This is the seccond tourny I have ever Entered. It was the Long Island Submission Tournament 2. It was ran by Joe Funaro and sponsored by I believe Defense Soap.
The pre registered price was $50, and if you had a Defense Soap patch, you were automatically refunded $10. The weigh-ins were between 10-1030. I weighed in at 178. I entered the beginers devision. This tournament ran very smooth and was running on time. I met Joe Funaro and 1thumb who are also sherdogers. There were 3 ppl in my devision and I could lose and still get a medal which I think is corny but whatever. A cool thing about this competition was that in my first match I faced a local " pro wrestler " and that I had to sign a release after my first match becuase it was being filmed and going too be part of an independant documentary. On to the matches.
My first match was against the " pro wrestler " dude. I waqs a little nervousee becuase he had a match before the one he had with me and he looks very muscular, and even though he lost tthe match, he looked pretty strong and was controlling and dfending subs pretty well. They call my name and his and we both enter the mat area, the ref explains the rules, we slap hands and then we begin. We both circle eachother andd he lunges towards me trying to get a collar tie. Right as he is doing this, I jumped up, wraped my legs around his waist annd sunk in a deep guilotine. As my back hit the floor I was getting the angle and then got the tap. I won the match in 9 seconds. I was excited as this was my first win in a real competition. After the match, his corner men and camera crew who were filming the match, came up to me and explained that they were filming the wrestler guy in preperation for his first pro wrestling match and macth for the fist half of the documentary, and were filming him training in sub grappling and his first comp for the second half of the documentary and I had to sign a release if I wanted to be a part of the film. I said "sure" and signed it.
The second match was against the guy who beat the wrestler guy in his first match with an armbar. Like I said the wrestler guy looked stronger and was good at positional controll and that had me nervous about him, but this kid was more technical and used his technical ways to defeat the wrestler, and that had me nervouse about facing him. He seemed pretty technical. They call our names and the macth begins. We circle around a few times and then the kid, sloppily, falls on his back and try to pull what looked like half guard. I came ddown ontop of him, he sorta had me in halg guard, n then hetryed to get an over hook and got to his right hip. I took my right arm, didnt let him get the over hook and shot it under his arm and under his head and now had him in the vice-grip/dacre ccontroll. I then pushed him onto his side using my right shoulder, shot my arm through and locked up a darce. I tried the squez and it was not getting me the tap, so i shoved his head in further and reset my bicept grip andd got the tap with a darce choke at 31 seconds.
All in all I oaid $40 dollars to grapple for under a minute lol. Im kidding, it was a great experiencee and it was a great feeling. My second competition ever and I took home gold in my division. I cant wait to compete again, and I cant wait for another one of the submission only tourneys to come around, they are greaty ran and great for experience.
Sorry for the long post I just wanted to share my experience as it was a great onee for me and hopefully more longislanders can come to the next one!!!
Thanx to Joe F and Defense Soap.