"War on the Floor" - 1st grappling competition in Darwin...

The competition was organised by our club Marrara Martial Arts and they had submission grappling and C-class MMA fights on for the day. The day was split into thirds with the first third for the submission grappling then the MMA fights followed by an open weight round robin at the end.

There were about 25 competitors from 4 different clubs which might not sound like much, but for Darwin it was more than I expected. There was even a decent sized crowd of spectators too (again more than I expected) that came to support their family/friends and even better, they seemed pretty well educated about the sport as they cheered guard passes and submission attempts.

The competition ran smoothly from about 10am till 2pm. I'm glad to say there were no major injuries apart from some sprains etc and all the matches for both the grappling and MMA were pretty evenly matched size and skill wise. All matches were 5mins with a 3 min overtime for matches ruled a draw.

This is a pic of the mat area and the spectators during one of the MMA fights. I don't have many photos or video at the moment but will hopefully get some later in the week to post up.There was a professional photographer there that took many a good photo so will be keeping an eye on his website throughout the week.


My matches
I ended up having 3 matches today all which I was happy with regardless of the results. Not all the best outcomes but I got 1 win, loss and a draw. A draw (with a 3 min overtime) in my weight division and a win and loss in the Open weight round robin at the end, both by triangles.

I was going to write about the matches but I think that'd be too lengthy and I'm too lazy to write in detail, which I've probably already forgotten half of, so I'll wait till I get some video and pictures to show of them.


Overall it was an awesome day. No one got seriously injured and it was a great way to meet the members of the other clubs and get a scope of the local grappling/MMA scene. Hopefully we will have more local events like this because from the competitor and spectator turn out I'm pretty sure everybody would be keen on it.

Here is a short 11 second clip showing the mat area and spectators.