By Brian Hemminger

If you’ve ever wanted to see some high quality grappling, this Saturday, July 24th, an excellent Brazillian jiu jitsu tournament is taking place in Toledo, Ohio.  It’s called the Buckeye Border Grappling International Championships and this is its 4th year of existence.  I had an opportunity to talk to Deon Thompson, the man organizing the whole thing.  Deon doesn’t just organize these events, he’s also a top notch student of jiu jitsu.  That’s him pictured above putting Demian Maia in a heel hook.  He talked about the history of this particular tournament:

We started this tournament 4 years ago.  My goal was to bring some more visibility to the art of Brazilian jiu jitsu and submission grappling.  We started it with 45 guys and now it’s grown to 200+ competitors.  It was originally named the Buckeye Border because it was about the local area, with local competitors.  It was meant to be a quality tournament that was affordable for gi and no gi.  A lot of tournaments charge separate for each.    It’s now evolved into an international competition.

He also had  a lot to say about some of the top notch competitors participating in the event:

A lot of tournaments don’t have the high level guys but we’ve got black belts, really high level black belts.  A lot of guys here do well on the national level, it’s not just local guys.  We’ve got a ton of high caliber grapplers coming in.  We’ve had some pretty big names, [Rodrigo] Comprido 7x world champion obviously he’s coming back.  Others are: Robin Geisler (Pan Am medalist), Don Richard (multiple Arnold Gracie Champion), Sean Bansfield (Pan Am gold medalist), Chris Blanke (Pan Am gold medalist), Tyrone Gooden (Pan Am Medalist), Pablo Castro (Pan am Gold medalist), Rodrigo Botti (World Champion) and John Toth who was voted one of America’s top 32 grapplers in 2010.  We’ve got competitors ranging from Kentucky and Pennsylvania to Canada and Brazil.

And it wasn’t just the men who are showcasing their talents:

The top women are: Katie “Koberta” Sweet (Pan Am quarter finalist, Multiple X Buckeye Border champion, Elite Federation of Grapplers Champion, Michigan Jiu jitsu open Champion), Jessica Eye (NAAFS current Champion) and Amanda Morgan (Las Vegas MMA champion).

Deon spoke about the logistics of the tournament as well:

I also love how this tournament is run.  A lot of other Brazilian jiu jitsu tournaments aren’t well organized.  I want everything done in a timely manner, no one standing around waiting.  We coordinate things really well.  We have great refereeing.  For the most part this tournament runs very smooth.  I think we have more women competitors than any tournament in the area, the kids division has really grown over the years too.  It’s been great to see the growth over the years.

If you can’t see the event on person, the local Buckeye cable station BCSN will be televising the tournament.  Deon had a few comments about that as well as his thoughts on the growth of the event.

The event is televised on BCSN, which is great too.  Having Buckeye Cable covering it, it’s a big boost.  The UFC started like Brazilian jiu jitsu tournaments, all those fights in one day and it still has a lot of fundamentals of jiu jitsu in their sport.  There’s a group USA Martial Arts, they’re a Japanese jiu jitsu school and they support us as well.  It makes me feel good about what I’m doing to hear people say they appreciate the tournaments we’re putting on.  I get a lot of e-mails from past competitors thanking me for putting on a nice event and saying they’re looking forward to the next year’s.  We’ve had records for pre-registration for this year’s event.  It should be the best yet.

If you’re interested in participating, you can preregister online here.  Otherwise, it’ll cost $10 extra on the day of the event.  If you want to watch it live, it will be located at St. Francis High School on 2323 W Bancroft St in Toledo.  Tickets for spectators are $10 and kids get in for free.  The first round of the tournament should start around 10:30 am.  Hope to see you there!