Saturday, 11th of May saw two of our Mixed Martial Arts competitors, Josh Grove and Coach Luke “The Lycan” Catubig fly to Perth, Western Australia under the guidance of Coach Daniel Howard for Eternal MMA 44. First up to step into the cage at HBF Stadium for the Absolute MMA was Josh Grove (2-1-0), up against Abdullah Eltigani (2-0-0). Keen to improve his record against an undefeated opponent, Josh dominated in the cage despite Eltigani having a significant reach advantage. Securing a few successful take downs through his wrestling, Josh did get cut open in the third round while avoiding a head kick but got the win in the end via unanimous decision. Congratulations to Josh on a comeback win to the cage after his previous bout on Eternal MMA 37, and on his very first stitches! A well deserved win after a dominant performance, bringing Josh’s record to 3-1-0.
Next up on the card and finishing up for team Absolute, Luke faced off against opponent Luke Jones from Western Australia after a two year hiatus off. Exciting to see “The Lycan” return to the cage! Luke managed to land some heavy strikes on Jones on multiple occasions with his powerful overhand right, sadly his opponents ground game got the best of him and he couldn’t finish him off. Despite him sustaining a loss via unanimous decision, we’re proud of Luke for getting back in there and going the distance. Plenty to work on going forward!
On May 12th, it was time for the highly anticipated Asia/Oceania ADCC Trials with 14 competitors from the Absolute MMA Brazilian Jiu-jitsu team flying all the way to Tokyo to compete. With many of our team dedicating the majority of their training in preparation to compete at the ADCC trials in the hope to secure a ticket to ADCC Worlds, this was a much awaited event for the whole Absolute MMA crew.
Our standout performance for the day was Coach Lachlan Giles of Absolute MMA St Kilda who won his ticket for the -76.9kg division after four fights, three occurring via submissions (heel hook) and one via judges decision! After the semi-final win via decision against his Japanese opponent, Lachlan smashed it in the final via submission with his signature 50/50 heel hook. Huge congratulations to Lachlan, who will be joining his wife Livia Giles and Absolute MMA teammates Ben Hodgkinson, Kit Dale and Craig Jones at ADCC Worlds!
Jeremy Skinner (-65.9kg), Mikael Yahaya (-65.9kg) and Matthew McGuiness (-87.9kg) all did really well, winning multiple fights in their respective divisions. Brown belt James Walters (-87.9kg) dominated his first match, and then lost in his second in a very back and forth battle to seasoned Australian/Brazilian black belt William Diaz. Izaak Mitchell (-76.9kg) performed extremely well, making it through three matches in total, and had in our opinion one of the greatest matches of the day against another South Australian competitor Declan Moody. Coach Oliver Smith (-98.9kg) also had a great performance in his first round, in what was a very close match, losing by just one point! To all our students and staff who competed, including Pippa Shaw, Sean Le Gourrierec, Kaya Rudolph, Lachlan Warne, George Miller and Adam McMahon, we are supremely proud of your efforts on the mats and how hard you have all trained to get to this point of competition. Thank you to all of the team’s training partners and coaches who have put in endless hours to help our competitors get to Tokyo.
Shout out to fellow Australian and training partner Daniel Schuardt of Empire MMA who fought all the way up to the final, and to the three other Australians who qualified for ADCC Worlds, Keller Locke-Sodhi, Jacob Malkoun and Denis Roberts. Great to see so many Australians will be heading to ADCC!
Sunday also saw Coach Craig Jones secure yet another win on Submission Underground (SUG) in Oregon, in extremely quick fashion (12 seconds!) via toe hold against opponent Denis Hallman. Congratulations Craig on an incredibly slick victory!
Photography: Eternal MMA, Luke “The Lycan” Catubig, Lachlan Giles.
Written by Emilie Yap and Richard Lattemagi.