Mikey Musumeci is apparently going to be working on his wrestling from now on and he’s just started to take part in training sessions under the guidance of two-time NCAA champion Roman Bravo-Young. Musumeci is already known for having one of the most lethal guards in the history of the sport and he’s beaten some of the best competitors in the world off his back, so adding in the threat of takedowns would help diversify his offense. It would be particularly useful for his ONE Championship superfights and title-defenses, as their ruleset forbids guard pulling and forces grapplers to take the match to the ground offensively.
It’s no surprise that Musumeci is looking to take his training to the next level and diversify his offense as well, because he has two of the biggest challenges of his career coming up in the next few months. He’s currently just one month away from moving up to bantamweight to face Gabriel Sousa at ONE 167, where he will attempt to avenge the last loss of his grappling career. Musumeci already has his next match lined up after that too, as he’ll be moving up another two weight classes to challenge Kade Ruotolo for the lightweight title at ONE 168.
Seeing as he’s facing bigger opponents who undoubtedly have the advantage in standing grappling, working on wrestling with an elite competitor like Roman Bravo-Young is a very smart move by Mikey Musumeci. Even if he can’t close the skill gap in such a short space of time and land takedowns of his own, he can definitely work on his takedown defense enough to wait for the ideal moment to go to the ground. The training sessions will likely work both ways too, as Roman Bravo-Young already made his Jiu-Jitsu debut last year and might be looking to take on more matches in the future.
Mikey Musumeci uploaded the footage of him starting wrestling training with Roman Bravo-Young in a recent post to his official Instagram account: