Sean Roberts with his mentor, Ralph Gracie. Photo: Personal Archive

GMA members from Ralph Gracie Chino Hills, Rocha Jiu-Jitsu and Crispim BJJ are set for superfights in a new submission-only event.

Sean Roberts, who currently lives and trains at the Ralph Gracie headquarters in San Francisco, is a representative of his home school in Chino Hills and will be attending the Kurt Osiander Finisher Series first event on August 10 for a superfight. He received his black belt right before the 2013 Pan American Championship and will be going against an opponent who received his black belt from GMA member Eduardo Rocha in 2010.

All superfights are specific to whether they are gi or no-gi, Sean’s will be in the gi but he is currently looking for an opponent for another superfight in the event. The rules vary from other events as they do have a time limit, fifteen minutes. This way, the competitors are forced to really look for the submission and not focus on the points at all.

Other superfight match-ups include brown belt Mark Tse under Eduardo Rocha who will be going in a gi match against Crispim BJJ’s Kola Ajose. Another Crispim BJJ student in a match-up is Brooke Goldsworthy who is currently looking for an opponent in a gi match.

Alongside the superfights is a round-robin structured tournament that has 5-6 minute matches and submission-only format. Should the match end in no submission, a ref will determine the more aggressive athlete. Divisions are bracketed in pools like the Copa Podio and the competitor who gains the most submission/decision wins the group will advance to match-up against winners of the other groups in the division.

Submission-only tournaments are surfacing with points and advantages remaining for the most prestigious tournaments like Worlds and Pan-Ams. Is this the future of sport Jiu-Jitsu?