Mica Galvao is now the second person to become a Who’s Number One (WNO) double champion and he’s made it clear that he isn’t stopping there either. Galvao has been widely regarded as one of the best competitors of his generation for a while now, but the last year or two has seen him start to really cement his legacy. Although WNO isn’t the oldest promotion in the sport, they have routinely booked all the biggest names in the sport and even one title there carries a lot of weight. Galvao has set his sights much higher than that though.
He first won the promotion’s welterweight title in an epic four-man tournament at WNO 20 in 2023, and that was just the beginning of a phenomenal run. He defended the title multiple times throughout 2024 and also became the second person to win the sport’s coveted super grand slam that year. He was also the youngest to achieve that honour, which requires athletes to win all four major IBJJF gi tournaments and ADCC in a single year. There isn’t really a whole lot left for Galvao to accomplish, so he set his sights on a new weight class and challenged Jonnatas Gracie for the WNO middleweight title.
That match went down as the main event of WNO 28 and Galvao won a convincing decision, becoming the champion of two weight classes at the same time. He was then asked what was next for him in his post-match interview and he knew exactly what to say:
“There’s a lot that I still want to conquer, you know? I got the 170, I got the 185, and Pedro (Marinho) once said here in a previous one, I don’t know which one it was, at Who’s Number One… But he said he wanted a rematch. Let’s do this. Let’s do it for the title at 205lbs. I want to go and look for my third belt, you know I’m always up for the challenge, and if he said, so let’s just sign the contract and put this up for it.”
Marinho is the reigning light-heavyweight champion at WNO and beating him would be a whole new level of success that nobody has ever had before. Galvao already holds a win over Marinho by submission from back in 2021 too, but a lot has changed for both men since then. Overcoming that size difference to become a triple champion would be a remarkable achievement and it might also signal that Galvao is ready to move up in weight in general. He won the under 77kg division at ADCC 2024, so this could potentially be the start of him competing at under 88kg next time around.
The full Who’s Number One 28: event replay, including Mica Galvao becoming the double champion, is available to watch on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
