VictoryInDefeat:GuilhermeMendes

Guilherme Mendes and the lesson of a Worlds lost

Seen as a shoo in for the world title, 2009’s champion Guilherme Mendes ended up dropping out of this year’s world championship earlier than expected, after his very first match. Looking ahead, Guilherme forges ahead training for his upcoming challenges and considers competing in the featherweight division alongside his brother Rafael, the current world champion. Check out what he had to say in this interview with GRACIEMAG.com.

You lost prematurely at this year’s World Championship. Did you learn some lesson or come up with anything positive from this not-too-pleasant experience?

I believe that everything we go through, regardless of if it is good or bad, provides us experience. It certainly was a great experience. At the time I was really sad because I train a lot for that to not happen, and, unfortunately, this time it happened. As much as we don’t like it, losing is a part of the sport, we’re all subject to it; it happens. But that doesn’t make me a worse athlete or undermine my confidence. I won the Worlds five years in a row, and this time this is what happened. I won all the other events and ended up making a mistake that cost me at the Worlds. But it certainly gives me strength to carry on pursuing my objectives. Next year I’ll go after my sixth world title, my second as a black belt, God willing! I’ll be more experienced and more mature.

You had trouble making weight in the light featherweight division. Are you thinking of moving up?

I weigh 68 kg and cut weight to make light featherweight. I fought in this division for a year and it was great for me, I beat great athletes, was champion of Europe, Brazil and the World as a black belt. If it were up to me, I’d be in the featherweight division for the challenges there. We’ll decide that soon, as soon as the whole Atos competition team is together for training. The thing that made cutting weight for the Worlds hard was that I injured my knee in the final at the Brazilian Nationals, which took place two weeks earlier, where I won but left in a lot of pain. I had spend two weeks training suffering the effects of medicine because my knee hurt so much, and that ended up getting in the way when cutting weight.

But I’m not one to make excuses. If I lost it was because I made a mistake, and if I went in to fight it was because I knew I could win it. So there’s no excuse, now it’s all about forging ahead and carrying on in training like I’ve been doing to win, God willing.

What have you and your brother (Rafael) been up to?

We’re really happy. Right after the Worlds we did a series of seminars in the USA and Canada. Next month Rafael and I will head to Europe. We’ll stay there two weeks and do some seminars in Switzerland, Italy and Turkey. Then we’ll return home to train because we’ll already be starting into our schedule for 2011. In October we have a seminar in Panama, in November we’re going to Asia (probably Japan, Korea and Guam) and Canada. We’re getting recognition for the work we do, and all we can do is be thankful for it. We’re getting a lot of praise on our Facebook page (see here) and that just makes us happier and more determined. We really like teaching and showing people our style and our ways of training. Folks are getting more interested in learning Jiu-Jitsu every day and we’re seeing great academies and promising athletes outside the country. All that is the fruits of the demand for the knowledge they have.

Any competition coming up?

I’m training a lot with my brother and the gang here in Rio Claro. We’ve already started our physical conditioning work with our trainer Thiago Mendes at Octane, but I don’t know when we’ll compete next. For sure we’ll be in some event at the end of the year, we just haven’t decided which yet.

ONRA:TheCrankSpeaketh

taken from the Shoyoroll Forums–Frank Camacho sounds off on the bigger and better picture of MarianasMixedMartial Arts

Buenas yan Hafa Adai!
I’ve been keeping up with the forum and just thought I throw it out there… I just turned 21 this year and when I started fighting MMA 5-6 years ago It was really inspiring to see local chamorro boys train hard and put everything on the line to fight guys from Hawaii, Cali, Japan, and other international fighters! It was real cool to see local boys train to fight these guys from off island with a whole new game… Man we are a small dot on the map, anything we can learn from off island competitors is very important for MMA in the Marianas as a whole. Melc fighting Tyson, Terence fighting Kamaka, Luigi Fioravanti, Tetsuji Kato, Joe Camacho, and a whole lot more.

Even if the these top names didn’t fight a local guy, it will open up a young and up and comers eyes to one day fight at the high level “ONE DAY ILL FIGHT THAT DUDE AND BEAT HIM!” Or just watching high level MMA guys go at it… even a spectator can learn SOOOO MUCHHH! Its only for the evolution of Marianas MMA! Thats what we are trying to do right? See… Learn… Apply… and have a Local UFC World Champ!

Dont get me wrong… Local match ups are the shit! Guys fighting super hard, representing themselves! but when its a guam vs guam.. its only a guam learning experience. Get what im saying? Guam vs Greg Jackson? Whether win lose or draw he WILL learn something that he will apply in his game and show his teammates and his teammates will show their friends and its a domino effect! Guam WINS! GUAM LEARNS! Another weapon to add!

For example.. When I fought Luigi Fioravanti! I just turned 18, got a call from Ken or Eli.. (dont remember) “Frank you wanna fight Luigi from ATT?” With No hesitation I said of course! I was gonna go in there, balls to the wall and fight my F*C**IN* ass off to win…ANDD I wanted to taste the next level of MMA, and bring it back to my team and let them know what i learned and what i felt during the fight! I ended up losing the fight via TKO Cut. Oh yeah I was upset. Hell Yeah I wanted to Win. But the reward was way more that i had realized. That fight opened my eyes to MMA. That fight made me realize that “WOW I fought a 5 time UFC vet (at the time) and had a good ass time! I can really do this and bring back to the island!”

Here I am in Maryland training under Master Lloyd working on my skill sets. By the way someone mentioned that me and tuck are working on bjj and counting our money blah blah… idk what he said but.. check this… Look at Every Champion sir! Every Champion has at least ONE high level martial art under their belt. BJ (he just lost but he was a reining champ) High level BJJ World Champion, GSP High Level Wrestling, Brock high level wrestling, Shogun high level muay thai good overall mma game. anderson BJJ Black belt and good MMA Striking. The UFC was built on BJJ.. on the Gracies.. something must be working. and for these Champs.. Why not do what the champions are doing? They are making it work!

Sorry for the novel guys but just felt like I throw it out there! MMA is too beautiful to look at the smaller picture. Bring the Level Up! That definitely opened my eyes up! And I wouldnt be doing what Im doing if I didnt see our local boys fight tough big names.

Good Vibes yan Si Yu’us Ma’ase

http://CrankEffect.com

-Crank OUT!

TheAdventuresOfCaptainFokai:SaddamsHouse

CapitolFokai:Phase1

CrazyMike’sCrazyAdventure

As I told everyone we are on our
down time right now and I want
to send my guys around the World
to teach our style of jiu jitsu
training.

Anyone interested in hosting a Mike
Fowler seminar now is the time. If
interested please email Mike at
mike@mikefowlertv.com.  

From August 25-Sept 13th Mike and
JT will be in Guam and Japan doing
training seminars and competing in
the Asian open, but we will be
scheduling seminars before and after
those dates.

Mike can conduct a wide range of seminar
formats, some of the most popular are
The Grappling Game Plan format where
everything in the seminar ties all
together leaving you with a exact plan
of action to put into your game, you
can focus on any area of the game plan,
you can do a seminar on anything of your
choice.

If the school is new, I would suggest
doing our BJJ Made Easy seminar format
where he only covers the 'pure' basics.

But it's up to you, we will customize
a seminar for your school to meet you
needs.

You can ask around for yourself, but
Mike Fowler holds AMAZING seminars and
it will benefit everyone in attendance.

Like I said before if you're interested
please email Mike at mike@mikefowlertv.com

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ONRA:July28th,2010

Hafa Adai,

SaipanMixedMartialArts is keeping the pace with the Rites of Passage9:Indestructible happening at the Saipan World Resort this Friday.

Weve got the Guam Amateur Wrestlign Federation sending out a team to the Micronesian Games in Palau for Greco-Roman, Freestyle, and Beach Wrestling, are

And the buzz has hit Guam’s Grappling with the MarianasOpen No-Gi Team Invitational  scheduled for August 21^st.

PXC 20:

Would like to start by congratulating the organizers of Premeir Xtreme Combat on their 20^th full-scale event. Leaving in its trails more than 2dozen smaller shows  in PrebaHaos, Fight Nights, and events in Saipan—the event has adapted to move forward through different trials that have come in the many forms of MMA controversy, surrounding economic adversities, as well as having to educate yet also report to a newly formed government-endorsed sanctioning body—the GuamUnarmed CombatComission.

With that being said, after sitting for another night of good fights and evolving local talent. We can all attest that overall our industry has come far. Our fighters are consistentlybetter, our event production(s) always seem to be getting crispier and very noticably our fans are definitely a lot more sport-educated.

Though we might not be seeing the overpacked audiences in attendance as weve seen in the past—its still quite impressive to see the masses still number in the thousands to gather in celebration of our sport.

A comment was made by a good friend that the crowd we saw event are the die hards and that the grudge matches, and local vs. local bouts seem to be better sellers.  Coming from an event promoter’s perspective, I think I can agree. But you know—it’s very important that we continue to have these international fights. Airfare costs money. Hotels costs money.As do rent-a-cars, meals and other extended accommodations. These pressures make it increasingly difficult to continue this formula. Though at times these types of fights do not seem to sell tickets today. In light of the audience that still pays tickets to support our events—this movement will continue to sell tickets tomorrow.

Lets face it though—as promoters we must be entertainers. And as service providers we should try to give the fans what they want . But sometimes, in one way or another as leaders, we should also make efforts to provide something we might feel that an industry needs.

As we have  our seasoned audience, we have seasoned promoters, we have seasoned fighters, and we have a pretty seasoned industry. With this deeper perspective, with hopefully a mindset that has evolved from the curiosities of “Who is the toughest guy on the island?”  having international fights graduates our local events from just being an incubation chamber to becoming a summit landmark for prospects and opportunities beyond the boundaries of out island.

This tremendous display of gratitude for the efforts that our fighters have endured, is a toast for their accomplishments and a stepping stone to a higher podium for not just our fighters but more importantly our flag.

Its not just a road to send our fighters off-island; It’s part of a bigger process to send our island off island. For her honor, for her glory.

At the fights, I had sat in on a group conversation and were all commenting on how many events weve been to and reminisced of old fights and fighters of the past—but what was even more noticeable was fights that we’re anticipating to watch in the future.

In good faith, this sport and this industry can be around for a long time.

What exactly do we want to do with it? And what might be our call-of-duy?

Questions not just for promoters, but for fans, fighters, sponsors..for the extended community supporting MMA. This is not a product of or for one. Its one collective product for the many.

Like sponsors, fighters, and other fans–already standing in line for the next show.

Thanks for dropping by.

WhoopTerere!

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