(The previous edition can be found HERE )





Welcome to another edition of Match of the Week, and the last edition of 2014. This week’s match is Tim Spriggs vs. Jonathan Satava from the purple belt absolute finals of the 2012 Abu Dhabi Pro New York Trials.





Tim Spriggs is a black belt under Julius Park and fights for Crazy 88/Team Lloyd Irvin. Tim has being making waves in the Jiu-Jitsu community since his days as a purple belt, and is especially known for his fast and explosive style of Jiu-Jitsu. Over the past few years, he has won dozens of titles and as a result, he received his black belt in August 2014.





As I mentioned earlier, Tim has won numerous titles over his relatively short career in the sport. He is a four time Pan American Champion (2014 brown weight & absolute, 2013 & 2012 purple), a three time European Champion (2013 purple weight & absolute, 2011 blue), a two time Pan American NoGi Champion (2013 brown weight & absolute), and a one time World (2014 brown), World NoGi (2012 purple), and World Expo GP Champion (2013 brown).





Tim is an excellent guard passer. He passes people’s guards like they are nothing. Once he has passed, the pressure he uses is incredible and easily transitions from side control to the back or mount. In particular, Tim seems to favour the mount as his dominant position of choice where he likes to set up a cross collar choke. He is also very good at takedowns, and you will often see him start off the match with a takedown before going into one of his signature passes.





Tim Spriggs

Source: GracieMag





Jonathan Satava is a brown belt under Marcelo Garcia and fights for the Alliance team. He is part of Marcelo's illustrious brown belt 'dream team', with each member either winning or placing on the podium of nearly every brown belt division of each competition they enter. His impressive competition record has caught the eye of the Jiu-Jitsu media, and was recently invited to compete against black belts in the 2014 Copa Podio Middleweight GP.





Jonathan is a two time World NoGi (2014 brown, 2012 purple) and Pan American NoGi Champion (2013 brown, 2012 purple absolute), and a one-time New York Spring Open (2014 brown), Boston Winter Open (2013 purple), and Boston Open Champion (2012 purple). He is also a two time Pan American NoGi (2014 weight & absolute) and New York Spring Open silver medalist (2014 brown absolute, 2013 purple), and a one-time Pan American silver medalist (2014 brown) and a Worlds bronze medalist (2012 purple).





Coming from Marcelo's academy, it’s only natural that Marcelo’s style of grappling will rub off on some of his students. Actually, Jonathan's style of Jiu-Jitsu is very similar in some aspects to Marcelo's. In his matches he uses a lot of butterfly and x-guard. He also attacks the back very well and uses the crucifix position to great effect.





Jonathan Satava

Source: GracieMag





This match is a very dominant performance from Tim Spriggs. Jonathan is a very good and experienced competitor, and uses the x-guard and single leg x-guard well, but it’s simply not enough to prevent Tim's relentless passing and extreme pressure. For the first few minutes, Jonathan manages to hold Tim off, but once Tim passes, it’s only a matter of time before he gets a submission.





The video of the match can be found below. I hope you guys enjoy!



See you next week!



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