Felipe Pena Suffers Ankle Injury In Victory At BJJ Bet

ADCC and IBJJF World Champion Felipe Pena revealed that he suffered an ankle injury in the very early stages of his victory over Erberth Santos at BJJ Bet’s phenomenal event. He announced the news via his official Instagram where he showed a few photos of his clearly swollen ankle, although he hasn’t announced the specifics of his injury just yet, if he even knows himself at this point. It doesn’t seem to be too serious however, as Pena was able to finish his match and secure the victory over Santos after a rather unusual turn of events.

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🇧🇷Confesso que estava muito ansioso e nervoso pra essa luta! Estava a mto tempo sem lutar e por toda história e provocação, perder essa não seria como perder qualquer outra. 30seg de luta torci meu pé na hora da queda e sabia que tinha machucado feio mas nao queria mostrar a lesão pro oponente. Mantive a calma e focado no objetivo sem nunca desacreditar, pq sei que estou preparado para qualquer adversidade! Às vezes vai sair algo fora do planejado e a gente tem que ter cabeça fria pra saber lidar com essas situações! Levo isso na minha carreira de atleta mas também em tudo na vida. “Não se trata de quão forte pode bater, se trata de quão forte pode ser atingido e continuar seguindo em frente. É assim que a vitória é conquistada." #rockybalboa Queria parabenizar o evento @bjjbetofficial e toda a equipe pela excelente organização desde a escolha das lutas, ao hotel, tratamento e estrutura do evento, estava tudo impecável. Obrigado pela oportunidade, to amarradão de ter feito parte desse grande show e mal posso esperar o próximo! 🇺🇸I confess that I was very anxious and nervous for this fight! I was too long without a fight and for all the history and provocation, losing this would not be like losing any other. 30sec of fight I twisted my foot at the time of the fall and knew I had hurt badly but I didn't want to show the injury to the opponent. I remained calm and focused on the goal without ever discrediting, because I know that I am prepared for any adversity! Sometimes something goes wrong and we have to be cool in order to deal with these situations! I take this in my career as an athlete but also in everything in life. “It's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can be hit and keep going. That's how victory is won. " #rockybalboa I would like to congratulate the @bjjbetofficial event and the whole team for the excellent organization from the choice of fights, to the hotel, treatment and structure of the event, everything was impeccable. Thank you for the opportunity, so stoked to have been part of this great show! 📸: @chibly

A post shared by Felipe Preguiça (@felipepenabjj) on Sep 7, 2020 at 6:34am PDT

The ankle injury that Felipe Pena suffered appeared to happen right at the beginning of the match, when Santos initially had the upper hand and led on the scoreboard thanks to a quick takedown. Pena’s first attempt at a sweep then gave Santos the opportunity to take the back that he pounced on, quickly starting to work in his first hook. Pena then managed to roll out and return to guard before securing a sweep and tying up the score after the first few minutes.

This was when the match took an unusual turn as Pena passed his guard with ease and progressed to mount without Santos offering any resistance at all. He was speaking to the referee while Pena was still working and this led to the match being called off with around four and a half minutes remaining, Pena being declared the winner via verbal submission. In the post-fight interview, Pena claimed that Santos had actually asked the referee to stop the fight twice, but the first time the referee had merely told them to keep fighting.

The match had echoes of Santos’ previous loss to Nicholas Meregali, where he also stopped resisting when put in a bad position and verbally submitted so that the fight would be stopped. What’s unusual in this case is that the competitor who suffered an injury early in the match was actually not the one who chose to end the match.