Keenan Cornelius has been unfortunately forced out of his upcoming match against Haisam Rida at the next Who’s Number One event, although he will be sending his very first black belt student Miha Perhavec to compete in his place. The match was set to be the first time that Cornelius has been seen competing this year and would’ve represented a huge opportunity for Rida to make good on his potential and catapult himself to the forefront of the professional grappling scene.
At the very least, the background to the match still remains relevant as Haisam Rida is coming off a recent win against Sloan Clymer, another of Cornelius’ students and a training partner of both him and Miha Perhavec. While the loss of Cornelius is no doubt a blow to the promotion, the event is still stacked from top to bottom with phenomenal grappling talent and will feature some of the biggest names in the sport like Mikey Musumeci, Tye Ruotolo, Craig Jones, and Danielle Kelly.
Interestingly, this isn’t the only time in recent memory that Cornelius has been forced to withdraw from a match at the last minute as he wasn’t able to compete on F2W 149 against Gabriel Almeida either. As a result, the king of lapel guards hasn’t competed since winning a decision against Matheus Luna back at F2W 148 just a little under a year ago now. While it’s unclear when we’ll get to see Cornelius competing again, he’s one of the few men who seem all-but-guaranteed to make an appearance at the next edition of the ADCC World Championships in 2022.
The full Who’s Number One event will available to watch live on June 18th on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
