If you didn’t already know, Derek “Cat” Clarke is on a mission. A mission to provide innovative live invitational submission only event to the jiu jitsu community. With his Submission Series Pro series he gave us a taste of what he can do, on Saturday July 30th his newest brainchild Chokes by the Ocean will be broadcast live through an internet live feed.
The event will start off with a regular no gi tournament by the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, and then later in the evening the live streaming awesomeness begins. There are countless names on the card including Dainis Nguyen, Jon Foster, Oliver Taza and many more. The event will be tapping into a deep and often undiscovered talent pool that exists in Canada.
The reality is that this event is going to be a continuation of the trend that Clark has started: high end events that give lesser known competitors a chance to shine. I reached out to Clark to get some of his thoughts on the event, and what makes it exciting:
“Obviously Oliver Taza coming is one of the very exciting aspects of this card. I have never had a member of either Tristar or the Danaher Death Squad compete at our events; so that’s exciting. He is competing against a kid named Shawn MacManus who is a relatively newcomer on our scene; he’s been doing Judo at the highest level forever and then came out of nowhere this year to submit one of the very biggest names we have here in an absolute division to win the entire event. So, we are very interested in seeing how he can handle the next step.”
While you may not have heard of Taza, he’s been cutting a path of destruction in the submission only scene, most recently beating 10th Planet black belt Nathan Orchard by heel hook…
I was actually present for the above mentioned victory by McManus; he took on a much larger and more seasoned competitor and was able to make short work of him. McManus will be an underdog, but don’t be surprised to see him get a triangle or arm bar relatively early into the match.
“Chokes by the Ocean is a little bit similar to Sub Series events; except we have a full on NOGI tournament taking place during the day; and of course, this is our first ever PPV; so it will look a lot different than our past events. Two cameras, many angles and a lot more fluidity and less quiet time. It’s definitely going to be a lot faster and entertaining.”
This event will cost a meager $6.53 (Canadian) to stream. If you’ve ever seen one of Cat’s other events, you know that it’s well worth every penny of that.
The main card is:
DAINIS NGUYEN vs. MIKE KITSON
Oliver Taza vs. Shawn MacManus
Gavin Tucker vs. Judo Jon Williams
Matt Desroshes vs. Richard Arsenault
Jon Foster vs. Nic Michael
Shawn Wallace vs. Nate Obrien
Chances are you’ve never heard of most of these names, but if you look each of them up, you’ll see that they are all high level jiu jitsu competitors who will show up to win and will put on a phenomenal show.
Looking forward to the future, Clark has this to say:
“We are full on again, needed a year or so to break to gather what we had learned and revamp to go back at it. We are the Canadian Leaders, there is no doubt about that; so we are headed across Canada – this time skipping Ontario and hitting Alberta and BC, along with a show planned in New Brunswick, possibly outdoors if all goes well.”
Support the event by tuning in THIS SATURDAY at www.subseriespro.cleeng.com
