50/50 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Fifty/50 Head Instructor Ryan Hall surrendered no points while defeating all of his opponents at the IBJJF’s inaugural Chicago International Open, moving up two weight classes to take gold in the black belt middleweight division and close out the open class with Brasa team head coach, Rodrigo “Comprido” Medeiros.

Ryan Hall and Rick Slomba made the trip out to Chicago to compete in the IBJJF’s newest event, the Chicago International Open. This would be Ryan’s first test in the gi since his quarterfinal exit from the Mundial, while Rick would be making his debut in an IBJJF event.

Rick started the day off in the purple belt featherweight division by choking his first opponent unconscious from the back after being up 9-0, then followed up in the semi-final with a rear naked choke after leading 10-0. In the final he faced off against Team Renzo Gracie’s Gianni Grippo, this year’s Pan American silver and Mundial bronze medalist. Rick fought a tough match but came up a little short and lost 2-0 to wind up with the silver. Not what he was shooting for, but a good first step on the path to becoming an elite competitor.

With no black belt featherweight or lightweight competitors registered for the tournament, Ryan was forced to jump up 26 lbs in weight to fight the middleweight class against Carlson Gracie Team’s Carlos Rodriguez. The fight started slowly, but Ryan was able to move from open guard to half and then to 50/50, where he swept his opponent directly into a back attack for 6 points. Ryan worked for the choke, but his opponent was eventually able to work his way out of danger during a scramble, but Ryan swept again and was attacking the back as time expired to take the win and the gold medal by a score of 8-0.

In the black belt absolute division, Ryan and former 2-time Black Belt Mundial Absolute Champion Rodrigo “Comprido” Medeiros were on opposite ends of the bracket, looking to close the division out for Brasa Team. Comprido kicked things off with a brabo choke submission victory over Jason Ebarb (Texas Punishment Crew). In the other semi-final, Ryan faced off against dangerous middle-heavyweight Nova Uniao black belt, Daniel Almeida. Almeida was coming off against a Grapplers Quest black belt absolute title in California where he defeated Alliance’s Chris Moriarty, so Ryan had his hands full.

The fight was back-and-forth for most of the 10 minute duration, but Ryan was able to break the 0-0 deadlock with a sweep and back attack from de la Riva guard with only seconds remaining to take the victory 6-0.

Check out the video here:

With the win, Ryan was able to pick up his first IBJJF/CBJJ absolute gold medal and close out the tournament’s toughest bracket with a BJJ legend in Comprido. Look for Ryan and Rick next weekend as they head to Boston for the UFC Fan Expo where Ryan competes in a superfight against BJJ black belt and UFC veteran Hermes Franca.

Tags: absolute, carlos rodriguez, champion, chicago, comprido, daniel almeida, gianni grippo, hermes franca, ibjjf, international, rick slomba, rodrigo medeiros, ryan hall.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 at 9:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.