Dan Manasoiu Dominates At Emerald City Invitational Open Weight Tournament

NOVEMBER 07, 2022. This weekend we had the opportunity to witness the 5th edition of the Emerald City Invitational, a no-gi EBI ruleset event that featured an absolute tournament with a solid cash prize.

Although we are big fans of independent promotors like ECI, who have been putting excellent cards for us, fans, we do have to press how EBI rules are the least favorable ruleset to follow as a spectator and one that could be adversarial to the growth of well-rounded grapplers. After all, grappling is an all-encompassing sport with more than just submissions and we hope the future generations of grapplers aren’t simply good at sub-defense. Time and time again we are seeing athletes being dominated on every exchange but, using solely defense they advance to the EBI overtime stages, a strategy that was also used in droves at Emerald City.

Rant aside, this was a fun event to follow and the best man did come out on top. “Big Dan” Manasoiu of Team New Wave fully dominated his opponents from start to finish while playing more from a top position than we have seen of him in the past. John Danaher’s pupil came in ready and passed guards, mounted, and took backs while also attacking legs when required. Dan showed there is a lot of skill beneath his 270 lbs frame.

Equally fun to watch was Austin Baker, the former member of GB now under a new banner, Sol Academy. Baker has always been a tough man to beat, but looked very composed and technical in his defeat of the massive human that was his semi-finals challenger, Franco Pana, while looking equally skillfun in his win over Steve Joachim in the quarter finals.