Joao Miyao is about to take an interesting match against UFC veteran Ricky Simon at Pit Submission Series 2 on February 23rd, 2024. It’s an unexpected proposition for a number of reasons, not least of all because Miyao has slowed down his competition schedule significantly in recent years. It makes sense too seeing as he’s 32 and has been testing himself at the highest level of the sport for the better part of a decade. He’s still been stepping on the mats as recently as 2023, but Miyao has opted for a change of pace and is now competing in masters divisions at major tournaments instead.
Another interesting element to this match is that Miyao will be facing a completely different of grappler than he has hundreds of times before. He is generally known for competing in major IBJJF tournaments and ADCC, meaning that he has almost always come up against fellow professional grapplers. Simon actually started out his combat sports career in wrestling and although he has since earned a BJJ black belt under Fabiano Scherner, that’s still where a lot of his grappling skills come from. He’s used those skills to work his way up in to the UFC bantamweight rankings and has earned wins over some huge names like Rani Yahya and Merab Dvalishvili during his MMA career.
Undoubtedly the most interesting aspect of this match between Joao Miyao and Ricky Simon at Pit Submission Series 2 actually has nothing to do with the athletes, and instead it’s to do with the promotion. By booking grappling matches in the famous Karate Combat pit, Pit Submission Series offers it’s competitors unique options in the match that they won’t be able to do anywhere else. The main event of Pit Submission Series 2 is a battle between another UFC veteran in Philip Rowe, and another top BJJ competitor in Craig Jones.
Pit Submission Series announced the news that Joao Miyao and Ricky Simon would be competing in a grappling match at their second event in a recent post to their official Instagram account.
