Mikey Musumeci has just made the decision to change teams to start training under Rubens ‘Cobrinha’ Charles, and he will be representing his academy in competition moving forward. It’s a huge move that will undoubtedly have an impact on the landscape of professional Jiu-Jitsu competition for a number of different reasons. Musumeci is already one of the best grapplers in the world at the lighter weight classes and with the added input of a legendary competitor like Cobrinha, it’s exciting to see just how much better he might get. Additionally, he’s an incredibly valuable training partner and his presence in the room will undoubtedly help improve the level of Cobrinha’s students.
That’s how this meeting originally came about too, as Musumeci originally made the journey to Cobrinha’s academy to help his son, Kennedy Maciel, prepare for the upcoming ADCC Trials in South America. Maciel is already an ADCC veteran and he even won a silver medal in the 2019 edition of the tournament, but he’s had to go back to the Trials circuit after going out in the second round of ADCC 2022. Every edition of ADCC Trials is an incredibly tough tournament and every winner has to defeat multiple elite competitors in order to earn their place at the world championship, so a training partner like Musumeci is invaluable.
It’ll be interesting to see what effect this has on Maciel’s chances of winning the ADCC South American Trials, but also how training under Rubens ‘Cobrinha’ Charles effects Mikey Musumeci. He’s been competing for ONE Championship exclusively over the last two years and is the reigning flyweight champion there, although he hasn’t faced the same level of competition that he might find at ADCC. That doesn’t mean he won’t be facing them soon though and as the invites for ADCC 2024 are starting to come out, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Musumeci’s name among them.
Mikey Musumeci announced the news that he was going to be training under Rubens ‘Cobrinha’ Charles and representing his academy in competition in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
