Nicholas Meregali has just shared an update on the shoulder injury that he suffered during his run in the under 99kg division of ADCC 2024. Meregali was one of the favorites to win the division originally and many people would have predicted him to win the absolute division as well. In fact, Meregali was so confident during the build-up to the event that he even predicted the submissions he would finish his matches with. Although he did manage to win his opening round match by submission, everything fell apart for Meregali when he faced off with Michael Pixley in the quarter-final.
Pixley threw Meregali multiple times during the match and eventually submitted him with a D’arce Choke to secure the biggest upset win of the tournament. The end of Meregali’s run in the under 99kg division would have been bad enough, but the final throw that Pixley landed also caused a clear injury. As soon as he had tapped and the match was over, Meregali remained on the floor and officials came to check on him. Shortly after he left the mats, word started to come through that Nicholas Meregali had suffered a shoulder injury and would be out of the absolute division at ADCC 2024 as well.
Now Meregali has revealed that the damage to his shoulder was even worse than originally thought, as he’s now looking at surgery and a recovery time of around 5 months. He has apparently completely torn both his posterior and anterior labral ligaments, along with the tendons in his shoulder as well. It’s going to be a very long road for Meregali now and he will clearly be out of competition for the rest of 2024 at the very least. He’ll also miss the beginning of 2025 and by the time he’s able to have a proper training camp for competition, it may not be until the middle of the year.
Nicholas Meregali shared the update on the shoulder injury that he suffered at ADCC 2024 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
