MMA Mania reports:
Robert Drysdale — the 2007 Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC) Open Weight tournament winner — made his long-awaited professional mixed martial arts debut last night (July 17) at Armageddon Fighting Championships (AFC) 3, submitting Bastien Huveneers via submission (side choke) early in the first round.
Drysdale, who terrorized the international jiu-jitsu circuit for about a decade, winning medals and finishing some of the best in the business (see Garcia, Marcelo among others), served as an assistant coach for Frank Mir on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF).
Ariel Helwani interviewed Drysdale before the fight about his future plans:
How often are you going to be looking to fight?
I have a four-fight deal with AFC. I think they have three shows a year, and that’s what I want to stick to. So maybe a show by the end of this year, another fight, and then another two fights next year, and then hopefully I will jump in the big shows.Are you exclusive to AFC?
It’s exclusive for Canada, unless it’s the UFC. So I can’t fight for any other Canadian organization.So you could fight for anyone else in the US?
Yes, I can fight in the States [for anyone else]. If I wanted to go to Strikeforce or the UFC, then that would be OK.Have you ever talked to Strikeforce or the UFC about fighting for them?
Yes, I have spoken to them before, and it’s open. I would actually very much like to fight for them, and I even have in mind who I would like to fight.Who would that be?
Roger Gracie.
He also talks to Helwani about the brain aneurysm that kept him out of MMA for about a year longer than he had planned. I had the pleasure of talking to Drysdale when he first announced he was leaving BJJ and submission grappling for MMA. Here’s a bit of my commentary at the time:
One of the reasons I’m most excited about Drysdale entering MMA is that he’s one of the grapplers who are one the cutting edge of the sport. Along with Eddie Bravo and Marcelo Garcia, Drysdale is one of the grapplers making major conceptual leaps in his approach to BJJ. His Nth Dimension of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu DVDs are highly recommended by our own Luke Thomas. This introductory segment is worth a viewing — he explains how he has abandoned the traditional BJJ approach of using position to set up submissions and instead focuses on using submission threats to achieve dominant postion. And his bodylock family of submissions is something totally new to me — I can’t wait to see him bust it out in an MMA match.
It will be fun to see if Drysdale can do anything to change the perception that wrestling is the best MMA preparation possible.
Complete results from the AFC event, including Kalib Starnes winning a title after the jump via TopMMANews.com.
Plus video from the fight.
- Kalib Starnes defeats Nick Hinchliffe by submission (Armbar) at 3:49 of Round 1
- Robert Drysdale defeated Bastien Huveneers by Submission (Side Choke) at 1:12 of Round 1
- Nick Driedger defeated Baz Cunningham by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 2:18 of Round 1
- Mike Hackert defeated Dan MacIver by Unanimous Decision
- Diego Wilson defeated Dan Lin by Technical Submission (referee stoppage armbar) at 0:46 of Round 1
- Justin Shaw defeated Rob McCormack by TKO (Strikes) at 0:19 of Round 1
- Misha Cirkunov defeated Shawn Pauliuk by TKO (Strikes) at 0:57 of Round 1
- Derek Medler defeated Myles Dearden by TKO (Strikes) at 2:56 of Round 1
- Darcy James defeated Conner Wood by KO at 1:36 of Round 1
- Dajan Kajic defeated Adam Gabel by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 3:37 of Round 1
- Keri Scarr defeated Sarah McLeod by TKO (Referee Stoppage) after Round 1
- *Conner Riddell vs Dan Ring ended in a DRAW
- *Theo Brisley defeated Iury Aquiano by Submission (Guillotine Choke) at 1:14 of Round 2
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