Raw Grappling 1 marked the promotion’s first ever event and they managed to delivery fantastic results from start to finish. The main attraction of the night was a grand prix tournament featuring eight top-tier competitors, including some of the best grapplers that the UK has to offer. Jed Hue has garnered a reputation as one of the most exciting competitors to come out of England thanks to his performances on the Polaris mats, but wasn’t able to make it out of the first round here as he ran straight into the brick wall that is Yuri Simoes. Bradley Hill and Thomas Bracher also got shut down in the first round by Josh Hinger and Patrick Gaudio respectively.
The only submission in the opening round came from Taylor Pearman who locked up a beautiful cloverleaf submission against Steven Hill and booked his place against Simoes in the semi-finals. Simoes managed to do his thing once again and didn’t concede a single point on the way to his victory on the scorecards. Gaudio had a tough semi-final match against Hinger but managed to put up enough points to secure his place in the final, although he couldn’t do enough to stop Simoes walking away with the grand prize in the end.
Raw Grappling 1 also featured two superfights that delivered just as much action as the rest of the event, with some fun results. Lucas ‘Hulk’ Barbosa seemed unstoppable when he took on Gerard Labinski and managed to secure an armbar from mount in a little over seven minutes. The other superfight match saw Rafael Lovato Jr keep up his recent slate of impressive Jiu-Jitsu performances since being forced to retire from MMA competition due to medical issues. He took one of Europe’s finest competitors in Adam Wardzinski and edged him out to win in an incredibly close decision.
Raw Grappling 1 Full Results
Grand Prix Quarterfinals
Yuri Simoes defeats Jed Hue via Decision – Points (3-0)
Taylor Pearman defeats Steven Hill via Submission – Cloverleaf
Josh Hinger defeats Bradley Hill via Decision – Referee Decision
Patrick Gaudio defeats Thomas Bracher via Decision – Referee Decision
Grand Prix Semifinals
Yuri Simoes defeats Taylor Pearman via Decision – Points (3-0)
Patrick Gaudio defeats Josh Hinger via Decision – Points (4-0)
Superfights
Lucas “Hulk” Barbosa defeats Gerard Labinski via Submission – Armbar
Rafael Lovato Jr. defeats Adam Wardzinski via Decision – Penalty
Grand Prix Third-Place Playoff
Josh Hinger defeats Taylor Pearman via Submission – D’arce Choke
Grand Prix Final
Yuri Simoes defeats Patrick Gaudio via Decision – Referee Decision
The full replay of all of the results from Raw Grappling 1 will be available to watch on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
