Buchecha vs. Rodolfo in 2013

It’s Saturday, a nice day to sit back, relax and watch some classic matches that the World championship offered us in the past 20 years.

We selected three matches that represent the passing of time at the most important event in the gentle art’s calendar.

First, in 1998, José Mario Sperry met Roberto Roleta in the open class final. Two of the most successful athletes of their time, they fought twice that year. Roleta beat Sperry in the first round of the super-heavy, putting an end to Sperry’s undefeated streak.

Then, Sperry got his revenge in the absolute final. Click play to see how it went.

Six years later, we make our second stop at the 2004 Worlds, for the fight that is probably the most famous Jiu-Jitsu match of all times.

Roger Gracie and Ronaldo Jacaré had the crowd standing for the whole duration of the match. The ending alone is worth of the best movie scripts ever put out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYUeIBubHDM

Nine years later, in 2013, another big rivalry was rocking the Jiu-Jitsu community.

Marcus Buchecha and Rodolfo Vieira are the standouts of their generation and the 2013 black belt open class final was the occasion to untie the 1-1 score at the Worlds. Prior to the 2013 final, Rodolfo had won by submission in 2011 and Buchecha tied the score at the 2012 absolute final.

Click play to watch how things went.

Don’t forget to register for the 2016 World Jiu-Jitsu championship.

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One of the biggest talents to emerge from Professor Ze Radiola’s school in Recife, Brazil, “The Steamroller” now teaches at Gracie Barra America, in Irvine.

After getting great results in the lower belts, including the 2007 brown belt open class world title, Otavio reached the ultimate glory in the last two years, as a black belt.

Since 2012, he dominates the middleweight division at the Worlds, with two golds in twin final matches against Atos JJ’s Claudio Calasans Jr.

Watch below the full video of the 2013 Worlds black belt middleweight final.

In this month’s GRACIEMAG, one of the Jiu-Jitsu world’s best blankets the cover and keeps an arsenal within the pages of issue No. 196. Buchecha was a predator in his run through the 2013 Worlds, and this was particularly evident in his nearly perfect defeat of Rodolfo Viera in the absolute final. Readers will get a step-by-step explanation of the techniques used by the now-two-time absolute champion.

Check out what else issue No. 196 of GRACIEMAG has to offer its readers:

Face To Face: Owner of the Crown

Now the king of the feathers, Tanquinho analyzes how he usurped the throne once dominated by Rafael Mendes and Cobrinha. The 2013 Worlds champ breaks down his run through the tournament before departing for the treacherous grounds of MMA.

MMA Q&A: ‘Jacaré’ Souza

Learn about the pressure and confidence a fighter experiences when going into a UFC debut with this one-on-one interview with Ronaldo “Jacaré” Souza.

UFC Waiting Game

Johny Hendricks has been waiting for UFC champ Georges St-Pierre for a long time. The No. 1 contender talks about the frustration behind waiting for GSP and what he plans to do once the fight happens.

Training Program: Audacious Blows

Learn five bold attacks from Joao Gabriel Rocha and Tanquinho Mendes, two athletes that stood out at the 2013 Worlds. These techniques are so petulant, opponents tend to believe they aren’t efficient. When they realize they’re in danger, it’s already too late.

GRACIEMAG Association (GMA)

All the latest updates on our members from all around the world.

Take advantage of our limited-time offer: Sign up with GRACIEMAG for 24 months now and get a free book!

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Following his loss to Vitor Belfort at UFC on FX 8, Luke Rockhold needed to find a place to regain his focus. The spinning heel kick that Belfort landed will be remembered by many for a long time, but Rockhold isn’t one to sit and get down on himself about it.

Instead, the former Strikeforce middleweight champion decided to go back to a place where he found success in previous years. Rockhold put away his MMA shorts for a weekend and threw on a black gi with a brown belt.

The 2013 Jiu-Jitsu World Championships gave the UFC fighter a chance to find what he was looking for.

“I’ve been wanting to do it for a while,” Rockhold told GRACIEMAG.com when asked about competing at the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships. “Losing to Vitor gave me the motivation to at least try it out.”

In 2007, Rockhold said, the fighter was a blue belt looking to compete for a gold medal in the Mundials. A presence at the podium and a gold medal later, Rockhold was the best blue belt in the world for his weight class. The win at the 2007 World Championships earned him his purple belt, as well, the fighter said.

He went on to compete in no-gi later on and earned his brown belt, but shortly after that he decided to focus on MMA. The transition was one that proved beneficial, as Rockhold now sits among the top 10 in most 185-pound MMA rankings.

At the 2013 Worlds, the UFC middleweight looked to repeat the success he had at blue belt in 2007, trying for a gold medal in his weight division. Bigger and more experienced, the American Kickboxing Academy standout competed in the heavyweight brown belt bracket.

After an opening-round defeat of World Pro champ Kaue Damasceno, Rockhold moved on to the second round of the tournament. But after doing an illegal maneuver, the UFC competitor was disqualified and his run in the heavyweight brown belt division was over.

“I went for a heel hook, crossed the knee over and got disqualified,” he said, following the loss. “I just didn’t understand the point system. I should have won my match. I could have done a lot better.”

Like his loss to Belfort in the UFC, Rockhold said he won’t look back on this disqualification as something to mope about. He came out, competed, got a win and a little exercise to top it all off.

The point system isn’t for Rockhold, the fighter explained, and being down in the tally led him to try and finish with the heel hook. Not being familiar with the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation’s rules had him disqualified when going for that submission, but there were no regrets in the end.

“For me, I like to finish. I don’t like the point game,” Rockhold said. “I like to get in there … I want to go for the finish as much as I can. I tried and went for it … but I’m not going to get too down on myself for it.”

The fighter recently revealed that he turned down his black belt so he can compete one more time at brown belt. He felt a win at the Worlds would earn him that coveted black strap, but it didn’t end up that way.

The fighter shrugged off the loss as if to say “oh well.”

Now comes the time when Rockhold waits for his next UFC fight. With the Belfort loss in the rearview mirror and some focused gained from his time at the Mundials, Octagon wins are all the fighter sees over the horizon.

“I’m going to win,” he said of his inevitable sophomore effort in the Octagon. “I feel really good about the future.”

Leonardo Nogueira in the 2012 Worlds. Photo: Dan Rod

A knee injury has taken current open-class vice-champion Leonardo Nogueira out of the 2013 BJJ Worlds.

Léo, a two-time super-heavyweight world champion, traveled to California with his Alliance mates, but will only be able to watch the fights from the stands, as he divulged this Tuesday.

“It was my left knee,” he told GRACIEMAG. “I felt it back in Brazil, during training. I tried to train with the bad knee but eventually knew there was no way. I’ve been injured for two weeks now. God willing, I’ll be back here next year to claim what’s mine. I’ll take this chance to study every potential opponent – I’ll be watching every single fight this year.”

Asked about the favorite to get the open-class title in his absence, Nogueira chose not to take a guess: “Buchecha, Rodolfo, Bernardo and Xande all have chances.”

The super-heavyweight category now features his teammates Bernardo Faria, Léo Leite, Antonio Peinado, as well as Rafael Lovato Jr., João Gabriel and João Assis. Can you guess a winner?

Are you ready for the 2013 Worlds?

As the Jiu-Jitsu professors use to say, the war just began, as the athletes got to know their brackets and first opponents.

Who’s going to be the great 2012 Jiu-Jitsu champion?

Click here for see the complete 2013 Worlds brackets, here.