Owen Jones and Gabriel Sousa are going to meet on the mats in the main event of Polaris 27 on March 23rd, 2024 and the promotion’s featherweight title will be on the line. The title did already have an owner, as Ashley Williams won it at Polaris Squads 2 when he became the very first triple-weight champion in Polaris. He already vacated one of those titles in 2023, and now he’s vacated a second one in order for this match to come to fruition. Shortly after the match was announced, Williams revealed that he was offered to defend his title but couldn’t due to other obligations and will now receive the first chance to take on the winner of this match.
There aren’t many grapplers more deserving of the chance to win the now-vacant featherweight title either, as Sousa is one of the best no gi grapplers in the division and Jones has burst onto the scene as a top contender recently. Sousa was invited to compete at ADCC 2022 and he proved how good that decision was by winning a silver medal in a stacked division. Although Jones is earlier in his career and hasn’t made his ADCC debut yet, he’s guaranteed his place in the next edition by winning ADCC European Trials in 2023. As a returning medalist Sousa has also got a guaranteed invite as well, which means that this might be the start of an epic rivalry that sees the next episode conducted at ADCC 2024.
Although this match between Owen Jones and Gabriel Sousa will be serving as the main event for Polaris 27, there will also be a lot of attention on the rest of the main card too. That’s because the promotion has arranged a welterweight grand prix with $20,000 on the line for the winner, and it will no doubt attract some of the best grapplers from all around Europe. There will almost certainly be a series of superfights serving as the preliminary card for Polaris 27 too, and this usually provides a great chance to see the next generation of top competitors in action.
Polaris announced the news that Owen Jones and Gabriel Sousa were going to fight for the featherweight title in the main event of Polaris 27 in a recent post to their official Instagram account: