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Emerging from the shadows, Braulio Estima made the world's most prestigious no-gi amateur submissions grappling event his.

In the 88k finals he was able to successfully apply a spectacular inverted triangle. Knocking off favored Andre Galvao.

Then with his victory over Xandre Ribero in the Absolute Finals, he became just the fifth man to win both his weight and the absolute divisions. Matching Mario Sperry, Mark Kerr, Ricardo Arona, and Roger Gracie.

Planning his MMA debut sometime this year, the overlooked Brazilian wins 40,000 dollars, and a chance to face Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza in the 2011 Superfight.

In North American Grappling Association tournaments, the coveted prize is the first place Samurai. It is exciting for a team to win even one.

On June 27 a team of five boys – the Botello brothers from Mashpee and Paul Cody of Bourne – took the NAGA East Coast Grappling Championships by storm, earning an unprecedented 13 swords, as well as three medals.

“The kids had so many swords, people thought they were the ones handing them out,” said Chris Botello, father of CJ, Michael, Nicholas and Mark, four of the five members of the Botello Brothers Grappling Team.

Grappling is a mat sport that combines techniques from Jiu Jitsu, Judo, wrestling and Sambo. Fighters in the sport win by points or by forcing their opponent into submission through choke moves, joint locks (think half-nelsons), or by a tapout in which an opponent taps the floor to signal submission.

If you live anywhere in Long Island chances are you live within 20 minutes of a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school. From New Hyde Park to East Quogue the Island is peppered with a variety of different jiu jitsu instructors, students, and styles, but they all have one thing in common, an intense desire to test their skills against other lovers of the art and see how different styles would fare from school to school.

In 2006 Professor Milton Regis of Kioto BJJ and Eloy Santos of Rio Academy sought answers to these and many more questions. The event was called Long Island Pride and with a modest turnout in a church basement the event hosted well under 100 people.

Just 2 years and four tournaments later the 5th installment of the tournament in April of this year attracted over 300 fighters and twice as many spectators. Suffolk County Park Rangers several times threatened to shut down the event at Islip Town Hall because the venue was literally busting at the seams – well exceeding its intended capacity.