ONRA:January28,2010

Hafa Adai,

Congratulations to members of CarlsonGracie and TheGuahan Top Team for a unified force as Team Guam to secure a SilverMedal for the Gi and GoldMedal for the Team Competitions in the2010 Philippine International BJJ and NoGi Open at the Mall of Asia on January 16^th and 17^th.

Though Professional MMA might be at a delay for Guam, amateur combat sports moves forward as we have Preba Hao coming up this weekend.

Herman Torrado is on deck as a last-minute replacement this weekend in WestCoast MMA.

After a few amateur kickboxing matches in Norhtern California, Joey Lopez of the Spike22Academywill get a chance at his MMA debut set for February 7^th in Taiwans PacificRim Organized Fighting.

.On February12th,RightsOfPassage8:Fearless will be pitting CNMI Fighter athletes against Fighters out of the Korean TopTeam at the SaipanWorldResort

The Marianas Open has been rescheduled from February 13^th to May 8^th. Ian Lujan is preparing to compete in the Amateur WMF WorldChampionships for Muy Thai in Thailand this March.

With the recent restrictions the Guam Unarmed Combat Commision has put on professional MMA, it will be interesting to see what will be produced in amateur local combat sports and our residents’ competitions abroad.

The development of Guam’s fighter athletes have worked long and hard to compete and perform at its level today. A large reason for this was the frequent opportunity of paying events that would not only give talent their opportunity of competition, but also the financial compensation as an additional incentive to come with the sacrifice and hard work.

Of course, we can recognize the efforts disguised as new restrictions of our Guam Unarmed Combat Commision are a natural part of the evolution that comes with further legitimizing our sport among the masses. And there is definitely a respect for the goals of improving our MMA identitiy.

It seems that the general digestion of MMA as a dangerous sport is credible reason for creating such restrictions . However its healthy that certain things be brought to light when discussing how dangerous Mixed Martial Arts has compared locally to other contact sports.

Many of us have sat around the cage, mat,ring, or television set at some point to watch localMMA competitiors unleash their arsenals for victory. Weve seen bone-breaking submission holds, crippling punches and kicks, deadly chokes and mass entertaining finishing moves.Weve oohed, weve aahed, weve roared and clashed glasses in standing ovations but the reality is—how many of those bones have truly been broken, how many fighters have actually been crippled, how many fighjters-in-competitionhave died, and how many competitors have really, truly, been finished?

Truth—the techniques weve seen executed by some of these highly trained athletes can be lethal, can be deadly, and can be dangerous. But then again—so can walking on thestreet.

In an ideal situation, the competitiors that step into that event are supposed to be training like professionals. So as dangerous as the offensemight be, effective must be the defense. As unstoppable as the force, should be immovable as the object.This makes for good competition and as an added effect, good entertainment.

Every contact sport has its hazards, though injury isn’t the goal—how many broken bones and bloody noseshave we seen in local basketball, football, baseball, soccer? Even at the pre-high school levels. Accidents happen. But at the same time, so should preventive maintenance–that’s always a good thing to work on in every aspect of life. And maybe this is something we can observe as a consideration of a commission that this column never aims to disrespect.

So we should deal with what is real now and the fact is that the added difficulties to create a professional event will result in less events.

Lets face it, weve all seen people compete who have no business in professional competition. The scarcity of quality game players in the past, combined with last-minute replacements have disappointingly blazed a trail for this reality. Maybe these holds on professional competition can be healthy so that we can bring some of these “slower cars” out of the fast lane of competiton and back into the garage for some finetuning.

With today’s level of competiton, There is so much to be factored into being a successful competitive Martial Artist. In the absence or tardiness of frequent professional events–If there really is the urge to compete among our local expanding list of talent and ambition, good advice would be to take advantage of what is currently available in amateur and national ventures.

As we have seen in the past, Guam Judo goes places, Guam wrestling could use more training partners, Local Brazilian Jiujitsu, TaeKwon Do, and Boxing events as well as Saipan Submission Grappling need participants. These are some incredible ventures that could use the fire that comes with the game fighters that we see in MMA competition. Because in competitive martial arts, its not just a question of game. It’s a conversation of skill. And in this fast evolving game, a skill that always needs fine tuning.

For a silver lining in what might seem to some as a  dark cloud, hopefully we can take these holds on professional MMAand possibly even reroute some of this ambition into the nooks and crannys of other comabt sports that could use and cultivate our resources of talent for added success in more fields of combative and non-combative competition-— to reset our skill levels back into incubation, – for the greater good of our fighter-athletic world identity  and as anexpanded  illustration of the versatility of our fine and proud athletes.

Thanks for dropping by.