Nicholas Meregali has just made a pretty clear hint that he will be making a return to competition before the end of 2024 after recovering from his shoulder injury. He was part of one of the biggest storylines at ADCC 2024, when he was on the receiving end of the biggest upset of the event. Not only was he submitted by Michael Pixley in the quarter-final of the under 99kg division but he also suffered an injury to his shoulder that was immediately obvious when the match had finished. He was then seen during with his arm in a sling and he announced after the event that he would need surgery to fix his shoulder.
That surgery should have left him with a recovery time of around 5 months, and it seemed unlikely that he would be competing until at least part-way through 2025. It seems as though his recovery has gone a lot better than expected though, as his recent social media post suggests that he’s planning to compete before the end of the year. He shared an image of him celebrating a win on October 10th, 2024 and left a simple message of ‘5 weeks and 5 days’. The date he referenced would be on November 19th, 2024, although there isn’t currently any major events that have been publicly announced for that date.
There are only a handful of likely suspects in terms of promotions that Nicholas Meregali would make his 2024 return to competition at, but some of them can already be ruled out based on the date. The next Who’s Number One event is scheduled for a few weeks after his return date and although it’s pretty close, the upcoming second edition of The Crown is scheduled for just a few days before Meregali’s date. There’s also the fact that he’s already announced that he won’t be doing IBJJF events again, so there aren’t really many potential promotions left. The most likely of the remaining options would be a currently unannounced UFC Fight Pass Invitational or Polaris event, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
Nicholas Meregali dropped the hint that he would be making a return to competition in 2024 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
