Team Philippines Captures 3rd Place in the 2nd Asia Pacific BJJ Championship

National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan

07/11/05

by Stephen Kamphuis

The 2nd Asia Pacific BJJ competition was held over two days, July 2nd and 3rd in Taipei. On Saturday, all competitors fought in the Gi Belt divisions, followed by the No Gi Open Belt divisions on Sunday.
The Philippines were represented by TJ Villaluna and Lionel Zamora from Machado as well as Gracie Barra's Fritz Rodriguez, Joey Lepiten and Johnar Salao.

In the spirit of unity and National pride, all the players joined together to represent the Islands as one team. It was great to see the spirit of the team members, the players, supported and coached each other through out the event.

The players may come from rival teams in their home country but came together and made a great impression of the fighting spirit that prevails within the BJJ community in the Philippines.

There is almost nothing better than fighting for your country and all team members plus the BJJ community can be proud that so few guys represented the country so well. When the PI fighters were called up, the crowd became electric and all their fights held the spectators' interest.

Players and teams were represented from Okinawa, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Guam, Thailand and Indonesia.

JULY 2 - Gi Division

First up for the Team Philippines was TJ on the Saturday Gi divisions;
TJ Villaluna won his first match in under 45 seconds by back choke. In his second match, he was unable to recover from points scored and it ended in favor of his opponent.

Next up for Team Philippines was Lionel Zamora in the White Belt -185 lbs division.
Lionel had three fights to win the gold medal in the above division, he submitted two of his opponents and won the other matches by points.

Next was Joey Lepiten, Blue Belt -175 lbs.
Joey had a hard fought match and lost this first round match to the eventual champion of this division.

Fritz Rodriguez fought a great close match in the Purple Belt Superfight, with an opponent from Hong Kong.
The points were even and the match could have gone either way. The winning score was decided by an advantage.

The final match for Saturday was fought by Johnar.
Johnar came up against the eventual winner in the first round; he showed great heart and took the fight to his opponent early on.

But the over all size and strength of Nicolai Holt, a fighter already known in the Philippines, was difficult to overcome and he lost by submission.

The Team Trophies were decided by the points given in the gi competition.
The two big teams from Taiwan easily dominated the medal count, but there were great fighters from other countries as well.
To our complete surprise as we were the smallest group, Team Philippines' name was called out, we had taken the third place trophy.

So who was to get the Trophy? The team members decided in a generous gesture that I should take the Team Trophy as the Team Captain, thank you guys, I feel quite humble that you gave me this honour.

JULY 3 - No Gi, 5 Open Belt Divisions

TJ fought a tough first round match that could have gone either way, but he lost by an arm bar late in the fight.

Joey was up next and won his first round match by points with a great displaay of skills.
In the second match, another hard fought match was given to his opponent by points.

Fritz and Lionel were in the next weight division and both won their first round matches.
Lionel went thru to the next round match and faced a tough opponent who took him down early. Lionel was unable to recover the points and came out third place in the division.

Fritz worked hard in the finals and dominated the fight from the start, eventually winning by figure four armbar.

Johnar was up for the Heavyweights and came up against a pro wrestler in the first round. He dominated a very bulked up Taiwanese wrestler and won his match by points.
In the second round, he once again faced Nicolai Hot. A lot of the match was spent trying to establish a dominant clinch position and get the takedown points. But Nicolai made a quick takedown and established control. Johnar lost by arm bar submission. In summary:
The feedback I received was how much the Philippine Team had made such a great impression; not only on the mat but also in the way they supported each other through out the event, even though they come from two different teams.
It left no doubt that the PI fighters could compete in any kind of grappling event. The guys did the Philippine BJJ community proud and I congratulate them all for their fighting spirit and their camaraderie. I was happy to be a part of this group and event.
We look forward to more such events and seeing BJJ grow in the region.

Stephen Kamphuis