It happened again! Yesterday Team Lloyd Irvin took to the mats at the Abu Dhabi World Pro Trials in New York city. Among the athletes representing Master Lloyd Irvin were new brown belt Keenan Cornelius and new black belt DJ Jackson.
Since the brown and black belts are combined into one division in this tournament, Keenan would face some tough competition, considering he was just at purple belt until a couple months ago. But he was up to the task.
Keenan defeated several black belts, including the tough Raphael Fischetti 16-0 to make it to the finals against Pan Am and World Champion Roberto “Tussa” Alencar. In another upset (something we should be expecting from Team Lloyd Irvin at this point), Keenan defeated Tussa for the title.
DJ Jackson won his weight class as well, but the big story was in the Open Weight. DJ made it to the finals against the legendary Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, who had just submitted every opponent at the Miami Open last week.
Once again DJ imposed his will and came away with a big upset over Cyborg, shocking just about everyone in attendance. 3 years ago (in 2009) DJ was a decent blue belt, and now he is beating world class black belts like Lucas Lepri, Formiga, and Cyborg.
For more info on Team Lloyd Irvin PA click HERE.