On March 10th, the North American Grappling Association comes to Sienna College in Albany (Colonie), NY. The NAGA’s are world renowned for putting on the largest events with the most competitors.
Sure they’ve been to Paris, Hawaii, Toronto and pretty much everywhere coast to coast but this is the first time they set out to penetrate the Upstate New York market. While saying Upstate is the Mecca for mixed martial arts might be an exaggeration or more accurately, a flat out lie, it IS home to a who’s who of relevant schools, teams and fighters. Jon Jones, Marc Stevens, Anthony Leone, Randy Smith, Eric Charles, Tamden McCrory, Jerry Spiegel, Bombsquad, CNY MMA and many more, hail from New York State’s better half.
While this may be the wishful thinking of an MMA enthusiast from Upstate, Albany stands to be a crossroads for the sport when it is finally legalized. The city is no more than three hours from every MMA school in the North East / New England region. This is all the more reason to expect a huge turnout, even for a regularly packed tournament.
For those of you new to the NAGA circuit, this is a place where ANYONE can test their grappling abilities. Four divisions from beginner to advanced allow people to compete no matter where they are with their learning, experience and abilities. Massive turn outs stack each weight class and division with grapplers giving you the best bang for your buck. Most MMA professionals have taken part in these tournaments at some point in their lives so this is a great place to meet and compete with future and current fighters. There are also divisions for youth and older competitors, gi and no-gi options, awards for all the youngsters, medals for competitors who place and belts for advance division winners.
In relevance to Western Mass, Albany is less than 90 minutes from Springfield and the same distance from Worcester as it is Syracuse so I expect to see you all there. You know who you are so be sure to be there to test yourself against NY’s finest.
You can pre-register online at NAGAFighter.com or sign up at the door. At NAGA events, the super competitive can elect to weigh in the night before (6-8PM) for better weight class placement. Doors open the next day at 8 and stick pretty close to the anticipated schedule you can also find on their website. Hope to see you all there!
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