With about double the amount of athletes as last year’s tournament, the Big Apple BJJ Open fortified the trend: Jiu Jitsu is getting more popular than ever in New York City. The tournament had close to 300 registered athletes from 65 different schools, included a kids and a teens division and a black belt superfight.
Danilo Cherman beat who John Carlquist to win the superfight. Both athletes later shared kind words about each other. “Congratulations to the event” said Cherman “John is a tough athlete. He could be competing in the Masters division but he chooses to compete in general division. He fought on the NY Open. I knew he had a tough guard but I was able to pass it, so it’s great. I won, so it’s all good!”
John commented that he was able to pull guard, which was part of his plan but then was taken aback by the pressure Danilo put upon him “He’s got really good pressure, really tough guy”. He also talked about his plans this year “Yeah, I am 40. I do usually senior 1 but I fought everybody in senior 1 Black Belt. You just get old together. Master too. This year I made a plan, I’m going to do adult all year. And done quite a few tournaments but everybody is tougher. And it’s longer. I am good for 10 minutes but the next match you don’t catch up like everybody does.”
Danilo also commented on his plans for the future “I will keep training. I am opening my academy in Connecticut. [Victor] Shaolin is giving me a lot of support, so I will stay around here and fight some regional tournaments. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to get back to fight MMA again.”
The rest of the event went as smooth as the superfight, with quite a few fights worth watching and a great kids division.
Check out the gallery below for some stills of the day.
[flickr set=72157629822469724]
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