Gabriel Sousa will now be competing against Gianni Grippo at ONE Fight Night 28 on February 7th, 2025. Although this is the only grappling match announced for the event so far, ONE Championship have been pulling out all the stops to sign some of the biggest names in the sport recently and it may not be the last one on the card. Grippo will be making his promotional debut in this match, while this will be the second time that Sousa has competed for ONE Championship. Sousa’s debut was back at ONE 167, where Mikey Musumeci avenged a previous loss by submitting him with a calf-slicer.
While Sousa will be looking to bounce back from that loss and work his way towards becoming one of the promotion’s champions, Grippo has an added motivation on top of simply making an impact in his debut. That’s because these two men have actually faced each other on three separate occasions before and Sousa has emerged victorious every single time. The first two matches between them both took place in 2020 at major IBJJF events and although they were split between gi and no gi matches, the result was fairly similar each time and Sousa won on points and by decision respectively.
Their most recent match took place almost two years ago as the main event of Toro Cup 24 and although neither man could get the submission, Sousa managed to win another decision. With that kind of history and the rematch on such a big stage, Grippo will definitely be out to get one back against Sousa. The match also has some implications for the ONE Championship title-picture, as both men are capable of making the promotion’s bantamweight and featherweight limits. Both of those titles are currently vacant and with relatively few grapplers competing for the promotion, neither of them will ever be that far away from the belt.
ONE Championship announced the news that Gabriel Sousa and Gianni Grippo would be facing one another at ONE Fight Night 28 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
