135lb Tournament Final
João Miyao (Unity) def Edwin “Junny” Ocasio (Unity) via Points (2-1)

Kasai Pro 6 Tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey ended with the members of Unity fighting each other in a fast-paced match. It was João Miyao who ended up taking the win and the belt, by one extra point, over Junny Ocasio. The fight was very evenly matched with great action from both sides.

A couple of superfights earlier, it was Murilo Santana, Unity’s head, who took the win over Jonavin Webb. The match saw Murilo use his closed guard against Webb, who was able to avert submissions but was not able to do much in terms of points against Santana.

Unity also had a few guys on the undercard that did really well. Looks like that new Unity facility in NYC is starting to produce a good crop of champions.

As promised earlier by Kasai’s CEO, Rich Byrne, the tournament did not disappoint – all the matches were really fast-paced, with quite a few leg lock attacks and a few great submissions. In one of them, Rafael “Barata” Freitas got caught hard and ended up having to leave the tournament due to the injury.

The superfights brought their own amount of excitement. Local Tom DeBlass had the whole crowd with him when he took the stage. He was able to finish off with a great kneebar over Nick Caggia. Matheus Diniz was able to capitalize when Josh Hinger fell on his neck and sunk in a tight RNC to take home the win. The match was a great back-and-forth of styles. Diniz looked like he was on a tear to return the loss to Hinger from when they had faced off before.

Kaynan Duarte had a great back-and-forth match with Patrick Gaudio on the last superfight of the day. Gaudio was able to thwart Duarte’s relentless attempts for submission, even attempting some of his own, but in the end it was Duarte who took the win by points.

Below the full results and the gallery coming up.

135lb Tournament Final
João Miyao (Unity) def Edwin “Junny” Ocasio (Unity) via Points (2-1)

Super Fight
Kaynan Duarte (Atos) def Patrick Gaudio (GF Team) via Points (4-1)

135lb Tournament Third place match
Richard Alarcon (ONE) def John Calestine (Bancho MMA) via Points (4-0)

Super Fight
Matheus Diniz (Marcelo Garcia) def Josh Hinger (Atos) via Submission (RNC)

135lb Tournament Round 3
John Calestine (Bancho MMA) draws Geo Martinez (10 Planet)
Edwin “Junny” Ocasio (Unity) def Masakazu Imanari (Team Roken) via Points (8-1)
João Miyao (Unity) draws Ashley Williams (Chris Rees BJJ)

Super Fight
Murilo Santana (Unity) def Jonavin Webb (Webb BJJ) via Points (7-0)

135lb Tournament Round 2
Edwin “Junny” Ocasio (Unity) def John Calestine (Bancho MMA) via Points (5-2)
Geo Martinez (10 Planet) def Masakazu Imanari (Team Roken) via Points (7-1)
Richard Alarcon (ONE) def Ashley Williams (Chris Rees BJJ) via Points (3-2)
João Miyao (Unity) def Rafael “Barata” Freitas (Gracie Barra) via Submission (Heel Hook)

Super Fight
Tom DeBlass (OCBJJ) def Nick Caggia (KDOJO) via Submission (Kneebar)

Round 1
John Calestine (Bancho MMA) def Masakazu Imanari (Team Roken) via Submission (heel hook)
Edwin “Junny” Ocasio (Unity) def Geo Martinez (10 Planet) via Points (4-0)
Ashley Williams (Chris Rees BJJ) def Rafael “Barata” Freitas (Gracie Barra) via Submission (RNC)
João Miyao (Unity) def Richard Alarcon (ONE) via Submission (RNC)

Undercard
William Tacket def Nick Ronan via Points (9-0)
Mike Wilcox def Tim Williams via Points (6-4)
Fiona Watson def Yaz Almonte via Submission (Armbar)
Athos Miranda def Garrte Lavaggi via Points (7-0)
Marcio Bittencourt def Marcelo Mattos via Points (4-0)
Daniel Tavares def Nakapan Phungephorn via Points (4-2)
Italo Moura def Izaak Mitchell via Points (6-2)
Lucas Protasio def Jeferson Guraesi via Points (4-2)
Gracie Gundrum def Gabby Etzel via Submission (Guillotine)
Aaron Harris David Brennan via Submission (Heel Hook)
Steve Ramos def Chris Marti via Submission (Baratoplata)
Chloe McNally def Lydia Coleman via Points (2-0)

During Kasai weigh ins for Kasai Pro 6 in Atlantic City we caught up with Kasai’s CEO Rich Byrne, who has great plans for the event. “We started out with some NY shows and all we are hearing from fans is ‘when are you going to come to our city?’, ‘When are you coming to our country?’”. Kasai took their even on the road, with their “Super Series” event which is comprised of only super fights. The Atlantic City event shows a departure from this model. Rich explains “Originally we contemplated only doing Kasai Pros in NY. As we toured we started the Kasai Super Series. Because the reception has been so great in all these other cities we decided to mix it. We are agnostic now. Kasai Pros are our tournaments – 8 man round robin tournament. We have done 6 weight classes so far. Kasais pro 6 is our Bantam weight. After that we have only one left which are the heavy weights. We are going to do that in NY beginning 2020. We are picking the best guys in the world at that weight class. Our rules set is a good blend. We can attract people no matter what their discipline. We also have superfights between the tournaments.” The difference between Kasai Pro and Kasai Super Series is that the latter is only Super Fights “On average 12 super fights. We are just having fun. Just making our dream match ups. We are trying to match styles to have super exciting fights – All of our dream match-ups. In Orlando some of the fights we have put together are still being talked about as some of the great super fights of the year.”

When asked about future plans Rich explained, “We are going to keep doing it. We are going to go to Brazil, Europe, Asia. The sky is the limit for Kasai! Brazil is going to be Kasai Super Series. It will be a special version. Brazil against the world. Main card will have 12 or 13 fights. It will be a Brazilian against a guy that is not a Brazilian. They are going to blow people away. We were originally thinking Brazil against the US but there are a lot of guys from Europe and Australia that fit the bill perfectly. We are going to get some good guys against these Brazilians.“

In regards to this event, happening today in Atlantic City “Bantam weight is 135 lbs. This is our lowest weight, but these guys are killers! Some of these guys are leg lock specialists. You’re going to see some crazy stuff. These guys move fast. The rounds are only 6 minutes and the action is usually frenetic. This is a hard one to pick a winner.”

“We have 4 super fights of big guys. 2 of our guys are champs from prior tournaments. Our 185 lbs. champ is Matheus Diniz and he is fighting Josh Hinger who is a world champion. 2 of the most highly credentialed guys in the sport. They fought once before and the match was crazy so we wanted to have them on our stage.”

“Our heavyweight, Kaynan is our belt holder at 205 who will be fighting Patrick Gaudio – one of the best fighters in the world.”

“We also have Murilo Santana, the famous professor at Unity Jiu Jitsu, who have 6 guys in our card. It’s a big day for Unity.”

“And we have Tom de Blass, who is a local NJ guy. Tom is coming into his house to fight in front of his crowd. We’re excited for that.”

The event in happening at the Showboat in an intimate setting. The card is promising some really great matches.

All fighters were at weight.

Check out the gallery!

Boston Open is underway with blue belts taking over! Photo by Erin Herle

How’s your Sunday?

GRACIEMAG is in the field to cover one more Jiu-Jitsu tournament live. Follow the frequent updates of our reporter Erin Herle by clicking here.