João Assis. Photo: publicity

Grapplers Quest put together a 32-man super-tournament worth 10 thousand dollars to the winner.

The big name of the event was João Assis. The beast from CheckMat overcame the highly decorated Xande Ribeiro, a two-time absolute world champion in Jiu-Jitsu, in the final. To get past the stalwart, Assis first landed a takedown and followed up with a sweep to win by 4 to 2.

Prior to the final the fighter made it past opponents of the caliber of Bruno Bastos, who he beat by a single advantage point in the semifinals, and tapped out his other three opponents. Xande eliminated the likes of Leopoldo Serão.

Assis gets to cash in a check like this one

Although de dropped out in the semifinal when Xande Ribeiro caught him in a triangle choke for the finish, Rustam Chsiev returned to the mat to take third place over Bruno Bastos. The match went to extra time and, after ending in a draw, the judges rewarded Chsiev the win.

The event also featured a supermatch won by Ulysses Gomez.

ADCC 2009 winner Pablo Popovitch once again left his gi and old black belt at the gym in Florida and set about winning a no-gi championship, this time in Paris, France, on May 1.

The 30-year-old today spoke up about his winning the VIC tournament, in a chat with GRACIEMAG.com, explaining why he and buddy Jeff Monson didn’t face off in the absolute final, opting to split the 1,500-Euro prize money.

“I had eight matches and won most of them by submission, taking the under-84kg title and the absolute, closing out with Jeff in the open weight division. Shoot, we’ve been training partners and friends for over ten years; there’s no way we could fight each other,” he explains.

Pablo has a date for his MMA debut marked on the calendar. On June 4 he’ll be in a co-main event at Rock and Rumble 3, to take place at the Hard Rock Café in Florida. And his eight fights were good prep work for the challenge.

“This championship served as preparation for my coming fights. My MMA debut is coming up June 4 as a co-main event at Rock and Rumble 3, in Florida. But I’m also going to compete at the Grapplers Quest 32-Man tourney in July, which will be high level. But I’m training a lot and I hope to have a great MMA debut,” he says in closing.

The Grapplers Quest challenge with 32 big names in no-gi grappling takes place on the 10^th and 11^th of July, with a 10-thousand-dollar payout for the winner. Among the names aired by the promoters, Xande Ribeiro, Josh Barnett, Jeff Monson, Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, Daniel Moraes, Bill “The Grill” Cooper, Vinicius Magalhães, Chris Moriarty, and other should be there.