Den 10 januari kommer Polaris Professional Jiu Jitsu Invitational gå av stapeln i Cardiff, Storbritannien. Nedan finner ni en intervju med Ben Tong, en av grundarna av klädmärket Scramble och en av initiativtagarna till Polaris Professional Jiu Jitsu Invitational. För PPV/stream och mer info kolla på www.polaris-pro.org.

Följande matcher finns med på det första eventet av Polaris Professional Jiu Jitsu Invitational.
Keenan Cornelius vs Abraham Marte (Gi)
Jonathan ”JT” Torres vs Victor Estima (Gi)
Michelle Nicolini vs Angelica Galvao (Gi)
Dean Lister vs Pablo Popovitch (No-Gi)
Kit Dale vs Victor Silvério (Gi)
Mike Fowler vs Eduardo Telles (Gi)
Oliver Geddes vs AJ Agazarm (No-Gi)
Darragh O Connaill vs Max Campos (Gi)

Can you introduce us to those who are behind the Polaris Professional Jiu Jitsu Invitational?
The main partners are Scramble and Tatami, supported by Jiu Jitsu style magazine, and BJJ Hacks. Essentially it’s some of the main players of the UK / Europe jiu jitsu media and apparel scene.

There is a lot of great grapplers on the card, how has Polaris been received by the athletes?
There has been a really positive reaction from all of the athletes approached to appear on our premier event. It’s an exciting time for elite grapplers as well as fans, with more and more platforms emerging for the athletes to showcase their talents outside of traditional competition, and for fans to have better access to bouts that may not occur outside of professional Jiu Jitsu events.

How important do you think these kind of events are for the sport right now?
I think it’s pretty important. I think the submission only rule set plus the fact that the athletes only have to compete once during the night (versus multiple times for comps) should make for exciting bouts. Any opportunity to get high level athletes competing in a forum that’s easily accessible to the fans can only be a good thing!

What types of rules will be used?
It will be one 15 minute round. The bouts will all be submission only with no judges and no points. If no winner is determined during the round the bout will be deemed a draw.

Will there be more events in the future or does it depends on how the community respond to this event?
We’re keen to host more tournaments in the future. There are so many elite grapplers and so many potential dream match-ups that it would be great to have several tournaments throughout the year. Obviously it depends on the response to this event, but we feel that we’ve worked hard to put together a great card for the fans so hopefully the response to this event will be a good one!

The event will be held at Cardiff in the UK, is there a big jiu jitsu community in Cardiff?
Cardiff is pretty accessible to everyone in the UK, and also has an airport as well as a bigger international airport in nearby Bristol, so we don’t feel like we’re excluding attendance to just Cardiff locals. The community in the UK as a whole is very strong, and it’s great to be able to offer them the opportunity to watch a live event instead of having to stream PPV from the States.

Any Swedish grapplers who you might think would be interesting to see at any future Polaris events?
Sebastian Brosche is making waves at the moment, there’s definitely some potentially great match ups out there for him!