In a surprise twist, Taylor Pearman has just been added to the CJI 2 lineup as the wildcard entry for Team Misfits Americas. He’s the latest competitor added to the roster and he’s just the second person to join that specific team, after Deandre Corbe was selected as the under 66kg representative. Pearman is an excellent choice for the team, and not just because he’s one of the top competitors in the UK right now. His style actually lends itself very well to the team grappling format as he’s an aggressive submission-hunter who’s capable of finishing pretty much anyone in the world if he can get in on their legs.
Pearman actually tries to represent his home-continent of Europe initially, as he competed in the European Misfits trials for CJI 2 at under 88kg. Pearman made it all the way to the final and had an incredibly close match there, but a last-minute decision to use overtime ended up with him losing out to Paul Ardila. According to Pearman, an invite to the second Craig Jones Invitational was in the works immediately after that:
“Craig (Jones) came up to me and spoke to me, and he said ‘look, I don’t think that was fair how that was done. We’re gonna try our best to get you out to America for CJI.’ In my mind I just assumed maybe I’d get a superfight on like, I don’t know if they were gonna do prelims before the event started, I just thought maybe he was gonna get me a superfight or something like that.’”
His first instinct proved to be wrong though, as Jones was actually setting him up with the Americas coach Greg Souders instead:
“I gave him a text on WhatsApp and said ‘Oh mate, would it be possible to maybe get a superfight, is that something you could consider?’ and he said ‘look, I’m gonna try and get you on the team if you’re up for it.’ Then I come out the gym the next day, and he just gave me a call and just said ‘look, do you wanna be on the team?’ and yeah I said yeah, obviously.”
This sets up a very interesting situation for the event now, as Ardila and Pearman are actually both wildcards representing the other man’s continent in the same weight class. Obviously it’s impossible to predict how the tournament bracket is set or how the teams will select their running order, but there’s clear potential for a juicy rematch there. If Team Misfits Americas and Europe do come up against one another, there’s going to be a lot of interest in seeing Pearman and Ardila run it back again.
Taylor Pearman was announced as the Team Misfits Americas wildcard for CJI 2 in a recent episode of On Borrowed Time, uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
