Pat Downey has just had his latest BJJ match booked, and he will be facing UFC veteran Deron Winn at Spokane Submission Series 4 on March 1st, 2025. It’s some excellent matchmaking by the promotion, as Winn and Downey both have similar strengths that should make for an entertaining match stylistically. It’s going to be good news for fans of standing grappling specifically, as both men are highly-experienced wrestlers and it’s likely going to be where most of the match takes place. There’s also some history behind the match as well, as the two men met on the wrestling mats back in 2015 and Winn won 7-1 on points.
Although a previous win normally makes a competitor the favorite, that was almost a decade ago and in a completely different ruleset to the one they will be competing under now. A lot has changed for both Downey and Winn since that first match, and both men have transitioned through multiple different combat sports careers. Winn enjoyed some decent success in wrestling for a few years after before making his MMA debut in 2017, eventually going on to compete for both Bellator and the UFC while amassing a 7-3 professional record. Winn hasn’t competed in a high-level submission grappling match before, although he was never submitted during his MMA career.
While Deron Winn was already a two-time NCJAA champion when he won their first match, Pat Downey was still just over 20 matches into his freestyle career and neither man had done any BJJ. Downey went on to have over a hundred matches before transitioning to MMA himself, although he went 1-1 and left the sport after being knocked out in his second fight. He has had significantly more experience in submission grappling though, as Downey has now had 5 matches with some of the best in the world like Gordon Ryan. Downey was actually awarded the first stripe on his white belt as a result of his recent efforts and it looks like he’s taking this sport pretty seriously, as he’s signed a UK exclusive contract with Polaris.
Spokane Submission Series announced the news that Pat Downey and Deron Winn were going to compete in a BJJ match at their fourth event in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
