Metamoris 3 Preview: Dean Lister vs. “Babalu” – Does Babalu have a chance?

On March 29th, 2014 Dean Lister will take on MMA fighter Renato “Babalu” Sobral in a submission grappling match in Metamoris-3. I find this to be a somewhat interesting match-up for Metamoris.  Babalu is a former MMA fighter with an MMA record of 37-12 (with 19 wins by submission).  He does have a wrestling / grappling background, but don’t kid yourself he’s really an MMA fighter.  In the last edition of Metamoris we saw what happened when an MMA fighter took on a grappler (See Brendan Schaub versus Cyborg debacle).  If somehow you missed it…basically it was an MMA fighter running from Cyborg’s guard the entire time.  Not pretty.  Now Sobral hasn’t competed in MMA since 2013 where he dropped two consequetive fights by TKO.  Before that he had an arm-bar submission win over Tatsuya Mizuno in  One Fighting Championships.  Interestingly he has a strong wrestling background competing on the Brazilian National Team.  He is also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under Carlos Gracie. Jr. (Gracie Barra).  Now this is all very impressive, but we are talking about competing against ADCC Champion Dean Lister.  Now Lister does have an MMA background too (19-12 record with 10 winds by submission).  With several notable fights in King of the Cage, UFC and  Pride.  Now of course none of this matters a whole lot because this isn’t an MMA fight!  Does Babalu have a chance of submitting Lister?  I just don’t see it happening.   When he was fighting MMA his career was mostly on the decline.  Whereas Dean Lister is really in his grappling prime.

Take a look at his impressive ADCC wins:      

ADCC 2013 -99 kg: 2nd Place, ADCC 2011 -99 kg: 1st Place, ADCC 2005 Superfight championship: Defeated Jean Jacques Machado., ADCC 2003 -98 kg: Quarter finals Open-weight: 1st Place, ADCC 2002 North American Trials -99 kg: 1st Place.

I have to confidently give this one to Lister.  But don’t count Babalu out…you just never know what is going to happen!

If I am living in my now…I am almost unstoppable! -Dean Lister

See what happens when Babalu takes on MMA fighter and BJJ Black Belt Frank Mir…

Here’s Babalu taking on Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Phil Migliarese in Submission Grappling…

After Schaub “fought” Cyborb in Metamoris, the social networks went crazy with memes