Vagner Rocha has just been announced as a the second wildcard for New Wave Jiu-Jitsu and he will be joining their CJI 2 lineup as a late replacement. He now has just two weeks to prepare for the event, but an elite competitor like Rocha is likely ready to go at a moment’s notice anyway. He was called up because the heaviest New Wave competitor, Dan Manasoiu, was forced to withdraw after contracting Lyme Disease. With Manasoiu unable to train properly and potentially not able to recover in time, he couldn’t make it to CJI 2 and it left John Danaher in a pretty tough predicament.
The heaviest weight class is often the toughest to recruit for and all three of the under 99kg medallists from ADCC 2024 are already accounted for. Danaher and New Wave have decided to go in a slightly different direction, and Rocha’s invite shows that they’re moving some of their other competitors up in weight to make room for him. Luke Griffith was their under 99kg entrant but he’s also the last ADCC silver medallist from the over 99kg division, so moving up would be easy for him. That alone would have made headhunting a second wildcard significantly easier, but another man would have move up too.
Giancarlo Bodoni is a two-time ADCC world champion at under 88kg and that’s where he was originally supposed to be competing at CJI 2, but he’s also very big for his weight class and wouldn’t look totally out of place for under 99kg. Mica Galvao was the team’s first wildcard at under 77kg and although Rocha has been competing at that weight most recently, he also has plenty of experience at under 88kg. Out of the two, Rocha is better-suited to the under 88kg division really so Galvao has been allowed to stay put and that’s where Rocha slots in to the team.
Craig Jones announced the news that Vagner Rocha would be replacing Dan Manasoiu in the New Wave lineup for CJI 2 in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
