Popular streamer N3on just hosted a BJJ tournament with a $25,000 grand prize for the winner, and it attracted several UFC veterans. It was hosted in a UFC gym and along with the prize for the winner, the other finalist would take home a $5,000 Swiss watch as well. The rules were fairly unusual too, as the regulation time period was only three minutes and it was submission-only at that point. Then if there was no winner in the short regulation period, it went to a one-minute overtime period where guard-pulling was not allowed and the first person to score would win. If there was no score, the decision win went to the competitor who was more aggressive overall.
The ruleset led to two clearly different approaches, as some competitors hunted for the finish at a high pace and others stalled their way into overtime to win there instead. It also meant that wrestlers had a clear path to victory, as they were much more likely to score in the overtime period than any BJJ specialists. It didn’t take long for that to play out either, as several of the Russian and Dagestani fighters figured that out quickly and started employing that tactic immediately. It frustrated some of their opponents but it was an excellent choice within the rules in play.
MMA veteran Herbert Burns drew the brackets up for the 16-man openweight tournament and acted as one of the referees while his brother, BJJ legend Gilbert Burns entered as a competitor. Reinier de Ridder was also involved and although he and Burns would have been considered the favorites early on, neither of them even made it to the final. The eventual winner was actually Baisangur Susurkaev, an undefeated rising star in the UFC middleweight division. Susurkaev currently holds a perfect 11-0 MMA record with 10 finishes, and he showed exactly why he might be the next big thing at middleweight with his performance here.
N3on shared the footage of his $25,000 BJJ tournament in a recent video uploaded to his official YouTube channel:
