Nicky Rodriguez recently opened up about the chances of him ever putting on a gi to compete in a recent episode of The Simple Man Podcast. Given that Rodriguez started out his grappling career as a wrestler and has since only ever competed in no gi matches, the thought of him putting a gi on is something that hadn’t even crossed most fans minds. He was discussing a potential match between himself and Nicholas Meregali on the recent episode though, and the topic came up due to Meregali’s accomplishments in gi competition. His co-host Ethan Crelinsten decided to ask him if he’d compete in the gi if he was paid enough, and he didn’t hesitate to answer for even a second:
“Yeah, no problem!”
Of course, Rodriguez has been going through the process of joining the WWE in the past as well. As with most competitors, it seems clear that if the money is right then he’d be open to a lot of different forms of grappling. Crelinsten probed Nicky Rodriguez further though and asked if he’d ever compete in the gi against Meregali specifically, although his response was a little less serious this time:
“Yeah, I’d just take the jacket off… Like he can wear the gi and the match starts, and then I pull the jacket off.”
Crelinsten made sure he answered the question though, and explained that he’d obviously have to keep the jacket on. Rodriguez was still pretty comfortable with the idea regardless:
“I think I’d accept it, I’d give it a go… I wouldn’t even train any gi.”
When all of his co-hosts started to explain how much of a bad idea that was, he seemed to change his mind on the whole idea pretty quickly:
“Actually, we should do a match where he wears the gi and I’ll just wear no gi and like, best man wins. Wear your f*cking Karate suit.”
It makes sense though really, as Nicky Rodriguez has always been a no gi specialist and transitioning to gi competition this late in his career would likely be pretty difficult. Most competitors either go through their career doing both forms of Jiu-Jitsu, or make a change from being a gi specialist to including no gi competition. Rodriguez left the fans with one final thought on the whole concept of gi competition:
“It’s just so stupid, why am I gonna wear these f*cking pyjamas?”
The full episode of The Simple Man podcast where Nicky Rodriguez discusses the possibility of him ever competing in the gi was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Simple Man podcast:
