Cygen Athlete Thomas Beach Qualifies for the Abu Dhabi World Pro Jiu-Jitsu Cup

Earlier this month, one of our Cygen sponsored athletes, Thomas Beach travelled to Montreal to take place in the North American Abu Dhabi Pro Jiu-Jitsu Trials for a chance to qualify in the prestigious Abu Dhabi World Pro Jiu-Jitsu Cup in the United Arab Emirates. After winning all four of his matches, Thomas qualified and will be heading to Abu Dhabi in a couple of weeks to represent himself, his school Toronto BJJ and of course Cygen Labs. I asked Thomas to sum up the experience of the trials for me, and this is what he had to say:

I had four matches.

In my first match I pulled closed guard and quickly swept the opponent to mount. He then turned over and I took the back and I put him in an arm bar and ended the match by submission.

My second match was the toughest of the tournament for me. I pulled open guard and quickly closed up the guard. I spent most of the match attacking, opening and reclosing the guard with not much luck. I put him in a tight triangle and spent a lot of energy trying to finish but I was unable to get a submission. He tried to finish me at the end with a Kimura but was never really close to having the submission. My opponent was very strong both technically and physically, but I won the match by decision.

My third match I pulled close guard and spent a minute or so attacking until I was able to cross his arm and take the back. Like I did in my first match, I switched to an arm-bar and finished the match by submission.

My last match I pulled half guard and attacked some chokes. I changed gears and attempted a sweep giving me room to close the guard. I finished the match by crossing his arm going to the back and right away I cinched in the choke and got him to tap.

I am leaving for Abu Dhabi on April 12th and compete on the 16th and 17th.
Here’s a link to a video recap of the tournament:

Tom

Thanks for the update Thomas! All of us here at Cygen Labs are confident that you will represent us well at Abu Dhabi. Best of luck; we can’t wait to hear how things go over there.