2007 Great Lakes BJJ Championship Re-cap (vids & pics)

On March 24th Ryan Fiorenzi and his East Weat Martial Arts Academy held the 3rd annual Great Lakes BJJ Championships in Canton, MI. I was there as a referee and managed to catch some footage of some great matches. There was a Blue Belt Absolute Division with a $300 first place prize, won by Nate Steffen, as well as an Advanced No-gi Absolute Division with a $300 first place prize, won by "Big" Don Richard from Team Caique.

There were some great matches in the blue belt divisions, especially in the blue belt Absolute. The Advanced No-gi brackets were very exciting and were only out done by the Advanced No-gi Absolute bracket that had some very talented blue belts, 2 former NCAA wrestlers, Big Don Richard (Team Caique Brown Belt) and Sean "Abdula" Bansfield (Team Saulo Ribeiro Black Belt).

Here's the Highlight vid I made from the footage. To see all of the fight clips that I managed to catch, go to my user profile at You Tube, here.
















Phil, from Taproot (and a tough BJJ blue belt) approves of my reffing... I think.













Big Don Richard, Team Caique Brown Belt. Big Don @ Sherdog.













Phil, from Taproot, getting his picture taken with Sean "Abdula" Bansfield.












Oh, yeah. I was reffin'.












Like all good refs - I laugh at Evan's bribe attempts.












With James Lee - KOTC Light Heavyweight Champ and recent victor at Pride 33 in Las Vegas. James @ Sherdog.












Some of the competitors from the U of M BJJ Team.












With Harvy Berman from Warrior Way & Team Caique.












Big Don trying not to look scary between matches.













Even Courtney was helping out as a Timer.