Sigh. Sport has a long way to go. especially for the women.
The men's divisions aren't even that packed with notable black belt brackets like Feather totally up for grabs.
Black Belt men's picks and anecdotes of familiar faces:
Rooster - Paiva
Light Feather - Joao, Pinheiro, Hashimoto. Joao is the safe bet to take it, but Hashimoto continues to move up and up and improve as he gets more black belt experience. Joao will be the only Miyao competing as his brother got an additional ban of 3 months for violating his previous steroid ban prior to it's ending.
(Bendy Casimir is who I studied Kneebars by (Kneebar King of Leg locks on YouTube!) He had trained with a coach of mine at the time, Sean Spangler who had trained with Bendy in Vegas - who is on my bucket list of guys to get a private from down the road when I hit Vegas at some point) before moving to NYC. Alex Ecklin runs a pair of BJJ schools (with his teammate Van) in Brooklyn which I drop by occasionally. Suraj I met ages ago when I was in Florida for a wedding, we were both purple belts at the time. I see he's now a black belt and I was recently promoted to brown.
Feather - Marangoni or Cobrinha's son on black belt level experience/gamesmanship.
Castelle lost to my friend Rosenthal last week at Onnit. Murdock I worked with for the same grappling tournament company for several years and we fought for the same MMA organization.
Light - Grippo or Iwasaki, but likely Grippo. Without Miyao allowed to compete (as they did at Kasai recently), I see Grippo pretty handily taking this one. Iwasaki will podium though, is my expectation or Domingos.
Middle - is a stacked division, especially in this format with Giles, Perez, Lieira, Coco, Conaill, Canuto, Leon, Silverio. I honestly can't pick this division at all with so many solid, experienced black belts with high level experience and accolades.
Stanley Rosa I know through his coach Doug, who's an OG Renzo black belt, and I've rolled with him a few times at Renzos when he's there dropping in to train. Enrique is the son of an OG Renzo black belt, I've trained with him a few times when he's regularly at Renzo's to train.
Medium Heavy - Tinoco, Diniz, Hinger, Borovic, Gabriel Arges, Kit Dale, and Murilo Santana
- also an impossibly hard division to pick a winner or honestly, even the podium overall. Wow.
Skipping a few divisions I don't watch to get to Gordon Ryan's division of Ultra Heavy:
Gordon Ryan, Dopp, Cyborg, Tex Johnson, Mahamed Aly....
I'm gonna go with Ryan taking the cake, and Cyborg or Aly or Johnson rounding out the podium.
The men's divisions aren't even that packed with notable black belt brackets like Feather totally up for grabs.
Black Belt men's picks and anecdotes of familiar faces:
Rooster - Paiva
Light Feather - Joao, Pinheiro, Hashimoto. Joao is the safe bet to take it, but Hashimoto continues to move up and up and improve as he gets more black belt experience. Joao will be the only Miyao competing as his brother got an additional ban of 3 months for violating his previous steroid ban prior to it's ending.
(Bendy Casimir is who I studied Kneebars by (Kneebar King of Leg locks on YouTube!) He had trained with a coach of mine at the time, Sean Spangler who had trained with Bendy in Vegas - who is on my bucket list of guys to get a private from down the road when I hit Vegas at some point) before moving to NYC. Alex Ecklin runs a pair of BJJ schools (with his teammate Van) in Brooklyn which I drop by occasionally. Suraj I met ages ago when I was in Florida for a wedding, we were both purple belts at the time. I see he's now a black belt and I was recently promoted to brown.
Feather - Marangoni or Cobrinha's son on black belt level experience/gamesmanship.
Castelle lost to my friend Rosenthal last week at Onnit. Murdock I worked with for the same grappling tournament company for several years and we fought for the same MMA organization.
Light - Grippo or Iwasaki, but likely Grippo. Without Miyao allowed to compete (as they did at Kasai recently), I see Grippo pretty handily taking this one. Iwasaki will podium though, is my expectation or Domingos.
Middle - is a stacked division, especially in this format with Giles, Perez, Lieira, Coco, Conaill, Canuto, Leon, Silverio. I honestly can't pick this division at all with so many solid, experienced black belts with high level experience and accolades.
Stanley Rosa I know through his coach Doug, who's an OG Renzo black belt, and I've rolled with him a few times at Renzos when he's there dropping in to train. Enrique is the son of an OG Renzo black belt, I've trained with him a few times when he's regularly at Renzo's to train.
Medium Heavy - Tinoco, Diniz, Hinger, Borovic, Gabriel Arges, Kit Dale, and Murilo Santana
- also an impossibly hard division to pick a winner or honestly, even the podium overall. Wow.
Skipping a few divisions I don't watch to get to Gordon Ryan's division of Ultra Heavy:
Gordon Ryan, Dopp, Cyborg, Tex Johnson, Mahamed Aly....
I'm gonna go with Ryan taking the cake, and Cyborg or Aly or Johnson rounding out the podium.
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