This past Saturday night, there were several events throughout the jiu-jitsu world. One that didn’t get much buzz but had some extremely exciting matchups was Grappling Idiots’ first outing, Winner Winner Turkey Dinner.
The event featured some of the top competitors in the country in an eight-man 170lb tournament as well as several superfights with grapplers ranging from local purple belts to high level, internationally renowned black belts. The main event superfight was a blistering match between Keith Krikorian and Mike Wacker. Krikorian has been making waves lately beating some of the top names in the world, including his recent matching silver medals at the East and West Coast ADCC trials (which ultimately were his ticket to compete at the “Olympics” of our sport), and Wacker is a long-time staple of the northeastern grappling scene with wins over Diego Sanchez and Ryan Hall.
The full lineup of the event was as follows:
- Aaron Harris vs Sean Ashley
- Cathryn Ivy vs Cheryll Rock
- Carlos Santiago vs Mike Rosa
- Matt Dvorovy vs Andrew Tackett
- Rene Sousa vs Freddy Araque
- AJ Discianni vs Andrew Solano
- Quarter Finals – Athos Miranda vs Kyle Lynch
- Quarter Finals – Steven Ramos vs Aaron Harris
- Quarter Finals – Felipe Silva vs Dylan Falduto
- Quarter Finals – Tom Cellmare vs William Tackett
- Javier Palomo vs Jackson Farjardo
- Tom McMahon vs Marlon Suarez
- Kate Egan vs Trinity Pun
- Miguel Restrepo vs Mike Sullivan
- Chris Shahgholi vs Emil Fischer
- Spencer Mumme vs Tim McNamara
Semi Finals 1 Semi Finals 2
- Jacob Prussman vs Drew Puzon
- Chris Kerbis vs John Battle
- Keith Krikorian vs Mike Wacker
Finals
Here is a preview of the event featuring clips from each match:
Perhaps the most impressive and game-changing element of the event was the fact that the event promoter set up the pay per view so that each competitor could get a portion of their individual PPV sales if you put the competitor’s surname in the “Promo Code” section at checkout (for example you could use MY name, “Fischer”). The event costs $6 to view and can be seen here:
