The Combat Jiu-Jitsu Welterweight World Championship is scheduled for March 25th, 2023 and the promotion has just announced the full lineup for the event. As always, it will feature sixteen elite no gi grapplers and MMA veterans who are eager to bridge the gap between those two sports by adding openhanded strikes to a Jiu-Jitsu match. This will be the first Combat Jiu-Jitsu world championship event scheduled for 2023, although it’s almost a certainty that there will be at least one or two more before the year is over.
EBI 19 champion Alan Sanchez stands out as one of the most likely to emerge victorious at the event, but he will have to overcome some stiff opposition along the way. Although Jim Alers hasn’t won one of these events himself, he’s a veteran of the Combat Jiu-Jitsu scene and made it to the quarter-finals back in 2021. One of 10th Planet‘s most young competitors is also well-versed in the Combat Jiu-Jitsu ruleset, as Derek Rayfield has featured at the world championships in different weights multiple times.
There are a number of young grapplers who stand out as potential winners too. It’s normally unusual to pick out a nineteen year-old black belt as one of the top contenders to win the event, but Andrew Tackett is coming in fresh from a fantastic performance at Unrivaled 2 and is a tough match for anyone. Likewise, Davis Asare is one of the top young talents coming out of New Wave Jiu-Jitsu and it’ll be interesting to see how he copes with this level of competition.
While these men represent some of the top contenders at the Combat Jiu-Jitsu World Championship 2023, other exciting athletes like Shane Shapiro, Aaron Wilson, Oscar De Los Santos, Ian Butler, and Aaron Wilson are competing too. Rounding out the division is Nicholas Willey, Ivan Leyva, Kaleio Romero, Vinicius De Jesus, Andrew Kochel, Aaron Harris, and Jacob Rosales. Realistically, any of these tough grapplers could win on any given day and it wouldn’t be too surprising to see any of them take home the title.
The full lineup for the Combat Jiu-Jitsu Welterweight World Championship 2023 was announced in a post to the promotion’s official Instagram account:
