Fight Night 137 in Sao Paulo, Brazil was a huge card and also a huge success. The card featured as many as 14 fights, being the second most fight populated card in the history after UFC 2 which had 15 fights.
One of those fights in the under card featured an interesting matchup as veteran Ben ‘Killa B’ Saunders took on welterweight division staple Sergio ‘The Panther’ Moraes. Both being such decorated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practioners, the fight was expected to hit the mat eventually however the way it ended was a surprise.
Moraes had secured top position over Saunders and slowly locked in an arm triangle choke. Saunders had no option but to tap out and Moraes became the first fighter in the history of the sport to submit Saunders in 14 years of his career. What makes this even more impressive is Saunders is known to have the best guard in MMA and a small mistake could have landed Moraes in Saunders’ guard from where he could have used submissions like armbar.
Everybody including Saunders seemed impressed as after the fight he went backstage to Moraes to learn what technique he used to submit him. (via Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoFeF3xlEKU/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=mluzhy0529yy
The gesture displayed true spirit of an athlete, let alone a mixed martial artist to learn and rectify mistakes even after 14 years of practicing it. Moraes being a Brazilian, has BJJ in his roots however interestingly, American Saunders is an encyclopedia of BJJ.
Saunders is a black belt in BJJ under cofounder of American Top Team, Ricardo Liborio, who himself is 6th Degree Black Belt. Saunders also learned textbook BJJ from the one and only Gracie Barra training ground. And to take it a step higher, he now trains under highly removed Eddie Bravo at 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu which is a a little modified type of Jiu-Jitsu.
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