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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=452556" target="_blank">
How good is Liborio
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<p>The 2015 Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) Submission Wrestling World Championship takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from Aug. 28-30, 2015. The event features three unbelievable superfights:<br />
Andre Galvao vs. Roberto Abreu
Matt Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie
Mario Sperry vs. Ricardo Liborio
Of the six, ATT founder Ricardo Liborio has by far the least competitive experience. He has a draw with Minowa in 2001 in MMA, and took a silver and bronze at the ADCCs in 2000 and 1999 respectively. That is about it for international contests. The crazy thing though, is that he may be the greatest grappler of the bunch.
Rumors of how good he is float around, but about ten years ago, Marcos "Parrumpinha" DaMatta posted on the UG about his direct observations.
"I dont need to introduce myself and neither say that I started at Carlson's back in 1987, so I pretty much saw everything at that school and I think I am a reliable person. All right, this is true, trust me: We were all training for Abu Dhabi in 2000 and it was pretty much ALL Carlson's Black Belts: Ze Mario, Murilo, Carlao, Bebeo, Amaury, Arona, Allan Goes, Paulo Filho...and the list goes on, I mean everybody. Ok, Liborio was working that time and could not train at regular basis, so he used to go every other week to train. On this afternoon, he stoped by to say hello on his lunch time,all dressed up, and we were all getting ready to roll. He said "Can I train for 15 or 20 minutes? Cus I need to go back to the bank?" Of course everybody was cool about it. So he sparred with 3 or 4 diferent persons and TAP ALL OF THEM OUT AT LEAST 3 TIMES. And they were all 5 minutes rounds. Big deal? I dont think so. One of them (No names, of course!) tappeed 5 times in 5 minutes and started literally to cry after the practice was over, saying " I suck, how can I do good if I tapped like a white belt..." And 2 months later that same guy who was crying, won his division AND the Absolute at ADCC. The funny thing was that Liborio left that day saying: " You guys are too tough for me, I feel a little pain on my lower back..."
Rhadi Ferguson discussed what is like to roll with Liborio.
"I've heard the stories and quite honestly I believed them just like I believed the Rickson stories. I thought they were legends of lore passed down to us through the ghosts of jiujitsu past to allow us to believe that there was something "more".
I'm a phuking brick house. When I'm really really trying to go super hard, I don't think I can be stopped. So one day, I thought, "Let me tap this guy on the shoulder and ask him to roll" - not out of disrespect but I just wanted to see what he had. After the initial slapping of the five, Libo swept me, mounted be and armbarred me. So I lied to myself saying, "Well, that wasn't my best pass attempt."
So I lift Liborio of the ground to hit my stand up pass, as I push agains the leg, this dude disappears and the only thing I remember is tapping again. It looked like some phuking Houdini shyt!! We started again, and again, and again. I think I got tapped about 9 times in less than 3 minutes and I remember looking up at Renato Tavares and Renato said, "Man, he does everybody like that."
Not feeling satisfied, I grabbed him one more time and told myself, "I'll get him this time with a leg lock. Damn, Liborio defends, and put me in a straight ankle lock in about 15 seconds. I would have been embarrassed if I didn't see him do the same thing to others since then.
It was humbling. I immediately got in my car and called Lloyd and I remember how the conversation started. I said, "Man, you ain't going to believe this shyt........ Liborio..........."
If there is somebody better out there, I'd love to meet them, but to date, I have not seen anyone on such a level.
And then, just last week I asked him about some technical half guard moves and an armbar from the turtle and Liborio broke that thing down like it was in half. The dude is truly amazing.
[...] And I SWEAR that I've never seen someone break down the half guard like Libo. I walked into practice one day just to say wassup to the fellas and I sat down and grabbed a notepad and took notes for about 45 minutes. It was remarkable.[...]
Oh and to answer, the roll with Libo was with the Gi. I couldn't move. I couldn't even start a move."
Liborio has not gotten younger, and is working through some back issues, but expect greatness this year in Brazil.
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