The Metamoris 6 all-Grappling event went down Saturday, and as usual the show delivered with some very high level submission fighting, however the show was not without it’s adversity. The main event was scheduled to feature Josh Barnett vs Roberto Abreu, however Barnett faced Ryron Gracie instead. This marks Barnett’s second appearance at Metamoris where the match ends with a submission, which deserves a ton of credit under this format.
The rules of Metamoris call for a 20 minute match, with no points or advantages tallied. In order to win, you must execute a submission finish, and sll matches that go the full 20 minute time limit are declared a draw. This has led to roughly half of the matches, in Metamoris ending in a draw, and the Metamoris 6 event was no different.
Metamoris “secret match” pitted Heavyweight Jimmy Friedrich and Evandro Nunez. Friedrich won a qualifiying tournament to get here, while Nunes jumped in as a late replacement for Jeff Monson. This was a decent match for heavyweights, but neither man could finish, and the fight ernded in a draw.
Clark Gracie and Roberto Satoshi agreed to meet in a gi, and though the fight featured a ton of transitions and sweeps, in the end the fight went twenty minutes and was declared a draw.
The next match featured young ace Keenan Cornelius taking on old-school veteran Alexandre Ribeiro. Once again the men wore the jiu Jitsu gi, and that served to make this a hard fought battle that saw Cornelius and Ribeiro go back and forth. The match however, ended in a draw after twenty minutes. You might be starting to see a pattern here.
In a math between Lightweights, UFC veteran Joe Lauzon and Dillon Danis went for it from the start. Lauzon got caught in a brabo choke by Danis coming in trying to be aggressive, and Danis becomes the first fight of the night to end in a submission.
The co-main event of the evening featured MMA veterans Chael Sonnen and Renatio ‘Babalu’, and unremarkably, this match ended in a draw. Sonnen is a strong, strong man and he was able to avoid Babalu’s attempt to work from the bottom position, Sonnen did not even attempt a submission as all he did was play defense.
Once again, the Metamoris format has delivered some of the highest level grappling you are gong to see anywhere, however in terms of critcizing the rules and format a little, the Metamoris rules have led to 4 of the 6 fights ending in a draw.
