AVA Calgary’s Pro Division
June 5, 2023 AVA
Written by Ryan Plessl
All VS All (AVA) grappling competition made their debut in Cochrane, Alberta this past weekend. The event was packed with competitors and spectators eager to see what AVA is all about. I’ve personally witnessed how the AVA events are run multiple times, but I’ve never experienced what it’s like to be a competitor for the event. That’s why this event, I decided to test myself against the best of the best in the Pro Division. Here’s my experience competing for AVA!
The main things I look for when competing in a grappling tournament is timeliness, structure, and potential prizes.
The last thing competitors (including myself) want to worry about while preparing for a tournament is if their match is going to be on time or not. If a match is run early you have the potential of missing it. If a match is run late you can get cold, and stress starts to build in the bullpen. AVA fully eliminates both of those concerns and makes sure every single bracket is run exactly on time. They do so by ensuring every mat has a “mat coordinator” that will run their mat on schedule.
It’s important that a tournament has a structure that makes sense, and is well communicated to competitors. AVA has a heavy emphasis on its submission only structure, encouraging competitors to win every single match by submission. This leads to more engaging, and fast paced matches, leading to a better overall viewing and competing experience. No stalling is always the goal.
I decided to challenge myself this tournament and enter the Pro Division. My reasoning was mainly for the potential of what I could win. In the Pro Division competitors compete for title belts, medals, and ranking points to try and better their chances at the cash prize for the end of the season. That’s a huge incentive for lots of competitors to join the AVA tournaments. For every other division, competitors are rewarded with medals that have unique designs and stories behind them. It’s always nice to win a nice prize for your efforts at tournaments. You can read about those medals here:
AVA runs a timely, structured, and professional event. As far as grappling tournaments across Canada go, this one is one of the best.
This post was written by Ryan Plessl.