Bruno Ramos won the under-74kg division. Photo by Junior Samurai/GRACIEMAG.com.

This past weekend in Natal, the capital of the Northeast Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte, 13 aces from the top of the current Jiu-Jitsu-scene heap earned all-expenses-paid travel and board to compete at the WPJJC, a professional Jiu-Jitsu tournament coming up April in Abu Dhabi.

Bruno Ramos of Gracie Barra Paranamirim and Jessica da Silva of Gracie Barra are two of these winners. Check them out in their respective finals from the weekend event:

1. Bruno Ramos vs Paulo Ledesma, under-74kg final

2. Jessica da Silva vs Ana Lewroy, female over-63kg final

Rodolfo Vieira celebrates in Abu Dhabi in 2009. Photo: Ivan Trindade/GRACIEMAG.

The Abu Dhabi WPJJ, coming up this April 13 and 14, is a professional tournament open to anyone at any belt. However, it’s plenty more enticing when you’re one of those invited by the prince. That’s a luxury few enjoy; better still, one reserved for those who advanced all the way through the different tryout events held all over the world, now on their way to compete in Abu Dhabi with all the regalia and all-expenses-paid travel.

GRACIEMAG.com gained exclusive access to the initial list of those invited to Abu Dhabi. A few names are notably missing, like the winners of the trials in New York, for example. If your name per chance didn’t make the list for whatever reason, contact the promoters of the qualifying event that you won,

Fireworks assured, given some of the names on the list, with Rodolfo Vieira, Marcus Bochecha, Bê Faria, Bráulio Estima, Alexandre Souza, Antonio Braga Neto, Leandro Lo, Roberto Satoshi, Jonathan Torres, Rafael Lovato and plenty more all scheduled for the main event. Check out the full list:

BRAZIL TRYOUTS (NATAL, MANAUS, RIO DE JANEIRO AND GRAMADO)

1 Mr. Dennys Ricardo Diniz de Morais

2 Mr. Anselmo dos Santos Gomes

3 Mr. Max Santos Gimenis

4 Mr. Rafael Henrique Pereira

5 Mr. Fernando Andrade dos Reis

6 Mr. Thiago Barreto Marques

7 Mr. Leandro Lo Pereira do Nascimento

8 Mr. Bruno Almeida Alves

9 Mr. Antonio Carlos Coelho de Figueiredo Barbosa Júnior

10 Mr. Bernardo Augusto Rocha de Faria

11 Mr. Victor Cesar Braz da Silva

12 Mr. Rafael Ferreira Matos

13 Mr. Erberth Santos de Mesquita

14 Mr. Pedro Paulo Campi Agrizzi

15 Mr. Patrick Pontes de Moura dos Santos Gaudio

16 Mr. Luiz Fernando Costa Vieira

17 Mr. Antonio Carlos Farias

18 Mr. Diego Borges Silva

19 Mr. Caio Cesar Magalhaes Praxedes

20 Mr. Antonio Braga Teixeira Neto

21 Mr. MARCIO GAMA DOS SANTOS JUNIOR

22 Mr. RODSON MATEUS SARMENTO TELES

23 Mr. JULIO CEZAR DOS ANJOS JUNIOR

24 Mr. JOÃO RICARDO BORDIGNON MIYAO

25 Mr. MARCOS VINICIUS DA SILVA TINOCO

26 Mr. GABRIEL WILLCOX FURLEY

27 Mr. VINICIUS TAVARES MARINHO

28 Mr. ADRIANO FERREIRA DE ARAUJO

29 Mr. RODOLFO VIEIRA

30 Mr. RICARDO FERREIRA EVANGELISTA

31 Ms. IRIS BATISTA DE OMENA SILVA

32 Ms. JESSICA CRISTINA ARLINDO DOS SANTOS

33 Ms. GABRIELLE LEMOS GARCIA

34 Ms. Jaqueline de Moraes Amorim

35 Ms. Marina Soares Ribeiro Medeiros

36 Ms. Luiza Monteiro Moura da Costa

37 Ms. Luana Azero Albernaz Muniz

38 Ms. Beatriz Mesquita

39 Ms. Jessica da Silva Oliveira

40 Mr. Altamir Júnior

41 Mr. Isaque Braz

42 Mr. Julio Lima

43 Mr. Paulo Miyao

44 Mr. Pedro Moura

45 Mr. Isaque Paiva

46 Mr. Davi Ramos

47 Mr. Victor Bonfim

48 Mr. Alexandre de Souza

49 Mr. Marcus Almeida

50 Ms. Luanna Alzuguir

51 Ms. Fernanda Mazzelli

52 Ms. Mayra Mazza

US TRYOUTS (SAN DIEO, SAN ANTONIO)

1 Mr. Marcel Fortuna

2 Mr. Nisar Loynab, Ribeiro

3 Mr. Edwin Najmi

4 Mr. John Owning

5 Mr. Endhyr Meza

6 Ms. Emily Wetzel

7 Ms. Michella Almeida

8 Mr. Luiz Sergio Branco Correa,

9 Mr. Rafael Lovato J

10 Mr. Manuel Diaz,

11 Mr. Raynald Ray,

12 Mr. Tariq Radi,

13 Mr. Pete O’Neal

14 Ms. Sijara Eubanks,

15 Ms. Danielle Alvarez,

SOUTH AFRICA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. David Wesley Levey

2 Mr. Brendon Groenewald

3 Mr. Jordan Alfred Machtle

4 Mr. Adolfo Daniel De Figueiredo Correia

5 Mr. Wesley Charles George

6 Mr. Emyr Sanzel Lopes Queiroz

7 Ms. Kerry-Anne Mathieson

8 Ms. Penny Thomas

ARGENTINA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Javier Irigoitía

2 Mr. Christopher Moncayo

3 Mr. Rubén Belviso

4 Ms. Lira Aguilar

POLAND TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Alexander Trans

2 Mr. Bruno Ivan Tomasetti

3 Mr. Daniel Wrześniewski

4 Mr. Eduardo Rios

5 Mr. Gerard Łabiński

6 Mr. Kamil Dąbrówka

7 Mr. Maciej Dłużewski

8 Mr. Maciej Kozak

9 Mr. Maciej Polok

10 Mr. Oliver Geddes

Victorious in Japan, brothers Marcos Yoshio Souza and Roberto Satoshi will again compete at the WPJJ in Abu Dhabi. Publicity photo.

NEW ZEALAND TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Michael Torcasio

2 Mr. Falzone Brian George

3 Mr. Scott Alexander Geoffrey

4 Mr. Bouzaid Dustin Micheal

5 Mr. Anderson Samuel Francis

6 Ms. Cardoso Jacqueline

7 Ms. Okyay Leyla

MEXICO TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Fabio Vargas

2 Mr. Julio Cordova

3 Mr. Sergio Verduzco

4 Ms. Danae Morin

ROMANIA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Camil Moldoveanu

2 Mr. Remus Corbei

3 Mr. Ion Pascu

4 Ms. Tereza Cordeiro

FINLAND TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Risto Ville Juhani Vesanto

2 Mr. Max Leonard Lindblad

3 Ms. Suvi Eviliina Karelehto

4 Mr. Janne Aleksi Autio

5 Mr. Otto Valtteri Kuikka

6 Mr. Hannu Pekka Karjalainen

7 Ms. Venla Orvokki Luukkonen

PORTUGAL TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Jedrzej Loska

2 Mr. Maxime Olivier

3 Mr. Luca Anacoreto

4 Mr. Marcelo Bernardo

5 Mr. Vladimiro Afonso

6 Mr. Luis Ramos

7 Mr. Victor Cardoso

8 Mr. Aly Lopes

9 Mr. Arturo Salas

10 Mr. Daniel Svensson

11 Ms. Kritin Doeblin

12 Ms. Shanti Abelha

13 Ms. Mille Pedersen

ENGLAND TRYOUTS

1 Ms Yasmin Wilson

2 Raphael Waszklewicz Schmidt

3 Ms Olga Yashevska

4 Nilton Cesar Garcia

5 Nicholas Robinson

6 Mathias Fernandes Ribeiro

7 Gustavo Jose Dos Santos Oliveira

8 Christopher Stephen Bowen

9 Arya Esfandmaz

10 Anna Maria Bartkowlak

11 Alex Cabanes Gisbet

12 Braulio Estima

CHINA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. YAMADA SHIGETAKA

2 Ms. XU XIN NING

3 Mr. KOJIMA KENSAKU

4 Mr. HUANG ZHENG HUA

5 Mr. LI YU LIANG

MALASIA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Seungho Yang

2 Mr. Shane Kohei Suzuki

3 Mr. Jordan Jack Roberts

4 Ms. Magdalene Meann Wei Tan

RUSSIA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Farafonov Ivan

2 Mr. Bilarov Abdurakhman

3 Mr. Potatuskhin Vladislav

4 Ms. Zenkevich Elena

CANADA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Brandon E. McGourty

2 Mr. Joel Hadden

3 Mr. Nick Alan Schrock

4 Mr. Alessandro Camargo

5 Mr. Keenan Cornelius

6 Mr. Wellington Dias

7 Mr. Jonathan Torres

8 Mr. De’Alonzio Jackson

9 Mr. James Harbison

10 Mr. Peter Roberts

11 Ms. Satricia Knake

12 Ms. Mackenzie Dern

13 Ms. Alison Tremblay

14 Mr. Fabio Holanda

JAPAN TRYOUTS

1 Mr. WATANABE TAKAMASA

2 Mr. KOIKE KLEBER

3 Mr. WONG KEE ANDREW

4 Mr. IKEJIRI SOSUKE

5 Mr. SEKINE HIDEKI

6 Mr. YANAGISAWA TOMOYA

7 Mr. CRISTIANO CARIOCA

8 Mr. DA SIVA REDERSON

9 Mr. MARCOS TOSHIO

10 Mr. TANIGUTI RODRIGO JIRO

11 Mr. ROBERTO SATOSHI

12 Ms. SEKI YUKO

13 Ms. SHIODA SAYAKA

14 Ms. MIAO JIE

SOUTH KOREA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Lee Hee Sung

2 Mr. An Cholwoong

3 Mr. Jung Howon

4 Mr. Hwang Myengse

5 Ms. Kim Eunji

AUSTRALIA TRYOUTS

1 Mr. Alexandre Prates

2 Mr. Roumanos Moussa

3 Mr. Tony Torrisi

4 Mr. Nikola Skoric

5 Mr. Remo Curcio

6 Mr. Shaher Khan

7 Mr. David Marinakis

8 Mr. Thiago Braga

9 Mr. Kit Dale

10 Mr. Neil Owen

11 Mr. Michael Wilson

12 Ms. Meagan Green

13 Ms. Munn Sunny

14 Ms. Maren Frerichs

Augusto Ferrari sweeps Theodoro Canal in final of absolute division at Abu Dhabi tryouts. Photo: GRACIEMAG.com.

On the 22nd of January, at Clube Canto do Rio club in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro State, the World Pro Jiu-Jitsu Championship (refresh your memory here) was held to determine the last batch of Brazilians to earn all-expenses-paid trips to the big event in Abu Dhabi next April.

Champions like Rodolfo Vieira, Gabriel Willcox and Gabi Garcia, among others, earned their way to the United Arab Emirates. Now the winner of the absolute division, team Cicero Costha’s Augusto Ferrari, netted himself a cool 400 dollars for his efforts, to boot.

In the open weight final, Augusto pulled Theodoro Canal into his guard and got the sweep, before going on to finish. Watch and learn from Ferrari:

The youngest absolute champion in the history of the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, Fernando “Margarida” Pontes spent this week teaching seminars in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, specifically in the cities of São Leopoldo, Santa Maria, Caxias do Sul and state capital Porto Alegre. While in Brazil’s south, Margarida demonstrated the techniques that led to his conquest of three world championships.

“Margarida showed positional details to around 150 athletes in all. And all of them were awed by his technique,” remarked black belt Diandro Maciel of Sul Jiu-Jitsu academy.

For next year, Margarida promises a return to competition—and in Rio Grande do Sul itself: “It was a great visit; I met up with great friends and was invited to take part in the Abu Dhabi [WPJJ] trials in the town of Gramado. I aim to be in tip-top shape in 2012. That Arabian title is all my career is missing,” he said in closing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATi2bIOTGVs

The World Pro only comes around again in 2012, but Manaus is already getting ready to host Jiu-Jitsu’s finest, according to information provided by our collaborator Arthur Castro.

The biggest city in the Brazilian state of Amazonas will be a venue for one of the qualifying legs for the tournament in Abu Dhabi, planned for November 19 and 20. Black belt Fábio Holanda is passing through the city to review Manaus’s installation.

Fábio is the head organizer of the tryouts in the cities of Natal, Brazil; Montreal, Canada; and now in Manaus, and he confirmed the competition will be held at Amadeu Teixeira gymnasium, which he says has excellent facilities.

According to Holanda, Manaus will host one of the tryouts due to a partnership with the Manaus prefecture and the Amazonas state government.

Fighter Roberto Pato is part of the team preparing the city to host the event and is one of the few natives of Amazonas state to compete in Abu Dhabi. According to him, big names are likely to make it to the tryouts, like current weight and absolute champion Rodolfo Vieira, Rodrigo Cavaca, and champions Gabi Garcia and Luanna Alzuguir.

Some news regarding this year’s tryouts, to kick off in Natal, is that fighters will only be allowed to try out in their countries of origin, unlike in previous years, where a number of Brazilians qualified for the main event at tryouts in the USA. This means the battle for berths in Brazil will be all the more hotly disputed. The prize money for winning the brown/black belt tryouts remains the same: 4,000 dollars to the winner of the absolute division and 1,000 to the runner-up. The reward for winning the other divisions is a all-expenses-paid trip to Abu Dhabi, which comes to around 8,000 dollars, according to the organizers’ calculations.

Jeff Glover at 2007 No-Gi WOrlds / Photo: GRACIEMAG archives

Not even the threat of a tragic tsunami held back the submission-grappling beats yesterday in San Diego. After the arena where the North American East Coast tryouts for the 2011 ADCC were to be held was turned into an emergency center, the organizers acted quickly in moving the event to the ballroom of Four Point Sheraton hotel, according to Kid Peligro.

The big name of the event, according to Peligro, was lightweight Jeff Glover (Paragon). Besides the Ricardo Franjinha student, four more men and two women secured berths at the 2011 ADCC, to take ploace in England.

Glover won the under-65kg division after submitting all his opponents. In the under-77kg division, Enrico Coco beat Jason Manly on points in the final.

JJ Holmes won the under-88kg division upon beating Don Ortega, while James Puopolo won the under-99kg one, with Jared Rosholt taking the heaviest weight group, the over-99 kg one.

Ion the lightweight female division, Cathilee Albert beat Kiri Liao in the final, while in the over-65 kg division, Penny Thomas secured her place in yet another ADCC, finishing her adversary in the final.

Check out the photo gallery by Kid Peligro by clicking here.

This year the traditional ADCC will be in England, and tryouts for the beloved submission wrestling tournament are beginning the world over.

On the coming 12th of March, in San Diego, California, there are the North American tryouts, exclusively for American and Canadian athletes.

The tournament will take place at the National Guard Armory, on Mesa College Drive, San Diego, and begin at 9 am. For further information, www.adccna.com.

Any questions can be addressed by writing the organizer at emilionovoa@aol.com.

Barral felt pains at January 29 tryouts. Photo: John Lamonica.

Few in sport Jiu-Jitsu have a record to match Rômulo Barral’s. The Gracie Barra fighter has collected three silver medals from the absolute division of the world championship, two world titles, a No-Gi World title, some shut outs with teammates, etc., etc…

The current world absolute and medium heavyweight runner-up with the enviable CV was bummed out. The reason being the pain he felt in his knee at the end of January in Las Vegas, while participating in the tryouts for the Abu Dhabi World Pro.

But his funk is now behind him, he insists, falling back on Jiu-Jitsu philosophy to help pick up his spirits: get out from underneath, get up, and win.

“You get bummed out for a few seconds, but never let it get to you! I’m already getting back to full blast,” he told GRACIEMAG.com today.

“My leg is a lot better now, thank God. I had the injury looked at and I had a strained medial collateral ligament. In a few days I’ll be 100%! And the best part is that I’m training again,” he says, to his fans’ relief.

“When I operated on my shoulder I trained using only one arm for a year and a half, so why not train with only one leg for a few weeks, right? The thing is that I think I started up again a bit early, I was missing that adrenaline, I felt I was fine, so I entered the tryouts,” he adds.

“So unfortunately my knee popped early in my match with (Marco) Sharpei, when he was in half-guard and I tried to cross my knee over to pass. I felt pain the whole match, and then I felt I ruined the operation I had after the 2010 Worlds… I iced it and decided to give up on the competition, but I couldn’t resist and ended up doing the semifinal anyways, even though I was nervous about it. But I realized there was no way I could do the final with Kron. It was a shame, I’m sure we would have had a great match.

“Then I got past the sadness because I thought it was something really serious but turned out to be temporary. I’m already focused on training and I’m confident I’ll have a great year. My main objective is the 2011 Worlds. I’m going to go for the absolute and, of course, the Worlds Pro in Abu Dhabi, since the organization confirmed me for the competition. I’m raring to compete, and as soon as 100% I’ll be back in the mix to throw some muscle around!” said Barral in finishing.

“We’re going with JT at black belt, Jimmy Harbison at brown, purple belt world champions Frank Camacho, Andris Brunovskis, and Sijara Eubanks, as well as also-purple belt Keenan Cornelius and many others,” said Lloyd.

Check out the team’s training camp for the 2011 Worlds.