Chris Savarese :
BJJ match of the day is for all the BJJ practitioners out there who say the cross-choke is a “beginner” move. Here is Fernando “Margarida” Pontes Vs. Fabio Gurgel in a 2001 Pan Am match. For some background for you new guys out there, Gurgel in a 3x World Champion, 4x Brazilian National Champion, the co-founder of the Alliance BJJ team and the teacher of Marcelo Garcia and Demien Maia. He is known as one of the best guard passers ever and is a legend in the BJJ World. Margarida was only a blackbelt for 1 year but the year before, he won his weight class and the Absolute, defeating everyone by submission. It was actually Gurgel who gave Margarida his nickname. Fabio taught a class at Fórmula academy, in São Paulo, and when he noticed the colored mouth guard of Pontes, he joked: “Where I come from, we call that margarida (daisy)” . Margarida moved up in weight just to fight Gurgel, saying “I wanted to show that the theory defended by the Gracie family is essentially true, how Jiu-Jitsu was created for the small to overcome the big.”. It was the first time Gurgel ever tapped out in competition. This is the match that I was talking about in my interview on the “Driving It home w The Professor” podcast last week.
