By Patrick Lujan

Chalk up another couple of IBJJF gold medals for Guam’s Mike Carbullido.

The 22-year-old brown belt heavyweight submitted his two opponents from his back to win the gi divisional gold at the American National Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Carson, CA today before moving on to the absolute.

(update: Carbullido won double gold in the no gi competition on Sunday)

Fellow Chamorro Darrell Payne won the purple belt gold in the super heavyweight masters division.

In his second fight against his super heavyweight opponent, Carbullido edged his opponent by a 3-2 advantage after a 0-0 tie.

He and Atos lightweight teammate Michael Liera, Jr. flipped a coin in the absolute finals with Carbullido walking away with the gold.

Carbullido explains the jiu-jitsu culture of fighting a teammate in the finals.

““This is like a pre-season. The regular season are like the World Championships and Abu Dhabi. If teammates make it to the finals (of those tournaments), then of course, we’re going to fight. But for something like this…we train every day. For the average person who doesn’t understand it, we train every day and we’re like brothers, so if it’s not something like the Worlds, then there’s no sense to fight him.”

It is the seventh gold medal for Carbullido in this tournament, winning one blue, three purple and now three brown dating back to last year.

“Jiu-jitsu is different from other sports. You have your seasons and off-seasons (in other sports). In jiu-jitsu, there’s no real off season. There’s constant Opens, tournaments and trainings. There’;s only an off-season if you make an off-season.

“Coming out here (to the states), I didn’t take full advantage of all these tournaments until just recently. There’s so many tournaments and I want to do all of them.”

Dream Come True

And to top it off, Carbullido will be holding his very own BJJ seminar in Tijuana, Mexico later this month in what he says is a dream come true.

“My first seminar ever…it’s a dream come true,” he exclaimed. “When I was on Guam, I was always hearing about people doing seminars. Now I’m doing my own seminar and people will be coming to see me and try to learn my techniques. The guys in Mexico has a kid in my class (at Atos) and they asked me if I was interested. They brought out other big names there before. We approved the date and boom, there was a flyer.”

Hairy Issue

You see that shaggy look on the poster to the right? It’s a thing of the past. In what Mikey calls a ‘sensitive’ issue, he had to rid the mane in order to better his mat performance.

“It just got in my face. Even when I train, it gets everywhere and it’s so hot. When I actually had it for about a year, I was so over this. So I cut my hair and I fought, it felt so good not to have hair in my face.”

The good-natured Carbullido goes even further, comparing his lost hair to college students.

“It’s like sending kids to college, they gotta go, but they’ll always come back.”

Good one, Mikey!