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New York National Pro: Miyao Gets Guard Passed (Again!)

New York National Pro: Miyao Gets Guard Passed (Again!)

Johnny Tama made his black belt debut only last week but is already making waves. He passed the guard of Joao Miyao in the dying seconds of their match. Down 2-0, Tama secured top position with less than 20 seconds on the clock to be declared winner.

Feb 20, 2017 by Erin Herle
New York National Pro: Miyao Gets Guard Passed (Again!)
The New York National Pro allowed for 10 absolute division winners to earn a ticket to the Abu Dhabi World Pro in April. 

Johnny Tama made his black belt debut only last week but is already making waves. He passed the guard of Joao Miyao in the dying seconds of their match. Down 2-0, Tama secured top position with less than 20 seconds on the clock to be declared winner. 

This marks the second time Joao Miyao has had his guard passed in a tournament in a matter of weeks, having conceded a pass to Gabriel Moraes at Euros. 


Gianni Grippo had a great day submitting nearly all of his opponents from the back, and winning double gold in both weight category and the -77kg absolute, closing out with Tama. 

The female purple, brown, and black belts fought in their own weight divisions but were then combined into one open class division where many of the girls did not show up (the names are automatically entered instead of having the athletes sign up on their own). 

It narrowed down to brown belts Tara White and Jessica Swanson, and black belt Amanda 'Tubby' Santana, who had the most matches for the gold. Tubby won two matches by points and two by submission for a ticket to Abu Dhabi for the second consecutive year. 



At brown belt, Marlus de Souza of SAS Team secured gold in the -77kg open class, with seven fights for the day, losing to GFTeam's Dante Leon in the weight category final but later getting his revenge with a submission of his own in the absolute semis. 

GFTeam's other star, brown belt stand-out Gutemberg Pereira, won his ticket in the -110kg open class, coming back from an injury that left him out of Europeans earlier this year. He met a familiar face -- Rafael 'Babilonia' Cristovao of Unity Jiu-Jitsu -- twice, earning the decision in two close matches. 

In the final of the absolute, the last match of the day, Pereira ran up the points against Jacob Prussman with a few guard passes before submitting with an armbar.



The purple belt -77kg open weight class was own by 'Cobrinha Jr', better known as Kennedy Maciel. In the final he passed Italo Moura's guard, a feat akin to seeing somebody pass one of the Miyaos. The Cicero Costha young gun hasn't had that happen to him in competition for a while. Kennedy also secured the gold in the -69kg weight division with four matches and two submissions. 

In the blue belt categories, Murilo Santana's students won all three tickets: -110kg blue belt adult male was won by Christian Garcia, -77kg blue belt adult male was won by Steven Davis, and Chloe McNally took home the ticket in the open weight blue belt female division. 

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