Polaris have just announced that they will be using their Polaris Squads format to conduct an Intercontinental World Championship throughout 2025. It’s a huge undertaking by the promotion, as they’ll be gathering together four teams of elite grapplers representing different corners of the world to all compete against one another. Squads is their unique team grappling format that was first created back in 2020, and since then has been used for four different events. It’s a relatively easy format to understand, as the two teams will continually send out their eight grapplers to compete for a full eighty minutes in an attempt to rack up the most points via submission finishes.
It all began with the very first Polaris Squads event that saw Team UK & Ireland edge out Team Europe in a thrilling series of no gi matches, and since then the promotion has continued to highlight just how entertaining the format is. The second edition saw the two teams return for a gi battle instead, and that time Europe won in dominant fashion. There was some fresh blood in the third edition of Polaris Squads, as Team UK returned to defend their no gi title against Team USA. That was another performance with multiple wins though, and Team USA ended up leaving as the new champions.
They stuck with no gi grappling for the fourth edition of Polaris Squads, when reigning champions Team USA faced Team Brazil. That was a close match with plenty of back and forth throughout, before Brazil eventually won 2-1. Now with the format tried and tested, Polaris have created a Squads Intercontinental World Championship in 2025 and the teams will undoubtedly be stacked. There will be four teams representing North America, South America, Europe, and Asia and Oceania and they will be going head-to-head in order to determine the best region in the world. Additionally, Polaris have announced that the very first Squads event for female grapplers will also be taking place next year.
Polaris announced that they would be staging the first ever Squads Intercontinental World Championship in 2025 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
