Midwest Finishers 14 is scheduled for May 27th, 2023 and the promotion has announced an excellent lineup for a pair of tournaments that will be contested under EBI rules. Along with several superfights that they’ve also managed to book, there will be a women’s under 145lbs tournament and a men’s under 185lbs tournament. The women’s tournament will feature 8 top competitors whereas the men’s tournament is twice the size, with 16 grapplers battling it out for that title.
The women’s tournament has two clear favourites and they’re positioned on opposite sides of the bracket, so they represent the most likely final match. Trinity Pun has been on the radar for quite some time as a top prospect in the sport and she’s recently been making that transition from prospect to legitimate contender. She had a great showing at Emerald City Invitational 6 a little under a month ago when she won their 135lbs tournament, so she’s coming into the Midwest Finishers 14 lineup in excellent form.
While there are plenty of women standing in her way, the biggest challenge for her will likely come from Peyton Letcher, an ADCC veteran who has shown herself to be a master of EBI rules. They actually met on the mats earlier this year, and Letcher won that match at Rise Invitational 11 in EBI overtime before going on to win the entire tournament. The other competitors in the bracket are more than capable of providing an upset, including MMA veteran and former Invicta FC world champion Pam Sorenson.
The men’s 185lbs tournament is significantly harder to predict, but the two favourites to win it have also been separated on opposite sides of the bracket. On one side, Shane Fishman will be coming in off a string of good performances under both IBJJF and ADCC rules and will no doubt be eager to continue that run. Alan Sanchez stands out as the man most likely to stop him though, as he came within inches of winning the Combat Jiu-Jitsu welterweight world championship just a few months ago. With the eventual champion having to win 4 matches against a series of elite competitors though, there’s really no telling who might end up with the title when the tournament is over.
The full lineup and brackets for the women’s under 145lbs and men’s under 185lbs tournaments at Midwest Finishers 14 was announced in a post to the promotion’s official Instagram account:
