Dreams Not Fame Podcast
Dreams Not Fame Podcast
EP 407: The Pit Awaits
I’m back on the Dream’s Not Fame Podcast with fresh wins and big news that’s got the DMV Jiu-Jitsu scene fired up. 💥
Fresh off a blazing 27-second win ⏱️ at the Great American Bash, I’m diving into the high-stakes matchups set for the upcoming NGA King of the Pit tournament 👑. This time, I’m stepping into the pit—not as a commentator—but as a competitor 🥋, going head-to-head with Reggie Hands, Trayvon Martin, Nicholas Willey, Brian Guevara, and Christian Banghart. It’s a stacked six-man bracket full of power, precision, and pit-worthy intensity ⚔️.
The women’s division is just as electric ⚡. The Grown-Ass Women Club is back with a new set of fighters in the Women’s Trios tournament against tough squads like the Powerpuff Girls, Beltway Bandits, and more. I’m also hyped to announce special guest commentators Sai'dah and Alex, who’ll bring expert analysis and much-deserved spotlight to the women’s division 👑.
But this episode isn’t just about what’s happening on the mats—it’s about the community 💯. Shoutout to our amazing sponsors Nova Barbell 🏋️♂️ and Asim (aka the “Switzerland” of lifting) 🌍 for showing love to athletes across all affiliations and keeping the culture strong.
And don’t sleep on October 🗓️—ADCC Pans is heading back to New York 🗽, and my team and I are already locked in and planning our run.
Whether you're a competitor, fan, or just curious about what’s going down in DMV Jiu-Jitsu, this episode brings the perfect mix of tournament hype, community vibes, and the kind of passion that keeps us all rolling. 🌀
Step into the pit—press play now! ▶️
Peace, Love, and Byeeeeeeee - Hype
Jordan open From the night to the wind. Party all night, getting lit to the sun, doing shit for fun, throwing out a win I got two tweens.
Speaker 2:Hey, what's up everybody? It's the Dream's Not Fame Podcast with your boy Hype Talking about everything, anything and everything. Jiu Jitsu in the DMV area. First things first. I am back after two weeks of Been out and about Knowing my last conversations about what I've been doing with the tournament.
Speaker 2:So the first tournament, which was the Great American Ranch or Great American Bash from American Jiu-Jitsu League, I actually won that one a couple weeks ago. It was really short and sweet. The reason why I was short? Because I had my opponent, it was clay's kneecap, um, so it was a quick 27 seconds but it was actually good. Um, I saw him the following week. Um, I actually had a match to coach against him, against one of his students, and uh, the guy did well. So I checked out everything from there. But no, he is doing good and that was my first victory.
Speaker 2:And the tournament I was talking about just recently, which was the IBJJF, which Big Brothers shout-out to y'all, hold on. Let me get to them real quick. They just won the team award over the past two days. So shout-out to my team, shout-out to all the affiliates that came through. We've been rocking, doing a lot of things, so it's a big accomplishment to actually get that done. I wasn't able to compete this past week because there was really no one in my division that didn't want to put the extra time in of just trying to move up weight class or anything, or I didn't have time to move down the drive lose the weight either. So we are at. That is what is point with that one. But it was overall great weekend, great time to see everybody.
Speaker 2:But this is not what the main thing would come in for. We're coming in for the breakdown of the NGA event for this weekend, for the women's trio and so forth. So I officially have the invitations for the King of the Pit for the 200. Again, shout out to Diallo, the team. Everybody that had parts in creating the tournament under that rule set for for that.
Speaker 2:So let me bring this up in my mail um, give me a second, guys, and where did it go? I am looking for this one. Sorry, guys, here we go With official order. The king of the pit is going to be Reggie Hanson, trayvon Martin, then me, nicholas Wiley, brian Guerra, vera and Christian Banghart. This is going to be actually a amazing six man. I've heard about I think Trayvon Martin was in a tournament with me, I think a week or two weeks ago at the American Branch.
Speaker 2:Christian Bronhardt is actually the gym ruler, gym owner of Vanguard, the second coach ever since the original coach. He actually moved down and started another gym, so Vanguard became under a christian and then, uh, actually a guy that I kind of know a little bit amongst the street and I know people around him, which is our brian guerrera. Um, from standard jujitsu. Uh, that is gonna be a banger in itself. I cannot wait, guys. I know, um, it's, it's, it's gonna be a b. I think we have a different set of styles. We have very big guys to weigh out in the very beginning and then we have the more technical terms in the back in terms of Brian, christian and me. So it's going to be a very mixed map.
Speaker 2:But then we also have the official list for the women's trios and where we're going against right there have the official list for the women's trios and where we're going against right there. So official list for the trios is as following the Grown as excuse me, grown as Women's Club Powerpuff Girls, beltway, bandits, roundtable Nexus Jiu-Jitsu Team, bandits, team Kamara, mataya, mataya Academy.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm pronouncing that name wrong guys and Whiskey Warriors. These teams are actually very interesting. The Grown as Women Club is a returning team who has actually won it and I think at the quintet level with High Noon, big Brothers was actually doing a team out there, so seeing them have a short version of that one, I know Whiskey Whisker what is it? Whisker Warriors? I know they have been in the tournament as well a couple of times doing the trios and or the quintet, so I know that's a subset of the original group there. Roundtable has been in this for a while now, so that's another group that I'm excited to see. Nexus Jiu-Jitsu the female side of Nexus. I know they ordered Jake the Snake, so I know he's going to have a good time coming out and handling the coaching on that side. Beltway Bandits has another team that has been in these trios of quintets that we've been holding on. So seeing a different variation from that, all these teams are lined up perfectly, if I'm reading this email right and I might be wrong here, guys, but if I'm reading this email right, it looks like. It looks like Powerpuff Girls was Grown-Ass Women Club and then the Beltway Bandits and Roundtable the ones facing off for each other. Then we have Nexus versus Team Bandits and then Team Kamau Mate Academy versus Whisker Warriors. That's how I'm seeing it in my emails, guys, I might be mistaken, but overall it's going to be a great experience dealing with the teams there. I'm not going to be commentating that much on the women's trio, not only because I'm the king of the pit, but we also extended out, like I mentioned this earlier, you guys to have Syeda and Alex from Standard and Pentagon MMA respectfully to come out and be commentating on the women's trio, because this is the event for women and I wanted to have a different voice for that segment itself. So they're going to be coming on commentary handling it down.
Speaker 2:Also. Shout-out to Alex. Let's get a nice round of applause real quick. Shout-out to her man. She's actually been on Fridays with Coffee. We set that up with one of the local guys I knew from the podcast area that's actually working with the sponsor of NGA, strong AF aka Scene, and having her Fires With Coffee and seeing a little bit of an interview. I'm going to finish up later today. It was amazing. She had a great conversation back and forth, I think, very knowledgeable and everything, and that's the kind of thing we want to spotlight what we bring these people on and have that spotlight for them there and kind of grow out the aspect from there. We will also have at NGA. We will have a what's it called Food truck outside. I'm pretty sure it's the same food truck as last time, so I know it was like a Caribbean food, which was amazing.
Speaker 2:We would definitely have the Nova Barbell team running under a scene Going to be at the tournament. They're going to probably have a cash prize on the grips. So please, please, keep a lookout for those. And they also run a weekend special for 50% off on programs. I would highly recommend guys to get into that and work with a scene. These programs I'm on customer right now are amazing. They get you ready for everything. If you're a guy that's in jujitsu, you guys are just in bodybuilding or you just want to just get right in general, this is the kind of program that they it will help and will show you progress.
Speaker 2:There's multiple um jiu-jitsu fighters and may fighters that are under this flagship and that's why we call it switzerland um. Everyone is in there. There's not gatekeeping or anything, so we always have that peace amongst everybody we deal with uh. So that is mainly why we call it, seems, switzerland, and the company itself is Switzerland, because this is not something we're trying to gatekeep, we're trying to grow a community and make sure we have everything. I know the coach out of the Grown-Ass Women Club and one of the players in there, maya and Tim Dawson I know they use the same. Tim is already a freak of nature and him on the scene is a different beast. In general, maya is already a beast and having that workflow with that, with Maya, is amazing as well. It's just a general overall feeling about having that and that's why and with Nova Bar Pro, they are very much a big, big sponsor With anything we're doing jiu-jitsu related, not only for this tournament, but we're also going to be supporting the Blue Belt Quintet Tournament in, I think, september or October with the same group of sponsorships.
Speaker 2:And whoever listens to this right now, you want to be part of this sponsorship and bring something to the team. We highly, highly recommend just reaching out to us. We're always flexible. You'll be dealing with mostly Dave in that aspect of the sponsorship, but the return on this is amazing. Be part of a group of people on these biweekly or not biweekly, these bimonthly kind of tournaments or every two three-month tournaments that we've been running. Everyone's in there.
Speaker 2:It's an exciting crowd that just have the pit, the atmosphere I'm going to be vibing that day, um, and so I I cannot wait. I generally cannot wait. Um, I had never played in the pit before. I moved around in the pit a little bit just trying to set it up and commentating the last two or three times. Uh, with the team and uh, seeing how it goes within the pit itself is amazing. I cannot wait to hear what my colleague Mano got to say about me and also how I'm going to perform there. Man, it's one of the things I'm knocking out of my list and I'm really excited for. It's definitely going to be exciting because this is the first match I haven't had or I'm going to have in a while. I don't know what I'm going to have in a while. I don't know what's going on with August.
Speaker 2:I had the opportunity to be a part of two different cards and it just didn't work out properly. With the people in Maryland and shout out to them for trying to get everything we worked. We were actually trying to work with one gentleman that was supposed to be in the king of the pit and I was really not trying to find or fight him until I get the stuff squared with him within king of the pit, Because I think, at the end of the day, I might as well. It was more of a focus of I want to get my get back there before we start playing for our third fight and having now what we're having, I believe, the Tony Ferguson, max Holloway kind of situation where excuse you guys where we're having these back and forths, where we potentially might be getting it, and it just falls through.
Speaker 2:That could be on both sides. I never take anything from my opponents if they don't show up or anything like that because life happens.
Speaker 2:I understand this fully because life is my life right now, with everything going on. So I definitely understand stuff happens and how you can make the tournament completely understand that we had the opportunity to kind of get our own little super fight going that fell through because we were playing for this one. So, overall, man, I'm happy for him, I'm probably gonna see him in pants and that's gonna be a great just conversation from there. Speaking of that, I'm gonna wrap this up here, guys, uh, and with this brief conversation, that's all about what we do doing at NGA right now. I would highly recommend, guys, if you're in the Nogi world, or you're in the area or not even the area, just in the Nogi world in general, I would highly recommend, especially in DAV.
Speaker 2:It is back, pans is back in New York. It is going to be between October 4th and 5th or October 3rd through the 5th. I would highly recommend, if you're one of the high level Nogi guys, come out there. I already see a couple guys that I know already in the mix. I'm already bringing out my team to make sure everything's good with the Airbnb. So it's going to be a blast in New York around that time and we're going to have probably a film crew. We're going to probably have this podcast going, probably a couple others give live updates and everything involved with that. So, yeah, just be prepared for October.
Speaker 2:October's going to be a crazy, crazy month for this pod and I just cannot, cannot wait for that. But until next week, guys, we're going to have the update here, I'm potentially going to have the update here, I'm potentially gonna have the update with the fighters of coffee, because shout out to them again, um, just having to hold it down for alex, but I haven't been in a chance to be on that main guest appearances lately. It's a big brother affiliate as well. So just probably having to connect is probably something we need to do sooner than later so y'all might be seeing that collaboration really, really, really, really soon. But until next week, guys, until I get a chance to talk again. Thank you for coming to the conversation. Peace, love and bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Jordan open. I got two twin locks driving to my house, One for the ops, one for the devil. Got a drip on me and she take it slow, Doing shit you never see like a dreamer girl. Got a shorty in the club going dumb. Pour another drink from the night to the wind Party all night, getting lit to the sun, Doing shit for fun. Throwing out a one. I got two twin locks driving to my house.
.jpg)