The moment has finally come for the UFC to unveil it’s grappling reality show and the debut episode of UFC BJJ: Road To The Title will premier on June 16th, 2025. The show will feature two teams of elite grapplers across both the lightweight and welterweight divisions, as they fight to become the promotion’s inaugural champions in their respective weight classes. This is something that’s been in the works for quite some time now and rumours started to emerge in November last year that they were planning on putting together a major show featuring several big stars from the world of professional grappling.
It didn’t take long at all for Dana White to confirm that a grappling reality show was on the way, but things were pretty quiet for several months after that. The details were pretty thin on the ground and the only thing that anyone knew for sure was that Mikey Musumeci was going to feature in it as part of his exclusive UFC contract. It was clear that he was going to be taking on one of the coaching roles for the show but it seems as though the promotion had a difficult time finding someone to stand opposite him.
An early leak suggested that it would be Gordon Ryan, but that never came to fruition and it’s no surprise considering the health issues that he has been battling with. Then Craig Jones revealed that he was offered the role but he turned it down due to it being a ‘bad deal’, although he didn’t elaborate further. Making an end-of-season coaches match between Musumeci and those two would have been difficult given the size difference, so instead they’ve gone with fellow bantamweight Rerisson Gabriel. The young Brazilian has only been a black belt for about a year and is known as more of a gi competitor, but he does hold wins over big names like Zach Kaina and Diogo Reis.
UFC BJJ: Road To The Title Full Cast
Lightweights
Welterweights
The UFC announced the launch of UFC BJJ: Road To The Title with Mikey Musumeci and Rerisson Gabriel in a recent post to their new official grappling Instagram account:
