All About MatBattle: Overview and Biographies

Launched on October 1st, 2002, MatBattle is the world's only gay judo and BJJ website, helping homosexual grapplers explore and express their fetish in a welcoming environment.

MatBattle sets the standard in martial arts sporno, offering journalistic professionalism, high-end production values, and quality content available nowhere else. But enough about the Big Idea; read on to learn about the five very different men behind the MatBattle revolution.

Name: Dan O'Connell aka 'The Badger'
Grappling Style: Judo and BJJ
Favorite Technique: Tate-Shiho-Gatame / Mount

Who He Is: Dan is a life coach and personal trainer based in Sligo, Ireland. A graduate of journalism from DCU, he has forsaken mainstream media in favour of MatBattle, gaining worldwide notoriety for his autobiographical essay, BJJ—the New Gay Judo.

What He Does: Dan is our Creative Catalyst; he developed the idea of this site, and hooked us dudes up with one another. He currently does all the online PR for MatBattle, moderates the Open Forum, edits our lousy English whenever it gets too tortuously mangled to make sense of, and keeps us motivated in the face of soul-destroying participation inequality.		 s

j Name: Mike Sanders aka 'The Sandman'
Grappling Style: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Favorite Technique: Rear Naked Choke

Who He Is: Living in beautiful San Antonio, Texas, Mike works as a graphic artist and web designer. An accomplished purple belt at the time of MatBattle's inception, he has now acquired full black belt instructor status. His biggest claim to fame, however, is that he once mounted a guy for eight and a half minutes. Ride 'em, cowboy!

What He Does: MIke is the MatBattle webmaster. He designed the site from scratch, takes care of the (ir)regular updates, and sets up the video and chat links that allow us to collaborate. He's also the editor of our BJJ and Articles sections.

Name: Aaron Gray aka 'The Guru'
Grappling Style: Judo All the Way, Baby!
Favorite Technique: Yoko-Shiho-Gatame

Who He Is: Hailing from Australia, but now a permanent South African resident, Aaron is determined to become the next Sigmund Freud; he holds a degree in Psychology and Human Behavior from Cape Town University. As if that wasn't enough, he's also a volunteer for the city's Gay Switchboard service—don't ya just love a dude with Heart?

What He Does: When it came time to decide on the best man to—uh—man our Problems section, Aaron was the sole contender; he's hands down the most sensible guy we know. Aaron is also the curator of our Interviews and Personals sections.		 s

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Name: Marc Corberre aka '--' (Hates Nicknames)
Grappling Style: Kosen Judo
Favorite Technique: Kami-Sankaku-Gatame / Sankaku-Osae-Gatame

Who He Is: Probably the most unashamedly intellectual of our motley crew, Marc is a writer of some distinction in his native homeland of Canada, and has completed a three-year degree program in Anglo-Saxon Literature. He acts as a respected judo coach to a small club in Manitoba, where he shouts a lot and bosses people about—just kidding, Marc!

What He Does: If you haven't read a Marc Corberre judo story, you haven't read nothin'. This hombre can really write. He also maintains our Judo section, and gets mad at us when we goof off. He'll hate us for saying it, but deep down he's a real sweet guy.

Name: Tom Castino aka 'Ermintrude'
Grappling Style: BJJ and Judo
Favorite Technique: Triangle Choke

Who He Is: Some guys have all the luck: Tom is based in São Paulo, Brazil, the home of BJJ. He's the only member of the MatBattle team to have brought an opponent to climax whilst fighting at a public tournament. Talk about exhibitionism!

What He Does: Tom is responsible for both our Images and Movies zones; as part of our mission to bring you every piece of great grappling erotica in existence, he has spent the past five years reviewing over 1,000,000 photos and video clips, picking the cream of the crop for our ever expanding Gallery of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo erotica. Nice work if you can get it!		 s

Join the MatBattle Team—Whoever You Are, Wherever You're From!
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Keeping a site as large as this one updated with fresh features and content takes quite a chunk of effort—that's why we're always looking out for new talent to help us make MatBattle the very best that it can be. Specifically, we welcome more contributors to our Articles and Fiction departments—guys with a passion for gay BJJ and judo; guys whose standards of excellence are every bit as high as our own.

If you'd like to take a shot at getting published within the Internet's most talked about alternative grappling arena, simply contact us. All articles, if accepted, will be subject to rigorous editing where required.

Final word—this is a run-for-the-love-of-it website: we can't pay authors for their work, but will give them full credit at the start any piece we print.

Fair enough?