Polaris 35 is scheduled for January 31st, 2026 and we’ve put together a full preview of the two major superfights along with the main event; the Polaris vs Who’s Number One team matchup. Two teams of six elite grapplers will be meeting repeatedly over the course of 80 minutes in one of the biggest cross-promotional battles that the sport has ever seen. The first superfight breaking up the team match is an interesting clash between Adele Fornarino and Selma Vik but the second is where one of the promotion’s titles will be on the line, as Levi Jones-Leary will face Davis Asare for the vacant middleweight belt.
Polaris 35 Full Preview
Levi Jones-Leary vs Davis Asare – Middleweight Title-Fight
This is a great stylistic matchup but because of Levi Jones-Leary, it’s also fairly easy to predict how the match will unfold. He’s one of the best guard-players in the world and will spend most of his time there, inverting relentlessly to chase Davis Asare’s back and threatening him with leglocks in between those attacks. Asare is a well-rounded grappler but he will likely be forced to play on top as a result, and passing Jones-Leary’s guard is incredibly hard. Asare is tough to submit but unless he can hit a counter-leglock or back-take when Jones-Leary opens up, the most likely outcome here is that Jones-Leary maintains a consistent pace and wins a decision.
Adele Fornarino vs Selma Vik
Selma Vik is one of Europe’s most exciting competitors right now and she’s beaten a lot of the top women in her weight class, but Adele Fornarino is a whole new level. Fornarino won the absolute division at ADCC 2024 and beat some of the best grapplers in the world along the way, cementing her place at the top of the sport. She will be coming in as the heavy favorite and will likely win by submission too, just like she does in the majority of her matches. Fornarino has elite armbars and leglocks along with the unique threat of the Mir lock, so she has a lot of ways to finish the match and Vik would have to play it perfectly to come out on top here.
Polaris vs WNO
There will be so many matches across the course of this team match that’s impossible to predict exactly how it will unfold. Not only is there no way to know who will end up facing each other, the conditions that they step on the mats under will also play a role. Where one competitor might be the heavy favorite normally, coming in off the back of one or two tough matches really does level the playing field. There’s also the psychological element of the team scoreboard to factor in too, where a big deficit will force someone to be more aggressive and leave themselves open for the counter. Instead, we’ll assess each team’s strengths and weaknesses to pick a winner in this preview of Polaris 35.
Polaris Squad Breakdown
The big advantage that the Polaris Squad have is that 5 of them already have experience under this ruleset, and have done well under it too. Although any win puts points on the board, it’s submissions and deep runs that really put teams in the lead under this format and this team have a few big hitters that could serve them well. Eoghan O’Flanagan and Lucas Kanard are both relentless submission-hunters in the heavier weight class and being primarily guard-players, they are also going to be able to make it through multiple matches in a row before they start to tire.
Taylor Pearman and Owen Jones have similar traits that should give them success under the ruleset but they’re also weighing in at under 80kg and are more vulnerable to being outworked and pressured into decision losses as a result. Santeri Lilius is also on the team and although he’s not quite as prolific a finisher as some of his teammates, he’s won ADCC Trials twice over and you can’t do that without being tough to beat. Rounding out the team is their unknown quantity, late-replacement Meyram Maquine. He’s never done this format and doesn’t compete in no gi often, but Maquine is one of the most criminally underrated grapplers in the world. He has the gas-tank to win multiple matches and the skills to beat bigger opponents, so he will be one to watch out for.
WNO Squad Breakdown
Size is one of the biggest strengths in the WNO squad, as all three of their heavier competitors normally compete at higher weight classes than their opposite numbers on the Polaris team. Both Declan Moody and Luccas Lira are defensively solid and very difficult to submit in all areas, so they can be relied upon to win whenever they come in fresh. Their other under 95kg competitor, Devhonte Johnson, has similar advantages too and he even went 2-1 against his potential opponents just last year at Polaris 31. Even though Johnson may not end up being the biggest hitter on the team, he has a very good chance of earning more points than he concedes.
Chris Wojcik is a great addition to the team in the lighter weight classes, thanks to having a leglock-heavy style like a lot of the Polaris representatives do. He’s become a bit more well-rounded recently too so should have alternative paths to victory if he’s losing the battle for the legs. Deandre Corbe has a similar advantage but to an even greater extent, as he has no real weaknesses in his game any more. He might struggle against some of the bigger opponents though and his brother, Gavin Corbe, will have the same difficulty. Both Corbe brothers could do well against their opposite numbers but the format means that they might not ever get the chance to face them.
Verdict
This shouldn’t be a shutout in either direction unless several members of one team make big mistakes, as they’re fairly evenly-matched. The deciding factors are going to be how well the lighter competitors do against the bigger opponents, and how early the WNO Squad can shut down Polaris’ big hitters. If O’Flanagan or Kanard are allowed to put a run of submissions together then that could spell the end for WNO fairly early on, especially because that pressure to make a comeback can lead to further mistakes. Giving them the correct matchups immediately, ideally Moody first and then Lira or Johnson, is how this can be achieved.
When the under 80kg competitors cross paths with each other, each team has their own incredibly well-rounded threats in Maquine and Deandre Corbe that should beat their opponents as long as they can stay in control and defensively sound. The big wins for each team here will be if their leglockers; Jones, Pearman, and Wojcik, can find the finish against them. Then when weight mismatches do happen, Pearman and Wojcik have the best chance of submitting bigger opponents. Outside of those two, the heavier competitors should win the majority of the mismatches and anything other than that would be an upset.
When all is said done, the Polaris team simply have more favorable matchups. They have more competitors that seem likely to beat bigger opponents on paper, and they have two huge submission-threats at the heavier weight classes. WNO need to engineer the correct matchups and also need to rely on their bigger grapplers to be defensively perfect all night. The latter is doable but the former is virtually impossible. Expect this to be a fairly even match with the teams trading wins for extended periods and the occasional upset, but one or two runs from the Polaris team are probably going to earn them a narrow win.
The full Polaris 35 event, including everything in the above preview, will be available to watch live on January 31st, 2026 on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
