Elijah Dorsey will be stepping on short notice in to replace Samuel Nagai at the upcoming IBJJF Grand Prix on march 3rd, 2023. Dorsey is joining the tournament just a little over a week before it takes place and although he obviously wasn’t preparing for the competition, he’s more than ready to battle it out with some of the best lightweight competitors on the planet. Ironically, Nagai himself was actually called up as a replacement for the event after Matheus Gabriel withdrew with less than a month to go.
Dorsey was a brown belt IBJJF Pan champion two years in a row and earned a silver medal at the IBJJF world championship as a brown belt in 2022 before he was promoted to black belt by his coach Lloyd Irvin in June. Dorsey might be considered as something of an underdog in comparison to two of the other three competitors in the lineup, although Carlos Henrique is also a relatively newly-promoted black belt. Johnatha Alves is a veteran competitor at the highest levels of the sport though and Andy Murasaki actually already submitted Dorsey on route to winning the IBJJF European Championship just a month ago.
Elijah Dorsey will get a chance at redemption against Murasaki at the IBJJF Grand Prix, but he might have to make it past one of the other elite grapplers first of course. The news that Elijah Dorsey was stepping in to replace Samuel Nagai at the upcoming IBJJF Grand Prix on March 3rd, 2023 was announced in a post to both FloGrappling and the IBJJF’s official Instagram account. Dorsey himself also confirmed the news on his official Instagram account and gave the following statement:
“In one week, I will be fighting in the IBJJF Lightweight Grand Prix in Austin, Tx. Make sure to tune in on March 3rd on FloGrappling. Super excited, can’t wait!!”
