Polaris have just announced the setup for their next event, Polaris 27 on March 23rd, 2024, and it will feature a welterweight grand prix. The promotion has started to host more tournaments in recent years after spending the first five years of their existence focusing solely on booking single superfights on a longer card. They started out relatively small by staging a UK Absolute Grand Prix back in 2020 but since then they have gone bigger and better with every single tournament they’ve arranged.
They staged a huge middleweight tournament back at Polaris 22 in 2022 and decided to double up in 2023 by hosting two of the biggest grand prix events of the year. They opened the year with quite possibly the most stacked women’s tournament ever seen, as Polaris 23 crowned an under 66kg champion. After another superfight event, Polaris decided to celebrate staging their 25th event by putting together one of the biggest tournaments of the year with their Absolute Grand Prix. Now they’re going to be returning to single weight classes by setting up a welterweight grand prix for Polaris 27.
They already have a reigning champion in the division, as ADCC veteran Mateusz Szczecinski submitted Jed Hue at Polaris 24 to win the vacant belt. It’s not yet been confirmed how the tournament will work in relation to their current champion, as there’s a few different options available. They might be stripping Szczecinski to hold the tournament, or they might simply award the winner the right to challenge him for the title along with the $20,000 grand prize. Alternatively, Szczecinski might even be entering the bracket himself to put his title on the line against each opponent he faces as the tournament progresses.
Polaris announced the news that they were hosting a welterweight grand prix tournament for Polaris 27 in a recent post to their official Instagram account: