COLUMBUS, OH — Saturday’s open mat at Apex Submission Grappling began like any other: mismatched socks, three guys who clearly just rolled somewhere else, and a woman in the corner stretching for longer than was strictly necessary. What made this Saturday different was Tyler Brent.
Brent, 34, arrived at 12:07 p.m. wearing a Tapout shirt that had been washed enough times that the logo had become more of a suggestion. He had no gi. He had no rashguard. He had no mouthguard and, it would emerge, no base.
“I train UFC,” he told the first person who asked where he trained. When that person, a purple belt named Deb, clarified that UFC was not a gym but an organization, Brent nodded in a way that suggested he had heard this before and had decided it was wrong.
He was paired with a 135-pound blue belt named Marcus. The roll lasted eleven minutes. In that time, Marcus submitted Brent seven times using, in order: a rear-naked choke, a kimura, an armbar from mount, a triangle, a second rear-naked choke (“just to see”), an ankle lock that Brent disputed after tapping (“that’s not a real one”), and a bow-and-arrow choke that took four minutes because Brent had incorrectly concluded that going limp and saying “okay, okay, okay” was the same as tapping.
Between submissions, Brent attempted to throw several punches, which he pulled two inches from Marcus’s face while saying “boom.” He attempted one takedown, which he described as a double-leg and which was a running hug that left both men on the mat in a configuration nobody had intended.
After the roll, Brent described Marcus as “technical” and said that he himself had “not warmed up.”
He stayed for three more rounds. In round four he was submitted by a white belt who had been training for eight months. He told her she had “good energy.”
On his way out, he asked the front desk about the class schedule and whether they offered any “street application” content. He was given a brochure.
He has not returned. The Tapout shirt has not been recovered.
This article is satire. The Porra is a fictional publication. The “I train UFC” man is a protected species in the BJJ ecosystem. Do not provoke him.