Roger is first-ever three-time absolute champion. Meet the other black belt champions

Roger - here attacking Tarsis's back in the quarterfinals - is the first three-time absolute world champion in history.

Roger is history’s first-ever three-time absolute champion.

The title came prematurely, as would-be opponent Rômulo Barral blew out his knee in the medium heavyweight final against Tarsis Humphreys and was unable to compete in the open weight final.

At medium heavyweight, Tarsis (Alliance) submitted Barral (Gracie Barra) at 6:23 min and made it to his first title. Rômulo played on top and was leading on advantage points until Tarsis escaped from getting his back mounted by going for the leg. Rômulo resisted and escaped the kneebar bending the knee inwards, which aggravated the situation and kept the athlete out of the rest of the championship.

In an exciting super heavyweight match, Ricardo Demente started out winning by a sweep in his encounter with Roger Gracie, who retaliated by moving to back mount. Afterwards, he passed and mounted but was unable to come up with the submission, as Ricardo managed to hold out for the rest of the ten regulation minutes. Besides winning his third absolute world title, Roger conquered a seventh-straight title in his weight group.

Bruno Malfacine (Alliance) returned to winning against Caio Terra (Gracie Elite Team) in the roosterweight final. This time was close, as he won by 3 to 2 in advantage points. Malfa thus made it to his third world title (2007/2009/2010).

At light featherweight, Gracie Barra athletes Samuel Braga and Pablo Silva – both Draculino students – made it to the final and opted not to fight.

Rafael Mendes (Atos JJ) conquered his first world title as a black belt upon defeating Rubens Cobrinha (Alliance) by 5 advantages to 3, with points tied at 4-4. The two were tangled in the 50/50 guard and had two sweeps apiece, and the match outcome was determined by foot attacks.

Michael Lanchi (Alliance) defeated Celso Venicius (Gracie Elite Team) in the judges’ decision and took his second world lightweight title. The match played out with Celso on top the entire time in the guard of Langhi, who threatened to off-balance his opponent at the tail end and, although failing to do so, managed an advantage point for it, thus convincing the three judges of his victory.

Marcelinho remains unbeaten at middleweight (ever since 2003, when he lost the final to Fernando Tererê). In an evenly-matched affair won by two points from a sweep, he contained Claudio Calasans’s momentum, demonstrated the sense of balance of a cat in defending sweeps and crowned himself world champion of the division for the fourth time (2004/06/09/10).

Current Pan-American absolute champion Bernardo Faria rained on Xande Ribeiro’s march for a fifth championship. He was trailing 2 to 1 in advantages but, at 7:42 min, managed to sweep and hang on to the two-point advantage to become world heavyweight champion for the first time.

In the final match of the championship, Rodrigo Cavaca (CheckMat) capped off the campaign of the day (which started with him submitting two-time world champion Márcio Pé de Pano with a triangle) and, after sweeping Carlson Gracie Team’s Roberto Cyborg, finishing up with a footlock at 2:49 min of action.

Alliance was the winning team, followed by Gracie Barra in second and CheckMat in third.

Original Article http://graciemagworlds.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/roger-is-first-ever-three-time-absolute-champion-meet-the-other-black-belt-champions/