Recent Events

We’ve been very busy at Absolute MMA, so the posts have been sparse, but we’re going to throw some recent event information at you.

During March we had two separate grappling tournaments that the team participated in. The first tournament was put on by NAGA (North American Grappling Association) in Colorado. For the tournament we had three competitors go out to fight: Denver Merrifield-Nirva, Jeff Nielsen, and Bentley Garner.

NAGA Colorado

Jeff brought his wonderful and supportive family along for the trip as he participated in his first grappling tournament. Fighting in multiple NO-GI divisions, he managed to bring home a Silver medal in the Novice Welter weight division, and his first Gold medal in the Absolute Novice division! We were all very proud to see Jeff succeed in this tournament; many first -timers would have buckled under the pressure from a nationally ranked tournament.

Denver Merrifield-Nirva decided to participate on a whim and drove out to take home two silver medals in the Men’s NO-GI Intermediate as well as Advanced Feather Weight divisions. Denver had zero prep time for the tournament, but still managed to perform optimally.

Bentley Garner participated in the NO-GI as well as GI divisions, and brought home

Three Gold medals. His divisions were: Men’s GI Blue Belt Light Heavy Weight, Gi Blue Belt Middle weight, and Men’s NO-GI Intermediate Middle Weight. Ben’s final match ended after a verbal submission from his opponent who was incapacitated due to a knee injury from a Judo Throw.

Congrats to all of the guys that participated, those wins mean a lot to the gym. Also, a big thanks to Rob for taking time out to support the fellas and endure such a long road trip to Colorado.

Utah Champion’s Challenge- March 27th, 2010

Below are the results from the Champion’s Challenge tournament that was held at UVU on March 27th.

AdvancedGi

Featherweight 3rd: Riley Petersen

Middleweight 3rd: William DaBell

White Belt

Middleweight 3rd: Eric Ciffone

Heavyweight 3rd: Dustin Bond

No-Gi

Intermediate-Men

Middleweight

3rd: Chris Kennedy

Beginner Men

2nd: Jeff Nielson

Congratulations to everyone that went out to participate! We had some first-time participants with Eric and Dustin, who both did extremely well. Eric was forced to fight several matches that lasted over ten minutes, and Dustin actually choked someone unconscious (his opponent recovered after a few moments, and was fine to continue competing.) Everyone’s hard work paid off, and we look forward as a team to the next event. Team Absolute had a strong presence on the mat as competitors and referees, as well as spectators. Keep up the good work!