto Satoshi
Jeff Monson vs RTM Champion
Without further ado, excerpted from The MMA Community, my friend Kneeblock's comments on the Metamoris 6 competitors:
So Metamoris is coming up and since not everyone is a big grappling fan, I figured I'd post some vids of the competitors in action.
First, here's the official Metamoris promo:
Note that Barnett vs. Cyborg has been replaced with Barnett vs. Ryron Gracie.
Josh Barnett in Action:
Here's Josh in the gi vs. BJJ standout Otavio Souza. I figure this is a good vid to show how Josh handles traditional BJJ. Otavio is much lighter, but highly technical, having previously defeated Kron Gracie among others.
Recently Josh dominated ADCC champ Dean Lister, but the match is ridiculously long and plenty boring. Still, Josh does the unthinkable by finishing Dean so there's that.
Ryron Gracie is Rorion Gracie's son and a very good competitor in his own right. Of the three sons, Ryron, Rener and Ralek, he's definitely the best in terms of competition results. Here he is "keeping it playful" against Andre Galvao. I suspect the Barnett match will be similar, especially since it's short notice.
Here he is keeping it less playful back in the day against convicted rapist Cameron Earle.
We all know Chael Sonnen. No intro necessary. We also know he's pretty susceptible to submissions. Here he is in one of his few grappling competitions (at Metamoris) vs. Andre Galvao:
Weirdly, I found it very difficult to find wrestling footage of Chael. Anyone got?
Sonnen's opponent, Renato Babalu Sobral has been grappling for a long long time. He started out as a wrestler, I believe, then transitioned to Ruas Vale Tudo. He messed around with the luta livre guys for awhile before transitioning to Gracie Barra. I'm not sure where he trains now, but he's only gotten more skilled over the years. Here he is in a grappling match with former UFC HW champ Frank Mir:
Dillon Danis is considered the future of BJJ and is one of Marcelo Garcia's many killers he's breeding in his academy alongside teammates like Jon Satava, Mansher "Munch" Khera, Mattheus Diniz and others. Here's a highlight.
And here's his match against another young gun in AJ Souza at the 2014 Worlds.
Dillon's opponent is no stranger to MMA fans. Joe Lauzon has been around BJJ and MMA for quite some time. He and his brother Danny are both wizards on the mat, but have been away for a long time. Will the time in MMA make him fall prey to young gun Dillon? We'll see.
Unfortunately, Joe has been out of the grappling game so long, the most recent vid I could find was him rolling with Marcelo Garcia and well, Marcelo makes anyone look bad. Still, Joe does okay.
Xande Ribeiro is one of the most decorated black belts in BJJ with 2 IBJJF Absolute World Championships to his name, 4 golds at weight, 2 ADCC gold medals at weight and various other wins. At the beginning of his career, he was mostly known as Saulo's little brother, but he's long escaped that shadow. Now he's actually an old dog going up against a young gun. Xande seems to have lost a step over the past 4 years, but he's always dangerous.
Here he is in perhaps his greatest moment, beating Roger Gracie in the 2008 worlds:
Xande's opponent is none other than "The Chosen One" Keenan Cornelius. Keenan is at the vanguard of the new wave of American BJJ competitors. His dad is the legendary Tom Callos who among other things got BJ Penn into MMA. Keenan did a lot of his training at Team Lloyd Irvin and was widely regarded as the best Brown belt of his era. Now he's considered one of the top black belts of his era as well. He left Irvin in the wake of that team falling apart due to widespread sexual abuse allegations, but landed on his feet at Atos Academy where he's training with the Mendes Brothers and Andre Galvao, possibly one of the best training environments in the US. Here's Keenan being Keenan:
And here he is vs. Garry Tonon in an incredibly fun match that he absolutely dominates.
Clark Gracie is the son of the so-called "Lion of the Gracie Family" Carley Gracie. He's been around the competition scene for awhile, but only recently started having very high profile matches. You probably best know him as "ridiculously photogenic jiu jitsu guy" from his match with good old Ken Primola. Clark has been dialed in lately, but he has a tough opponent in front of him. Here's Clark vs. Primola in the match that made him a meme.
Clark's opponent Roberto Satoshi comes from a strong family of BJJers. He's been burning up the competition scene of late and is one of the most exciting grapplers around. He keeps a fast pace and combines impressive agility with a willingness to take risks. Check out his highlight:
Then check out his win over the always game, but sadly perennially second place JT Torres:
Jeff Monson is no stranger to MMA fans. He was one of Fedor's last fights, once competed for the UFC HW title and is of course a radical anarchist politically. Weirdly, Jeff's grappling has always been a lot more measured and less free than the loose political structures he advocates for. Monson was always the guy you didn't want to face in a tournament because he was incredibly strong and could just shut the game down completely. Over the last few years, age seems to have caught up to him as he's not imposing his will as well as he once did, but there's still some stuff in the basement, one hopes.
It's actually very hard to find entertaining Monson clips, but here's a match against some random guy at the FILA games
Monson's opponent is the mostly unheralded Jimmy Friedrich. He won the Road to Metamoris heavyweight championship, earning him a slot against Monson. He's a student at the Mendes Brothers Academy, which means we know he comes from a good pedigree, but he's only been training for a few years. Despite that, he got a recent submission win over the legendary Eduardo Telles, which means he belongs in my book. Here's his lightning tap of Telles.
Note also that there will be a secret match, as is Metamoris' custom. Because it was so much fun, here's a look at a previous secret match they did:
Baret Yoshida vs. Jeff Glover:
My deepest gratitude to my friend Kneeblock for his kind permission in archving his thread to my site.
OK Readers, who do you think will win? Please let me and others know and post a comment below!
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