This article is part of our ADCC 2022 coverage. To get live results, play by play, and commentary, we’ll have a live updates article running all weekend.
Fight Sports have just managed to make a huge move toward dominating at the 2022 ADCC World Championships as the team have managed to secure the services of Pat Downey as their wrestling coach ahead of the event. Downey is one of the most well-known figures in wrestling over the last few years as he shot to the forefront of the sport in 2015, after becoming the national junior college champion. He was picked up by big colleges and ended up wrestling for both the University of Nebraska and Iowa State University, although he was removed from both due to rules violations.
He still managed to earn All-American honours during his time in college and also won several medals at the US Open and Pan American Games after he transitioned to freestyle wrestling. Downey has had one foot in the world of submission grappling for quite some time and at one point he even took on the greatest no gi grappler in the sport, Gordon Ryan. The pair engaged in two matches under their respective rulesets and they ended up splitting the results between them. After this experience, Downey started to compete in more submission grappling events and has even managed to look pretty comfortable beating top-tier coloured belt competitors at their own game.
Pat Downey did also attempt to qualify for the 2022 ADCC World Championships himself, although he was unable to win the over 99kg division at the North American East Coast trials. Now although he might not be competing at ADCC 2022, the wrestling phenom will still be getting involved in the build-up to the tournament at least as he helps the competitors at Fight Sports prepare. Alongside Fight Sports founder Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu; Mica Galvao, Fabricio Andrey, Diogo Reis, and Roosevelt Sousa will all be benefitting from Downey’s input.
Fight Sports announced the news that Pat Downey was taken on board as their wrestling coach ahead of the 2022 ADCC World Championships in a post to their official Instagram account:
