A true leg lock story - I was there
This is a true story. I was there. The names have not been changed
to protect the innocent. Nobody is innocent here. Sorry if I hurt anybody's feeling here.
Around 2002 I was watching a Machado No-gi tournament in California.
I was sitting next to 4th degree J.J. Machado BJJ black belt Richard Norton.
Dean Lister was competing and won. Ricco Rodriguez was the guest
of honor. All the Machado brothers were there. I had my video camera
in my hand. Ricco Rodriguez was then the heavy weight UFC champion.
He had won ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship in 1999.
Silver 2000 Abu Dhabi 2000 ADCC World Championships (+99kg)
Bronze 1999 Abu Dhabi 1999 ADCC World Championships (Absolute)
He had wrestled in high school. He had trained with the Machados and
won many of their events and many BJJ events in general. He was quite
frankly their best student at the time.
He was at the top of his game. He was the star. He was seemly unbeatable.
He was not competing that day. He was too good to be competing. He was
the guest of honor above all of us mere mortals. Then the annoucer after telling
us of all his accomplishments put out a challenge to anybody in the audience if
they would dare grapple this monster of a man. Ricco was 6'3" 285 pounds. Who
would dare grapple this man. Well, there was one man that stepped up to the
challenge. Ahmad Reese. 5 foot 8 at best and around 195 pounds. He looked like a midget next to Ricco. But Ahmad Reese had one thing going for him. He knew leg locks. He had trained with leg lock experts including Gokor. As they started to grapple I had my video camera going.
They went at it like two wrestlers with Ahmad keeping up with Ricco. Then after a take down by Ricco Ahmad some how ended up in Ricco guards. All of a sudden Ahmad had Ricco in a heelhook seemly out of nowhere. Ricco did not want to tap so Ahmad put it to him.
Tap or snap Ricco! Well Ricco finally tapped after getting his leg leg busted up pretty bad. The crowd went wild. Dean Lister and all the Machado brothers came running over. Ahamd tried to console Ricco. Ricco would have nothing to do with it. I got it all on camera. A few weeks after this by pure coincedence Ahmad Reese went to the Machado school in Pasadena where I was training because he was good friends with a Machado top brown belt at the time. Ahmad taught us leg locks. I invited him to my school and he taught us more leg locks and did two leg lock seminars for us. Which I filmed. He had other friends that knew leg lock and they taught me leg locks too.
Moral of the story, you might be one of the top grapplers in the world but
if you don't know leg locks and leg lock counters you can be beat.
