30 Dec ONRA:2009YearInReview
Hafa Adai, Thank you first of all to fans and supporters of our island’s fighter-athlete ventures. The investments that we, in one way or another, have all made towards Mariana Island combatives have given us another productive 365days in MarianaIsland Martial Arts and its about that time for our year in review.In no particular order: Spike22 continues Marianas ventures in Japan with MelcorManibusan’s return to MMA with Guam’s debut into “Dream”. And Rota’s Patrick Ayuyu switches gears from Kickboxing to make his return to MMA with his debut in DeepImpact. TheSpike22Academy continues to sling our MMA stone into the international arena Jesse Taitano comes close to an MMA Word Title shot but was stopped at the hands of Professional Shooto legend MamoruYamaguchi. DeepImpact from Japan enters a fighter exchange program with TheSpike22Academy andPremiereXTremeCombat. In other MMA news:Guahan TopTeam’s John Tuck and Spike 22’s Justin Cruz rock Philippine MMA with same night victories against formerly undefeated Philippine top dogs Ed Folayang and Mark Sangiao. RichardChou, a man of many hats in the MMA World Industry, becomes the first Official Matchmaker for the UFC’s biggest competitor and worldMMA super power Strikeforce. Rick Blas Jr. brings home a Silver Medal in the USOpen of Judo, Guam continues to make waves in military combatives. Herman Torrado continues to win in Stateside MMA, our off-island Jiujitsu players gather medals in tournamernts across the United states,High SchoolWrestling has a promising year and Saipan introduces Russia to Mariana Island MMA. This year, , finally replacing the late chairman Jimmy Ferrante –theGuam Boxing Commision redefines itself as the GuamUnarmedCombatCommision with attempts at taking a more active role in a sport that they are at the very least, trying to better understand. Guam MMA shows its industry awareness to legislators when promoters remind them that Guam MMA has been regulated since its first event and like true professionals, respectfully holds its ground in intellectual dialogue and show that they understand exactly what they’re talking about. Guam law officials get more involved as BILL313makes attempts to trying to further regulate Guam competitive martial arts while Saipan MMA sets a good example and combines internal forces to convinces their legislature to reevaluate Bill16-26from the over regulation of competitive martial arts in the CNMI with Mantieni I Dire’chota. Saipan’s Frank ‘TheCrank” Camacho pulls off an outstanding MMA victory in the Ultimate Warriors Challenge for an absolute career highlight in an online broadcast featured on Sherdog.com but mysteriously fades away from the MMA limelight and goes back to basics with ventures into BJJ. Guerilla Warfare introduces Saipan’s first event championship title belt and TrenchWarz impressed us all holding to, for the most part, their year in schedule as announced in 2008. Guam Kyokushin Kai hosts introduces the First Guam Kyokushin Kai friendship tournament, ThePoundJiujitsu opens up in Hagatna, and were still standing by on the status of Guam Full-Length Martial-arts based movie hopeful, I Fuetsan I TaoTao. Mike Fowler moves back to The US. but Purebred/LloydIrvin Jiujitsu Guam continues to excel internationally as Eric Sian becomes Guam’s second BJJ World Champion and months later Purebred Guam gets a visit and week-long seminar from current BJJ multiple world champions Rafael and Guilherme Mendes. Team Purebred/LloydIrvin sends 33 competitiors to Japan to execute the Mariana Islands most successful BJJ international performance to date. Dominating the prestigious TokyoBudokhanInternationalBJJOpen inTokyo Japan, they delivers to Guam not only the respect of Japan BJJ, but also our next BJJ Black Belt in Terrence Aflague. Promoters from the Marianas Open and CopaDeMarianas continue to provide a quality BJJ and submission grappling competitive atmosphere but make room for Guam’s other BJJ event organization as a Guam-based-company-gaining international-BJJ recognition makes its event comeback with the ShoyorollAll Island Jiujitsu Championships. , It is obvious that through the hard work of individual ventures blessed with the pride of our flag, the intelligence of our people, and the Spirit of our land, Our islands’ journeys into competitive Martial arts has set its collective horizons overseas. Its healthy that , in this spirit, we continue to take measures in piecing our accomplishments together and sure we have a lot to be proud of but this evolving machine of competitive martial arts still needs a lot of work a ; work to throttle us athletically forward but also work to insure that we are don’t fall into reverse socially backward. With all our highlights, with our advancing international recognition, our fighter invitations to a growing list in off-island ventures, and all our improving fighter athletes—perhaps our biggest concern of the year should be at the impact this is all having on our youth. With these local high school fight promotions making headlines this year–. As admirable and/or disgusting as some might digest it, the fact is, without qualified supervision and faciliatation, they are playing with fire. How many more videos that we haven’t seen, how many more are in the waiting? And how many more, if we do our part, can we stop? More than ever, it is important that we realize the voice and capabilities this industry has given us, is not only a priveledge but a call-of-duty for the days ahead to make sure that we try our best to guide or persuade our youth (our future fighter athletes, our future citizens of Guam) to good things and good intention– so that in 2011, and progressively years after, while in speaking hopefully of an even more productive year in athletics, we can do so proudly and without shame not just to the MMA audience, but also to those who might-not-care-for but can hold respect for an ultimately collective venture not just for the pursuit of strength but a sincere and multi-faced effort for all of our people—past, present, and future ThankYou and Congratulations for 2009. GoodLuck and God bless us all in 2010..
Thanks for dropping by.