NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with Carlos Carvalho, the executive officer of the USA ADCC Federation.

As the sport of grappling expands, so does the ADCC Federation. A series of ADCC tournaments are planned in the USA for the rest of this year and beyond. The next one will be held August 3 in the Phoenix, Arizona, area, with registration set to start Friday.

We spoke with Carlos Carvalho by phone Tuesday about the expansion of ADCC and the plans for events in the USA.

"We want to grow," he said in this interview. "We are the largest organization of grappling. We definitely have the most prestigious no-gi tournaments from the world. We are the only tournament that can bring together the best of the best from all over the world in one place."

The planned tournaments in the USA will primarily aim at involving amateur competitors, who will then become familiar with the ADCC rules, and have the opportunity to advance to the ADCC North American qualifiers to earn a spot in the ADCC World Submission Fighting Championships in 2015. The 2013 ADCC World Submission Fighting Championships will take place October 19-20 in Beijing, China.

After the Arizona tournament, the plans for 2013 include holding events in the Denver, Seattle, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, and Miami areas.

We also discussed a program which is being organized with UAE Jiu Jitsu to bring both black belt and brown belt instructors to the United Arab Emirates to provide instruction in jiu-jitsu. And we discussed why grappling can become bigger than MMA, and how grappling could become part of the Olympics.

In addition, in his home country of Brazil, there have been massive popular protests against the spending by the Brazilian government on the FIFA World Cup, while neglecting the needs of the people for good jobs, health care, education, housing, etc. Carlos presented an impassioned explanation of the toll that the corruption in government and this wild spending by the politicians has had on the people of Brazil. So while we both know and advocate about the benefits people get from competing in sports, especially combat sports, there is no separation of sports and politics.

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Labels: Abu Dhabi, ADCC, BJJ, Brazil, Carlos Carvalho, Eddie Goldman, grappling, No Holds Barred, Olympics, protests, USA, World Cup, World Submission Fighting Championships