12.12.2006 BJJ Worlds' History - 2000In chapter two of the Almanac, GRACIEMAG.com tells the story of the competitions held from 1998 to 2000
Photos by Gustavo Aragao, Levy Ribeiro, Lia Caldas, Luca Atalla and Ricardo Azoury
2000
The consecrationComprido beats Nino and Margarida and wins the double, in the year the open-weight division comes before the other categories Comprido contains Nino Schembri's attempt at his back, and would end up submitted.Comprido and Margarida fight for the open class black belt gold. The fight is lively, but the current champion's control is apparent. Despite the adversary’s effort, Alliance’s representative suffers no dangerous attack, and remains on top of the rival from São Paulo’s attack. Finally, the consecrating victory of the second twice champion in the history of the Worlds. With a marked difference in relation to the other years: the fight happened on a Saturday.
In 2000, an apparently small change to the World Championship’s schedule was responsible for a true revolution in the competition. Until then, the most important category in Jiu-Jitsu – the black belt open class division – was contested after the weight divisions, with pre-defined seeding. So it was marked by imbalance: Walk outs, athletes were fresh for not having fought in the weight divisions, fighter dead-tired for having had an uneven trajectory on the same day.
 In the Shaolin vs. Feitosa classic, the guard-player Vitor comes up best.When the athletes started registering hours before the fight, and the open class contest before any other participation in the championship, the conditions evened out, and the division was disputed with a full stadium and athletes in better shape.
In this scenario, on the 29h of July, Rodrigo Comprido begins his trajectory by beating Leonardo Dalla. In the follow-up, he would face the toughest one in the bracket: Nino Schembri. But first, a sad intermission: Jean Mendonça de Mesquita, from Ceará, has a heart attack during a brown belt fight, and dies right in the stadium. Comprido joins the attempt to help, and, when he realizes, his is in the ring facing Nino. He gets a takedown, almost has his back taken on his feet, pulls guard, his adversary passes bu, before stabilizing, is caught in a kimura. Rodrigo reverses and... Gets one of the greatest finishers in Jiu-Jitu.
 Tererê in Schembri’s guard.On the other end, Margarida has other fights, since José Mario Esfiha, from the academy of the open class champ, also makes it to the semi-final and opens the way for Comprido. The man from São Paulo has to get past Francisco Mello, Alexandre Café, Flavio Cachorrinho and Leonardo Leite. Only the latter escaped without being submitted. And, of course, Comprido, who performed a takedown and kept Margarida from having his black belt debut and snapping up the greatest Jiu-Jitsu title.
The next day, Sunday, the open class champion went back to try for the under 91 kg title. He lost to the ADCC champion Ricardo Arona. With his morale high from his conquests among the wrestlers over in the Middle East, the man from Niteroi swept Comprido, but, one fight later, was stopped by the experience of Fabio Gurgel, who, by one pass of the guard, found himself heavyweight champion.
 Gurgel in Ricardo Arona’s guard.Nino also came back, and ran through all his adversaries before the middleweight final. That was when he came up against the tactics of the newly black belt Fernando Tererê, who, with a takedown, frustrated Schembri’s efforts, and celebrated his fourth world championship title (one at each belt) a la Elvis Presley, in a mixture of homage and teasing of his adversary in the last fight.
Shaolin would shine at lightweight again, again in a classic with Marcio Feitosa, in another tight and controversial confrontation. This time, Feitosa was winning until the last minute of the final, when the referee penalized him repeatedly until he removed the points and gave the victory to the Nova União athlete. First, Feitosa would beat Leo Santos, and Shaolin would, for the first time in his career, beat the other Leo, Leo Vieira. The four best fighters in the division had finally crossed paths in a World Championship bracket.
Roleta wraps legs with Margarida.
Royler’s absence from the competition provided an opening for a new featherweight champion. And who would get there? A foreigner; The first one to shine as a black belt. He was no other than BJ Penn, who made it past Alexandre Soca, Fredson Alves and finally Edson Diniz, and hung the silk ribbon holding the golden medal around his neck. Highest honors for him before Penn would shine in the UFC and K-1 as big name in MMA too.
Leo Leite is super-heavyweight champion, in a standing final against the judoka Aurelio Fernandez. Robson Moura, became five-time champion at super-featherweight (at several belts) by beating Marcos Parrumpinha. And Saulo, out of competition for a year and also out of the shape that made him champion in previous World Championships, still manages to with the super-heavyweight title beating Daniel Simões and coming up with one more gold medal.
BJ passes Diniz’s guard. – Omar Salum, gold in rooster weight, executes a choke. – From the guard, Robson Moura attacks Parrumpinha.
If Sperry had retired from wearing the gi after his loss to Comprico in the open class semi-final the year before, Roleta did not follow his arch-rival. He came back in 2000, and in a middleweight category replete with big names. the final against Margarida standing out, and making it to the cover of issue 43 of GRACIE Magazine.
With two sweeps and a well-trained defence of the ankle lock that ended his campaign the previous year, Roleta came out on top, and left his opponent from São Paulo in the dust. He would have his work cut out for him in the year to come, as we will se in the next chapter.
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