This article is part of our week of ADCC 2022 coverage. To get live results, play by play, and commentary, we’ll have a live updates article running all weekend.
Owen Livesey has just been named as the latest grappler to be called up to ADCC 2022 on short notice as he steps in to the under 99kg division to replace Luccas Lira Costa. Costa was himself actually a replacement as several divisions required some re-shuffling when Jon ‘Thor’ Blank was ruled out of being able to compete at 88kg. Pedro Marinho took advantage of the opportunity to choose to drop down from 99kg to 88kg and take Blank’s space, which opened up the gap in 99kg for Costa to fill.
Unfortunately for the Brazilian, Costa was unable to work through some visa issues and was not able to compete in Las Vegas. This is what caused the space in the under 99kg division to re-open and the Englishman Owen Livesey had already been confirmed as the official alternate for that division. Livesey is a multi-sport athlete and a lifelong grappler who comes from a family of Judo black belts who have competed at the highest levels of the sport. Although Livesey was a Judo black belt at the age of 16, he originally pursued an athletic career playing rugby league instead.
He returned to Judo shortly after and competed in the 2014 Commonwealth games where he won a gold medal in the 81kg division. He continued to compete in the sport before deciding to transition to Jiu-Jitsu, winning the British title in 2013, 2014, and finally in 2017. He won several local competitions before making his way to the Polaris mats, winning two superfights for the promotion and two professional MMA fights around the same time. Owen Livesey then made an attempt at qualifying for ADCC 2022 and although he lost in the final to Luke Griffith, he made a statement at the event that organizers took notice of, hence his status as an official alternate.
The news of Owen Livesey stepping in to replace Luccas Lira Costa in the under 99kg division at the 2022 ADCC world championships was announced in a post to the promotion’s official Instagram account:
To see the full and updated competitor list for ADCC 2022, click here.
