Thoughts on Metamoris 3

Well, first up I absolutely loved the show... pretty much every fight was interesting to watch and the fighters all went for it with lots of aggressive attacking. So specific fights...

Zak Maxwell vs. Sean Roberts
Thought Maxwell looked awesome. His style is pretty much what I try to do, solid ultra tight basics... slow and steady progress to a dominant position. Sean Roberts flexibility is ridiculous, what a guard to try to pass. Loved the fight.

Gui Mends vs. Samir Chantre
As expected, an easy submission for Gui. I thought this was the most pointless fight on the card but it was still great to watch.

Dean Lister vs. Babalu
I was hugely impressed with Babalu, not only being able to defend against everything Lister offered but also attacking flat out whenever he got the chance. For two big guys and a 20 minute fight the pace was amazing. Probably my favourite fight of the night.

Keenan Cornelius vs. Kevin Casey
So Casey was in for Magalhaes. I thought Keenan would get the submission much quicker than he did so fair do's to Casey, he showed he definitely has great jiu-jitsu. A pretty boring fight at times, but then it can't be easy to do much but defend against a guard like Keenan's.

Rafael Mendes vs. Clark Gracie
I was very surprised that this turned out to be the worst fight of the night. Nothing but repeated failed attempts to take the back from berimbolo. I have seen people criticising Clark for just defending, but what else was he meant to do when Rafa is attacking with his best guard attack? I just wish Rafa had chosen to go to the top and tried to pass rather than falling to his guard again every time... or at least tried something other than berimbolo.

Royler Gracie vs. Eddie Bravo
So surely it's gonna be hard for a 48 and 43 year old to keep up the level of action which had been seen in the rest of the fights? That's what I thought, but man these two gave an awesome performance. An amazing ending to a great event!
It's easy to be critical of people in fights, and I've seen many people doing just that, so all I'll say is that I was surprised it seemed Royler hadn't really studied Bravo's game and just stuck to the same plan of attack even after being repeatedly swept with the same thing.


Wow, I really enjoyed this event and I hope Metamoris goes from strength to strength. It was a bit sad to see that loads of people were getting free streams of it, it's one of a very small number of options for professional competitors to get paid to fight. Support the event!!

I've read an unbelievable amount of nonsense written about Gracie/Bravo... people saying Eddie Bravo "won" it. No, it was a draw... the only way to win was to submit and he didn't do that. Obviously he had the better of the match, but it was a draw. Then I read people saying how Bravo was sick after and was totally gassed but Royler was ok, so if they'd kept fighting... NO, it was a 20min fight, they knew that going in. Being tired after is a good thing cos it means Eddie had gone as hard as he could over the distance. There's no point having anything in reserve. "Eddie would have won on points"... but there were no points, this is meaningless... they weren't fighting with points in mind. Man, it was a great fight and people should just be happy with that. Unreal showing from a 43 and 48 year old, congratulations to them!!

A point above ties in with my only big criticism... the commentators talking about "under IBJJF" rules all the time. What other sport does this?? Commentate on how things would work under a different ruleset? I found it really annoying and off-putting. They should just stick to describing the techniques being used/tried, talk about how an attack or counter worked etc

Regardless, I'll definitely be buying the next event :)