A stellar performance from Amanda Leve led to a dominating victory over heavyweight stand-out, Gabi Garcia. As time ran out, Leve was mounted on the back of Garcia with both hooks in and her arms raised in victory.
The match started with about two and a half minutes of stand-up battle before Garcia pulled guard. Leve says she was expecting this, “I had a feeling she was gonna sit guard… I kind of just [practiced] grabbing that one leg and trying to put it over her head so that she would expose her back.” And that’s exactly how it went down. Within seconds, Leve was on Garcia’s back with a tight RNC locked to the point that Garcia’s face began to change color, but Garcia was able to eventually escape.
In the short time that Leve was on the bottom, she was able to pull off a quick tripod sweep to come back on top in an instant. “That’s one of my favorite sweeps. I try it on all the guys at the gym, but they all know it by now so I can’t get it. When I get to do it in competition, it’s usually a pretty high percentage.”
By the time she gave her post-fight interview, she was still gassed from the 15-minute battle, dripping sweat and taking deep breaths but absolutely glowing with pride.
“I wanna start going towards MMA, and I was kind of using this as my last big jiu-jitsu tournament, so ending it like this was kind of a ‘Hell Yeah!’ kind of deal.”
If this does turn out to be her last big jiu-jitsu tournament, it’s a great way to go out. Thanks for the show, Amanda.
