Denny Prokopos Vs Nathan Orchard EBI-2 Finals

[Eddie Bravo]

Orchard vs Denny was not a work, Orchard came after Denny with fire and Denny played it safe until OT. There was no agreement to make it an exibition or a work. EBI does have yellow cards, 2 and you are Dq'd. You get a yellow card when stalling is extremely obvious like the dude Boogey just fought. I didn't ref that match because I didn't want to have anything to do with big match ups like that where 2 of 10p's top warriors go against each other. Sean, the owner of Dream Jiu Jitsu Tournament reffed that match.

Were there any parts of that match that warranted a yellow card? It would have to have been a painfully obvious stall for Sean to have given a yellow card.

The reason EBI 1 & 2 were not streamed was because we wanted to iron out as many kinks as possible before we start making people pay online. From now on I will make sure to do whatever I can to prevent competitors from strategically going into OT, including Dana White type motivational speeches to the finalists right before they go up :-)

Overall the show was epic, we're editing it right now and it should be on my YouTube channel within a few weeks.

Geo's journey to his second EBI championship was insane, and so was Cobrina Black Belt Fabio Passos journey to the finals.

Thank you all for the support!

[Joe Friday]

Entertaining...

Nathan, were you chewing gum during the match? I've seen others do it. I personally would have choked to death.

[Andrew Alexander]

Wow. That's pretty fucking ridiculous. Eddie works so hard to put this tournament together under his specific ruleset as the ultimate cut-throat, so-excuses, edge-of-your-seat, sub-only tournament and his first black belt ruins everything it stands for by schaubing his way through the finals and than announcing to the world that he threw the fight because he had to much respect for his opponent? That sounds pretty disrespectful to me.

You can't do that, Denny. People paid money to watch those fights. Hell, people BET MONEY on the outcome of those fights!

How can you throw a fight when you won?

[Stewart Landry]

His statement about betting is spot on though ... you can justify the morality of not taking the game to him in the match portion but IF I had bet on it, and if its considered a professional event I would be pissed as a spectator. ... for arguments sake if you had bet on a hockey game and fouynd out that the other tema intentionally didt score to put it in OT.... you would snap ... If Denny had announced that at the start of there match .. no one could say anything ... but to say it after words ... takes away the "nice thing" that was done for Nathan. Its respectful when something happens like Terrere handing his bb over to the guy that gave it to him instead of fighting ... not telling the planet till after isnt the same thing. And telling them afterwards negates the nice thing .... to say I wouldnt be happy to watch those two perform and fight as an exhibition is fair. Amazing fighters and grapplers whom I would love to see play full tilt or playing ... but if I was a fan on the outside looking in and I found this out I would be disappointed ... I got nothin but love for both of those guys, and I think Denny had good intentions, I still think it sours things slightly ... just my opinion

[Stewart Landry]

And to be fair you can claim no bet would have been lost but there is over under betting, ways of loss etc ... that betting entails. I know it isnt a gambling sport lol, but if its gonna be a proffesionally ran spectator sport it has to be treated as such. Not just for us die hard jits lovers but for the average couch potato we hope will eventually watch our sport too.

[Joseph Hachey]

How can you throw a fight when you won?

Intentionally not trying submit your opponent in a sub-only tournament is throwing the fight!

[Fraser Taylor]

Intentionally not trying submit your opponent in a sub-only tournament is throwing the fight!

He won though...He just used a strategy you don't agree with, doesn't change anything with betting etc.

[Joseph Hachey]

He won though...He just used a strategy you don't agree with, doesn't change anything with betting etc.

You've never bet on a grappling event before, have you? If you only bet on the winner or loser, the odds would be terrible and no one would bother. That why they increase the spread by, not only betting on the winner, but also the method of winning, time of submission, etc. I bet on the last Metamoris and the sports book included winner, winner by arm lock, winner by choke, winner by leg lock, and winner by any other submission. No where in there did it include winner by intentionally dragging the match into overtime and not letting the other guy submit you the quickest.

[Aiseop]

I understand the betting part, but I think gamblers' feelings and interests are the last people a sporting event should care about. The argument hinges fully on the integrity of the event that presents itself as a submission-only, attack-mode, that caters itself to not only the jiu-jitsu hardcore grapplers, but "to the masses worldwide" as Eddie stated in the EBI video. This means: you can take your non-jiu-jitsu friend and s/he should be enthralled because they know they are simply looking for someone to TAP. They don't have to ask about points or advantages, etc. Simply tap. Denny's only mistake, in my opinion, is that he revealed his strategy on here. We would not have been the wiser.

[Mike Nall]

He won though...He just used a strategy you don't agree with, doesn't change anything with betting etc.

That's absolutely false. When you bet on sports, you don't make money by just betting on who wins and who loses. There are so many other things to bet on. In MMA you bet on what round the fight ends, decision/dub/KO/TKO/etc. Hell even in Metamoris and grappling events you can bet on who wins, if it's a draw, how fast the sub comes, and whether the sub is a choke, leg lock, or arm lock, etc. That increases the spread, more money gets involved, and it becomes a bigger deal. In basketball people would flip the fuck out if they found out a player was point shaving (deliberately not scoring as much on purpose) because it fucks with the spread and can cost you a lot of money.

I understand the betting part, but I think gamblers' feelings and interests are the last people a sporting event should care about. The argument hinges fully on the integrity of the event that presents itself as a submission-only, attack-mode, that caters itself to not only the jiu-jitsu hardcore grapplers, but "to the masses worldwide" as Eddie stated in the EBI video. This means: you can take your non-jiu-jitsu friend and s/he should be enthralled because they know they are simply looking for someone to TAP. They don't have to ask about points or advantages, etc. Simply tap. Denny's only mistake, in my opinion, is that he revealed his strategy on here. We would not have been the wiser.

I agree with this. I also would much rather be "publicly executed" (creepy terminology also for a grappling match) than to be told afterwards that I wasn't worth competing 100% against, and that my opponent held back on me because they didn't want to embarrass me or make me look bad. I think that's disrespectful and in poor taste. If that's a legit concern, you just do what some teams do and decide the winner before hand and just close out. I think close outs suck also, but I'd rather be forced to close out by a coach and teammate than to bust my ass to beat someone, lose, and then be told afterwards that they didn't even really try to beat me out of some strange notion of "respect" for me. I would just feel mind fucked at that point.

I'm glad Eddie said he's going to take steps to ensure that doesn't happen again.