On MARCH 03, 2019, Seul, South-Korea witnessed the most important professional grappling invitational currently hosted in Asia, the Spyder Korea Invitational.
An important winter sports international brand stationed in Korea, Spyder has more recently gained interest in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, investing plenty of effort in developing their brand-awareness in our sport/martial art. This endeavor has been designed with quality as its main requirement, a feature made clear in every aspect of the promotion’s invitational thus far. From their classy match-making to the ‘look and feel’ presented on stage, graphics as well as the commentating – with the great John Evans of BJJ Breakdown once again doing a fantastic job behind the microphone, Spyder’s events are becoming a big reference in grappling.
As far as the matches themselves, this month’s SPYDER INVITATIONAL was laid out as a feeder for a ‘finals’ tournament to be held on a future date, and it seems as though the athletes were well aware of the importance of putting on a good show and be featured at that end of year tournament. Outstanding matches through and through, with two colored belts coming out as the tournament’s headliners for their terrific performances.
One of those colored belts was under 76 kg tournament winner, Mateus Lutes. The brown belt of Marcelo Garcia was on fire, beating two legends of the game in Osvaldo ‘Queixinho’ and Augusto ‘Tanquinho’. Lutes has conquered almost everything there was to conquer in the mixed brown-black belts divisions he has competed in recently, proving that the gap between these two ranks is razor thin these days, particularly at the highest level. Mateus will be returning soon to Korea to test his skills against the best.
Another athlete to stand out from the crowd was Rodrigo Feijão’s student, purple belt Anderson Muniz. The lanky grappler had an outstanding performance throughout the tournament, showing great composure in defeating two big names of our sport, namely Matheus Diniz and Roberto Jimenez. His only loss of the tournament coming from the experienced Claudio Calasans by referee decision. Great future ahead for Muniz without a doubt.
Tim Spriggs was also on fire in Korea, using his classic takedown game and pressure passing to defeat three of the best BJJ soldiers of today. Conor McGregor once said “precision beats power”, but it is better when you have both as Spriggs proved this weekend, easy work for the American.
Full match results below.
Under 76 KILOGRAMS
1/4 Finals
– Mateus Lutes def. Daniel Sathler by Kimura lock
– Augusto Mendes def. Lucas Rocha by 6×0 pts
– Levi Jones def. Mathias Luna by 1 advantage (0x0 pts)
– Osvaldo Moizinho def. Sanghyeoun Lee by armlock
Semi-Finals
– Mateus Lutes def. Augusto Mendes by referee decision
– Osvaldo Moizinho def. Levi Jones by referee decision
Final
– Mateus Lutes def. Osvaldo Moizinho by advantages (2×2 pts)
3rd Place Match
– Levi Jones def. Augusto Mendes by 6×0 pts
Under 100 KILOGRAMS
1/4 Finals
– Anderson Muniz def. Roberto Jimenez by DQ (knee reaping)
– Claudio Calasans def. Marcos Tinoco by 6×0 pts
– Tim Spriggs def. Rudson Mateus by 2×0 pts
– Matheus Diniz def. Hyungcheul Kim by 13×0
Semi-Finals
– Claudio Calasans def. Anderson Muniz by referee decision
– Tim Spriggs def. Matheus Diniz by 3×0
Final
– Tim Spriggs def. Claudio Calasans by 6×0
3rd Place Match
– Anderson Muniz def. Matheus Diniz by referee decision
