Evolve Ur Game and Jiujitsu Battle are two great promotions and they’ve decided to join forces in order to create a stacked 8-man lineup for a middleweight tournament for September 9th, 2023. Alongside this bracket of top black belt competitors, the event will also feature another two tournaments for rising stars at both brown and purple belt as well. Although the purple and brown belt tournaments will take place in the gi, the black belt tournament will instead be no gi and will have a $10,000 grand prize available for the winner.
Naturally, tournaments with healthy prize money like this attract some of the best grapplers around and the middleweights who’ve entered the division could all easily headline a professional grappling event. The first man who was announced for the event is also one of the favorites to take home the grand prize, top Checkmat black belt Elder Cruz. He isn’t the only ADCC veteran in the lineup though, because Andy Varela will be representing 10th Planet at the event too.
The bracket is actually unpredictable though as there’s plenty of grapplers who are capable of taking out Cruz and Varela, with Sebastian Rodriguez and Jacob Couch looking like potential winners as well. Jackson Nagai and Igor Feliz are also going to be tough opponents for whoever stands across from them, while the lineup is rounded out by the presence of Eduardo Avelar and Victor Silveiro. The two promotions have also managed to put together a couple of superfights for the event too, including one very interesting matchup between Frank Cespedes and Estevan Martinez that will no doubt produce some fireworks.
Both Evolve Ur Game and Jiujitsu Battle announced the news that they would be co-promoting an 8-man middleweight tournament in a recent post to their official Instagram accounts, before steadily announcing the full lineup:
