Absolute Submission Challenge: Spring 2005 Series
With the resent success of the Absolute Submission Challenge held here in Calgary, and the positive feed back I have received regarding the new rules we tried for the first time, myself (Brian Bird - Calgary, Alberta) along with Mr.Paul Sukys (Cochrane, Alberta) and Mr. Lee Mein (Lethbridge, Alberta) will be running a series of three submission grappling tournaments starting in January 2005.
The first tournament will be held in Cochrane, Alberta on January 22nd, 2005.
The second tournament will be held in Lethbridge, Alberta on March 19th, 2005.
The third tournament will be held in Calgary, Alberta on May 28th, 2005.
Each tournament will have competitors competing in their separate weight categories in a round robin format with the first and second place winners receiving medals.
In the third tournament that will be held in Calgary, in addition to the medals given out to the day's winners, trophies will be given out in each weight class to the competitor with the most accumulated points throughout the season. These will be the season champions!
How the point system will work is each fight will be scored as either a draw or a win by submission. Either you submit your opponent, you get submitted, or the fight goes to a draw. There will be no points given out during the match. You will receive 3 points for a win by submission, 1 point for a draw, and 0 for a loss. The competitors will fight every other fighter in their weight class once. Your total points for the day will then be added together. This number will be divided by the number of fights that you had that day, and the resulting number will be your day's average score. The season's champion will be the competitor who's daily average scores add up to the highest number over the three events.
Participation in all three events is not mandatory, but your best opportunity to be a season's champion is to compete as often as possible (in your weight class) so that you have the best chance to gain the most points.
This is, to my knowledge, the first time in Canada that a series of grappling tournaments like this has ever been held. My goal is to make the "Absolute Submission Challenge Series" a yearly event and hopefully have more Cities such as Edmonton and Red Deer also be involved so we could end up with 5 or 6 events over a fall/winter/spring season. The rules, with the round robin format, already gives the fighters a lot of matches per event, as opposed to a single elimination format. With the addition of a proper grappling season it is my belief that this will encourage the Alberta grappling community to consistently train and compete for a longer period of time, which will result in a higher level of good quality experienced grapplers all around.
Myself and my partners are still in the process of finalizing the details, but I will post the full info on these events once we are done. Let me know if you have any questions on this. Thanks.
Brian Bird