Fellipe Andrew is one of the most successful gi competitors on the planet, but now he’s made the decision to switch to enter the Craig Jones Invitational. Andrew has done well in no gi competition sporadically over the years but he is known for his incredible success in the gi, where he has won two IBJJF World Championship titles and multiple other major IBJJF events. Although this has been the main focus of his grappling career, it makes sense that he might be tempted to put more time and effort into training no gi now that there’s a tournament with a million dollars on the line.
Andrew generally competes at under 94kg in IBJJF tournaments, but he has been known to drop as low as 85kg and go as high as 100kg depending on the event. That’s why he’s entering the over 80kg division at the Craig Jones Invitational and although he’s an incredibly talented grappler, it’s worth noting that Fellipe Andrew will almost certainly be one of the lightest competitors in the bracket. That shouldn’t bother him too much though, because he’s beaten plenty of bigger opponents in the past and one of his IBJJF World Championship titles actually came in the absolute division as well.
There’s quite a few fun rematches waiting for Andrew in the bracket and he must be eager to get some revenge on some of his potential opponents. He has lost matches to both William Tackett and Victor Hugo over the years and there will be someone who will be out for revenge against him too, as he holds a 2-1 record against Roberto Jimenez. There’s plenty of new opponents for him to face as well and one thing is for certain, Andrew will give every one of them an incredibly tough match and he might even make it all the way.
The Craig Jones Invitational announced the news that Fellipe Andrew was going to be entering the over 80kg division in a recent post to their official Instagram account: