Heavyweight grappler Kelvin Fitial lived up to his moniker.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Big Hit\u201d thus hit it big by bringing the lone medal for the CNMI at the recently concluded Marianas Open All Island Grappling Jiu Jitsu Tournament in Guam last Saturday, Aug. 30.<\/p>\n
Fitial, who weighs 205 kg. and represented 670, won all three of his bouts against three grapplers from different clubs in Guam to bag the gold.<\/p>\n
He scored 2-0 against his first two opponents on the way to the finals.<\/p>\n
In his final bout, Fitial was behind by two points in the early goings but came back in time to reverse the outcome for a 4-2 count with 10 seconds left before the final buzzer sounded.<\/p>\n
This has caused a big celebration from the sidelines among his teammates, who cheered him and inspired him to stay focus in his bout at the Phoenix Center in Mangilao.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a good learning experience for me because most of the competitors there were very experienced grapplers,\u201d Fitial said.<\/p>\n
He said he never expected this.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just went there to compete, tried my best and did what I can and succeeded,\u201d said Fitial, who trained for the tournament for three months.<\/p>\n
He said it was his best finish ever.<\/p>\n
The other grapplers from Saipan who competed but did not reach the medal bouts were Trench Tech\u2019s Shane\u201d Pikaboo\u201d Alvarez, Jeff \u201cThunder\u201d Cloud, Kyle Peterson, and Alvarick \u201cPretty Boy\u201d Alvarez.<\/p>\n
They all competed in the gi and no gi categories and put up a good showing in various weight classes.<\/p>\n
Fitial thanked his them for their support during the tournament.<\/p>\n
He also thanked Justis \u201cCuki\u201d F. Alvarez, president\/promoter of Trench Tech Inc., for the trip.<\/p>\n
Alvarez said that Saipan is definitely proving that \u201cwe are a force to be reckoned with in the ever growing sport of MMA and Jiu jitsu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heavyweight grappler Kelvin Fitial lived up to his moniker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}