NAGA : 2007 Southern Florida Championship

**Pandinha** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 5:31pm

Originally Posted by Teh El Macho

Funny that you mentioned about sandbagging. I overhead a lot of people complaining about it. Some of the "novices" were pulling slick subs out of their asses and everyone was like "novice my ass!".

You should have seen the novice in my son's weight class doing a picture perfect flying armbar on a FFA fighter.

I actually did say "Novice My Ass", as his Uncle is one of our teammates.

**El Neko** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 9:50pm

Man, so it wouldn't have been so bad if I would have competed as a novice (witch I am).

Oh well, there's always next year, I think the bully's should show in full force for the next NAGA

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 9:57pm

Picture perfect flying armbar???? WTF!!!! As you said, novice my ass!!!

**KurSe** · Posted On: 7/24/2007 11:04pm

Actually i think the next Florida Naga is October 13th, but I'll be in Europe.

A more general write-up of the naga experience:

The venue was PACKED... and i really mean PACKED. The bleachers were full and there were really more people there than seats available. In usual Naga fashion, things took forever to get started and everything ran way late. The day started with a Superfight between Cole Miller and Paul someone [some training partner of J-Law that took the fight on short notice]. Started out slow, but cole got the takedown, passed, and eventually finished it with what looked like an anaconda choke? Other big names I saw were charles mccarthy, lobster [from ufc], and hermes franca, who was right on the mat coaching next to me for quite a while.

There seemed to be a lot of drama, but maybe it's just because I stayed the whole time this time. A couple fights broke out, a few injuries and some bad decision making, but nothing too blatant I guess. I'm not sure why it costs $80 to compete, and it bothers me even more that it costs $15 for people to watch.. this is high way robbery in my opinion, but the seats were packed [mostly with parents and teammates]. The AC was majorly leaking into the bleachers which was a pain.

The reffing seems to be inconsistent. They go over all the rules in the beginning, and it seems like those same rules are not enforced eqyally throughout the day, but for a one day event it's still far from horrible,

For 149.9 lb division,t he novice division seriously had like 24 people in it, so I think I will be glad to go to beginner anyway. Interesting enough, there were a lot more people doing no-gi novice than white belt at that weight, and that's not even counting the entire ebginner division [which could have white or blue belt, or equivalent].

The whole thing is really a big pain if you get there early and have to wait hours to fight, costs more than most people have to spend, but it's still mostly the only good way to face and meet that many different competitor,s so I'd still recommend it for the experience and the learning.. plus you get a chance to win one of those solid gold medals! :D