Pat Downey will now be competing at blue belt in the IBJJF No Gi World Championship at the end of the year. Downey is obviously an elite grappler who already has plenty of competition experience across Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, and of course wrestling. It’s not clear exactly when Downey was actually promoted to blue belt but it must have been very recently, as he only received the first stripe on his white belt a month ago. It’s important to note that there is no minimum time required before being promoted to blue belt under the IBJJF guidelines though, and he’s registered his promotion with the IBJJF already.
Despite the fact that Downey has quite a lot of high-level experience in no gi grappling, he would not actually be eligible to compete at any higher than blue belt due to the minimum time requirements that the IBJJF have in place. Even though there’s no minimum time enforced at blue belt, anyone attempting to register as an adult purple belt must have spent a minimum of two years at blue first. Competing in the IBJJF No Gi World Championship is the only way that Pat Downey can speed up that process in fact, as winning the tournament will allow him to skip that minimum time restriction.
Downey has already shared the mats with Gordon Ryan and most recently competed at the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational, so competing against a field of blue belts will be comparatively easy for him. He’s expected to do incredibly well in the tournament and will immediately be the favorite to win his bracket. What will be most interesting is seeing how he actually competes; whether he relies on his massive wrestling advantage to win clear victories on points or if he would rather attempt to finish as many matches by submission as he can. Either way, a lot more people are going to be watching the blue belt divisions of the IBJJF No Gi World Championship on FloGrappling this year.
Pat Downey shared the news that he had registered as a blue belt and would be competing in the upcoming IBJJF No Gi World Championship in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
