Marcelo Garcia & The X-Guard

Marcelo 'Marcelinho' Garcia (b. 1983) is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitor and submission grappler. Considered by many to be the best pound for pound submission grappler in the world, Garcia is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Fabio Gurgel of Team Alliance. Garcia has five world championship titles in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, two of them as a black belt (in 2004 and 2006). He also has many submission grappling titles, including ones from the prestigious ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship. At ADCC, Marcelo has won the 66-76 kg division three times in a row (2003/2005/2007), been awarded the most technical fighter twice (2003 and 2007), and won the best fight award in 2005. In 2005, he also finished in third place in the absolute (open weight) division and in 2007 finished second in the absolute division.

Eddie Bravo on Marcelo Garcia

Eddie Bravo Doing the Twister

Unless you are into BJJ you probably don't know who Eddie Bravo is, or what "The Twister" is. Here's two pretty cool videos of Eddie.

Eddie Bravo tapping out Royler Gracie at the ADCC 2003


A highlight video of Eddie executing the Twister

Weekend Preview - UFC 87

I swear this weekend preview thing won't solely feature MMA events but its just worked out that there's been two good ones in back to back weekends. Tomorrow night I am definitely looking forward to UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. Here's the event info:

UFC 87: Seek and Destroy
Date: Aug 09, 2008
Location: Minneapolis, Minn.
Venue: Target Center
Broadcast: Pay Per View

MAIN CARD
* Champ Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch (for welterweight title)
* Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring
* Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta
* Rob Emerson vs. Manny Gamburyan
* Jason MacDonald vs. Demian Maia

PRELIMINARY CARD
* Luke Cummo vs. Tamdan McCrory
* Dan Evensen vs. Cheick Kongo
* Jon Jones vs. Andre Gusmao
* Steve Bruno vs. Chris Wilson
* Ben Saunders vs. Ryan Thomas

My reasons for being excited for this event are as follows:

*St. Pierre is the future of MMA, the guy has no holes in his game, he out wrestles wrestlers, can strike, and even stepped up his Jiu-Jitsu game by training in Brazil before this fight. He truly is a hybrid fighter and is well rounded in every aspect of MMA.

*Brock Lesnar is a physical specimen. Don't think this guy was only a WWE pro wrestler, he was an NCAA All-American for 4 years at Minnesota and also won the NCAA championship at heavyweight. After walking away from millions offered by the WWE he tried out and made the practice squad for the Minnesota Vikings after not playing football since high school (I recently heard that during his try out, while weighing 295lbs, he ran a 4.7 40yd dash)

*Florian/Huerta has been talked about for "Fight of the Year" and while I don't think it will be as much of a 3 round war as everyone thinks, it should still be a great fight. Huerta is a really tough guy and will stand and trade with no fear but I think Florian's Muay Thai is too sharp for Huerta and he either picks him apart on the feet or puts his BJJ Black Belt to good use and locks in a submission.

*I'm also very interested to see Demian Maia fight. He is one of the most elite grapplers in the world. His Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu credentials are some of the best in the world and I'm very interested to see how he transitions over to MMA. Maia has won the BJJ Mundials and also the 2007 Abu Dhabi Combat Club World Submission Grappling Championship.