Nicholas Meregali has just announced that he will be competing in a gi match at an upcoming Who’s Number One event that is scheduled for May 18th, 2023. This is an unusual turn of events, as WNO has never actually staged a single gi match in the past and have always focused exclusively on no gi competitors instead. There’s no news on who his opponent will be just yet, as there is no official announcement from the promotion about it. There’s a whole host of competitors that would make great matchups for Meregali though and WNO has the ability to bring any of them to the table.
Meregali and Kaynan Duarte went back and forth over potential matches a while ago, and Meregali actually revealed that he wanted to compete against him in both gi and no gi at some point this year. On the other hand, Pedro Marinho called out Meregali for a match after defeating his teammate Giancarlo Bodoni at the most recent WNO event. Either one of these men would make for an interesting matchup, but there’s also several other elite grapplers that they could book as tough matches for Meregali like Victor Hugo, Erich Munis, or Victor Honorio.
While nobody has ever seen a gi match at Who’s Number One before, plenty of people have seen Nicholas Meregali competing at the event. He actually made his no gi debut against Arnaldo Maidana at one of their events last year, shortly before he made his fantastic run at ADCC 2022 that saw him take home a silver and bronze medal from the tournament. Although he was focusing on no gi grappling for quite a while and doing very well at it, Meregali did make his return to gi competition at the IBJJF Pan Championship earlier this year. He put on an incredible performance and registered 6 submission finishes out of 7 wins to take home gold medals in both the ultra-heavyweight division and the absolute division.
Nicholas Meregali announced the news that he will be taking a gi match at an upcoming Who’s Number One event on May 18th, 2023 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
