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

Just Me, Myself and LINKS

• World Football Challenge - the hottest ticket this summer, teams include Club America, Chelsea FC, Inter Milan and AC Milan

• Dog overboard found four months later - WOW!

• UC Davis Offers Free Hardcore Porn - haha porn was shown to facilitate discussion of "difficult subjects such as sexuality and gender roles"....gotta love my alma mater

• Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals - I almost dedicated to a whole post to these...I seriously am gonna buy this book and mail them out to everyone I know

• 2nd Annual American Cup Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - work permitting I think I will be attending and hopefully winning
  

Helio Gracie, the father of BJJ and Gracie family patriarch, dead at 95

[from MMAJunkie]

Helio Gracie, the father of BJJ and Gracie family patriarch, dead at 95
by Dann Stupp on Jan 29, 2009 at 12:45 pm ET

Helio Gracie, the Gracie family patriarch and instrumental figure in the rise of early mixed martial arts, has passed away at the age of 95.

With his older brother Carlos, Helio, who died early Thursday in Rio de Janiero, helped create what we know today as Brazilian jiu jitsu.

With a slight build and weighing no more than 150 pounds, Gracie adapted traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu principles so that leverage and position could make up size differences between opponents.

Called Gracie jiu jitsu, which son Rorion used to help launch the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993, the fighting style would soon prove dominant. Another one of Helio's nine sons, UFC hall-of-famer Royce, successfully implemented the strategies in early UFC events despite facing significantly larger opponents.

Royce's and the fighting style's success sparked the explosion of modern jiu jitsu among the martial-arts world.

The discipline, now better known as Brazilian jiu jitsu, remains a key foundation in any MMA education.

Helio, himself, also fought, oftentimes to prove jiu jitsu's dominance over disciplines such as boxing, wrestling and judo. Many of the fights took place in front of remarkably large crowds as Helio became one of Brazil's biggest sports stars.

In one of martial arts' first super fights, nearly 20,000 people watched Helio fight Masahiko Kimura in 1951. Kimura, who outweighed his opponent by nearly 80 pounds, eventually won the fight with a submission that now bears his name.

Four years later, in his final match, Helio fought former student Valdemar Santana in a nearly four-hour Vale Tudo ("no holds barred") match. Santana won the fight after Helio tired, but his nephew Carlos eventually avenged the loss, a common occurrence for a clan committed to the family's honor.

Helio remained a fixture in MMA circles as the family continued his legacy in recent decades. He was oftentimes seen ringside as Gracie members flourished in top MMA organizations around the world.

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.