"The King" is Crowned and Slaps Are Given for a Twisted Finale
The Eddie Bravo Invitational returned last weekend at Florentine Gardens in El Monte CA with its 11th installment in a brand new venue, a brand new concept and a very familiar champion. Danaher Death Squad (DDS) member Gordon “The King” Ryan returned to what many consider his natural weight of 170lbs and proceeded to slay four challengers in the process. All finishes for Ryan took place in regulation en route to the crown, netting him the maximum amount of prize money, claiming another belt and once again claiming his spot as one of the elite grapplers in the world. Showing an impressive arsenal of attacks, not a single foot was taken on his path to victory. Ryan was able to continually attack his opponents back and finish all of them with well executed strangle holds.
Check out the post championship interview with Gordon “The King” Ryan. [Click Here]
Sharing the stage that night was EBI’s highly anticipated introduction of Combat Jiu-Jitsu, or what people in the crowd referred to as “Slap-Jitsu” or “Brazilian Slap-Boxing”. This particular rule set allowed the competitors the opportunity to open palm strike their grounded opponent, which led to some pretty fun moments that had the attending audience on their feet. The first match in this new EBI direction was JM Holland vs Chad George. George pressed the pace and took the first swing at Holland. It was a precursor of things to come within the match. Controlling the top position for most of the match, George was able to get plenty of slaps in and defend a few Holland attacks for his legs. At the end of the match George took the win with a Darce in regulation, advancing him to the EBI Combat JJ final. The second featured combat match of the evening pitted Sheridan Moran vs Nick Honstein. This match saw plenty of back and forth action with a Twister attempt by Honstein that was unsucessful, sending the match into overtime where traditional EBI [overtime] rules went into play, without the strikes. Honstein won in the 2nd round of OT via rear naked choke to advance to the 1st ever EBI Combat Jiu-Jitsu championship final. In the final match both competitors engaged in plenty of hand fighting, jockeying for takedown in which Honstein executed a perfect double leg, followed with a couple hard palm strikes to the face to set up a back take and in a poetic nod and twist (pun intended) to the event’s founder, Eddie Bravo, “Quick” Nick Honstein was able to successfully apply a championship winning Twister submission to earn himself the recognition of EBI’s first ever Combat Jiu-Jitsu Champion.
Click here to see Honstein’s post event interview.
Photo: Courtesy of Blanca Marisa Garcia
Video: Courtesy of UFC Fight Pass and Raf Esparza of Verbal Tap Podcast