Fabricio Andrey has just been confirmed for CJI 2, where he will be joining Team Misfits Australasia as their one and only wildcard pick. It’s a crazy turn of events but the team’s head coach Lachlan Giles has really pulled it out of the bag by securing Andrey’s services as their under 66kg competitor. It’s only made possible by the introduction of the wildcard pick, where coaches can bring in one competitor who would be otherwise ineligible for their team. For Misfits coaches like Giles, this means that one of their five competitors doesn’t need to come from the continent that their team represents.
The news announced during the live broadcast of the qualifier tournament for the team’s under and over 99kg representatives, meaning that the full team was completed by the end of the event. This means that they are now the first Misfits team to be fully announced and they are already looking like serious contenders among the full lineup for CJI 2. Andrey is no small part of that either, as he’s legitimately one of the best no gi grapplers in the world at under 66kg. He’s a two-time ADCC veteran and has beaten many elite competitors in his young career, but his real strength comes from his usefulness in the Quintet format.
It’s one thing to be capable of beating competitors in your own weight class, but lighter grapplers are always at a distinct disadvantage in team grappling because they often face serious size differences. That’s where Fabricio Andrey gives the biggest benefit to Team Misfits Australasia at CJI 2, as he’s beaten much bigger competitors fairly often in his career. His most memorable performance came in the Absolute Grand Prix at Polaris 25 where he beat an ADCC veteran and ADCC champion who were both more than 20kg bigger than him on the same night. With him as the lightest competitor on the team, there’s suddenly no easier matches for bigger opponents.
The full live broadcast of the Team Misfits Australasia Trials where Fabricio Andrey was announced as the wildcard pick for CJI 2 was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu :
