Andrew Tackett took on a phenomenal challenge in the latest episode of FloGrappling’s Who’s Next when he came up against the incredibly physically imposing Daniel Manasoiu. Andrew is the younger brother of ADCC West Coast Trials winner William Tackett and despite being in the early days of his career, the 165lbs competitor is already starting to make a name for himself. He’s actually competed on Who’s Number One already, defeating Sean Yadimarco by Decision just a matter of months before he took on fellow young prodigy Mica Galvao and unfortunately came up short.
Tackett is one of the dark horses to win the Who’s Next tournament, a tough grind between several of the most exciting, up-and-coming grapplers in the sport where they will meet in submission-only matches without any time limit. The athletes have been split in to two teams and are being coached by two elite competitors in Craig Jones and Tim Spriggs. Andrew Tackett was representing Jones’ team while Daniel Manasoiu was representing Spriggs’ team and it’s hard to find a bigger mismatch in terms of size in professional grappling. Tackett regularly competes at 165lbs while his opponent Manasoiu weighs in at a whopping 275lbs and is 6’7″, explaining his affection nickname ‘Big Dan’.
After winning a team challenge, it was actually Tackett who had the ability to choose the matchup for this episode and he was eager to test himself against Manasoiu. Jones even gave him some advice, telling him to talk trash and frustrate Manasoiu while dragging the match out in order to push him to make a mistake that he’s able to capitalise on. Tackett actually worked that gameplan to perfection and after surviving an early straight ankle-lock attempt, he was able to take Manasoiu’s back and sink in the rear-naked choke to force the tap.
Every episode of FloGrappling’s Who’s Next is available to watch on their official site, currently being released once per week on Wednesdays, click here to watch all of the episodes that are currently available.
