Welcome to ‘The Open GuardCast Jiu-Jitsu Podcast’, which is a project dedicated to promoting jiu-jitsu professionals. Today, we bring you a bonus episode with a special guest interview. Don’t worry, Episode 123 will still air tomorrow afternoon, Wed., Feb. 9th, 2022. Tune in each week, Wednesdays at 2pm CST, on our ‘Bloody Elbow Presents Podcast Network’, for interviews, current events, and analysis of everything going on in the world of jiu-jitsu and submission grappling! Your host is Danny O’Donnell. In addition to hosting this podcast, he is an MMA journalist contributing here at Bloody Elbow, as well as at Black Belt Mag. O’Donnell himself is a BJJ black belt who trains at Marcio Andre Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Phoenix, AZ. We debuted the show recently at ‘Episode 121’, since we are picking up the pod off of Libsyn Directory, as it’s been running awhile now under its own steam. Over time, we will have all previous 120 episodes uploaded into our Bloody Elbow Presents Playlist for the show, for your listening pleasure. O’Donnell’s goal is to turn this podcast into the biggest Jiu-Jitsu Podcast out there and we intend to help him get as far as he can, so be sure to join us and check it out! On this bonus episode, Danny’s guest is Elder 'El Monstro' Cruz, who is a Checkmat brown belt, current WNO Super Fight winner, a 2021 IBJJF Worlds winner, an ADCC East Coast Trials winner, as well as winner of the IBJJF Pans Gi and No-Gi events, not to mention winning Brown Belt Gold at the World No-Gi event recently. In this episode they discussed Cruz’s recent Who’s #1 match with Nick Rodriguez, his start in grappling as a wrestler, fighting MMA, transitioning to a jiu-jitsu career, ADCC, struggles of being a full-time jiu-jitsu athlete, and his goals for 2022. Listen in and enjoy the interview! * We apologize for some audio issues we have been having this week. As soon as we can get this corrected, an updated version of the episode will replace this initial track. You can follow Danny on his brand new twitter — @DannyOD_BJJ, or he can be found on instagram — @dannyod_bjj. The show’s instagram is @openguardcast, it can also be found on Facebook here. You can check in on this week's guest, Elder Cruz, on his Instagram — @elmonstrijj and his latest instructional product, ‘Monstrous Takedowns’, on jiujitsux.com. Be sure to tune in for this week’s Episode 123 and learn more about the world of jiu-jitsu, on Wednesday, February 9th, at 2:00pm CST. When Danny will have a guest co-host, Jake Watson, and their guest will be Josef Manuel, whose academy is found on instagram @cuttingedge_bjj or check out his website at chokelab.com, or on insta — @choke_lab. If you enjoy our shows, "heart" us here on SC, or "like" & share over on whichever BE Presents Podcast Channel happens to be your listening platform of choice: * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloodyElbowPresents * iTunes & Apple TV: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/blood…&i=1000421882228 * iHeartRadio: www.iheart.com/podcast/269-Blood…Presents-30639274 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/55S2dpKYVqndaPTUojkELm?si=oGGPZ4kESkWZigLNnEg1ug * Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/bloody-e…esents?refid=stp * TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Sports--Recreation-Podcasts/Bloody-Elbow-Presents-p1190843/ * OverCast: overcast.fm/itunes984162015/bloody-elbow-presents * Player FM: player.fm/series/bloody-elbow-presents * & Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b53e5086-2334-497c-82c0-24ddb5e0cfbb/Bloody-Elbow-Presents ... While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe to Bloody Elbow Presents; that way you’ll always be the first to get all of BE’s daily MMA offerings. For previous episodes of the show, check out our playlists on all of our BE Presents channels.