Absolute black belt podium: Erick Arona, Lucca França, Paulo Ceguim, Fabiano Soares and promoter Andrezinho Nogueira / Photo: Junior Samurai/GRACIEMAG.com
It happened this past weekend in the Brazilian state of Ceará.
In the master division at Copa Luta pela Vida, in the city of Fortaleza, Paulo Aguiar showed he’s still got plenty of fuel to burn and Jiu-Jitsu to teach. First, the Evolution team representative competed among the old guys, Next, he dove into the adult division. After that, he returned to his age group, where ultimately he won gold in both the master middleweight and absolute divisions.
In the open weight final, Paulo Aguiar tapped out Fabiano Soares with a wristlock from side control. He landed the move when Fabiano, who was on bottom, tried pushing him off. So Paulo grabbed his elbow with both hands and crunched his opponent’s wrist.
Of the 340 athletes signed up for the tournament, the big winner was black belt Lucca França, also of Evolution team, who won the adult middleweight division and closed out the absolute with his teammate Erick Arona.
At brown belt, one of those to receive the most applause was Paulo Paulada of Orestes Combat team, who went to town with an arsenal of takedowns and won the middleweight division. Now Gessy Barbosa of Gracie Barra overcame Iranildo Gigante of MG team, taking superheavyweight gold. There was no absolute for the brown belt division.
