Jiu Jitsu Herald

Mikey has been an elite low calorie grappler for a long time. He’s won everywhere he’s competed and has a bed full of belts but has gotten some criticism lately for only facing and beating lower quality competition. He’s going to find it hard to beat those allegations with this latest matchup. Kevin Dantzler is a solid grappler who’s had some success on the local scene and has been making his way onto the national scene lately, but this is a big step up in competition. It’s not even as if Dantzler is on a hot streak, losing two of his last three matches by leg locks, which is Darth Rigatoni’s bread and butter. This should be a snoozer with the only suspense being whether Mikey plays with his food or gets a fast finish. Hopefully, either Diogo “Baby Shark” Reis or Diego Pato are next up for Mikey.

The matchmaking originally seemed much better in this match as FloGrappling’s #3 ranked 125lber Bianca Basilio was facing Cassia Moura, the #2 ranked 125lb grappler. However, Moura’s new opponent, Sabrina Gondim is unranked at 125lbs, but is ranked #19 at 135lbs where Moura is ranked #1. Cassia Moura’s armdrag seemed unstoppable in her last match vs Ffion Davies and hitting the arm drag over and over was enough to carry her to a controversial split decision. It seems likely Moura will be able to handle Gondim in this match and the obvious matchup to make after this one is the winner vs the #1 ranked Adele Fornarino. With CJI 2.5 coming up soon and the UFC’s exclusive contracts, the Aussie may not want to commit to the UFC right now.

Will Tackett is hoping to rebound after losing a match for the Middleweight belt to Ronaldo Jr at UFC BJJ 4. There was talk of him popping a rib during the match, and he will try to regain form vs a relative unknown. Said made day two of the east coast trials with Vagner Rocha in his corner, and seems to have all the confidence in the world so he will be no easy out. Can Tackett hold on to his position as a top contender or will the confident youngster make his claim and continue Tackett’s slide?

Ethan Crelinsten got his black belt from John Danaher back in the Danaher Death Squad days, and has been training with B-Team, now Simple Man, for a long time. He continues to get better and bigger. Both him and his “little” brother Liam are jacked and skilled, a dangerous combination. Danilo Moreira has competed at a high level for a long time, but his best days could be behind him. I expect Ethan to be able to take his back and finish with a RNC.

This is a fun one. Andy Varela won the PGF Season 6 defeating Jett Thompson in EBI OT. Jett Thompson came back and won PGF Season 8, and just finished as runner up in PGF Season 9, losing in EBI OT again. Jett was the points leader for Season 9, showcasing a killer closed guard game. Once he established closed guard, he would get two underhooks, take the back, and finish with a RNC anywhere under the eyebrows. Check out PGF Season 9 to see this happen over and over again. Disclaimer #1: The level of competition at PGF is not as high as other promotions, so the champs have struggled against tougher competition outside of the PGF. Disclaimer #2: Varela often tries to be “entertaining” by dancing, striking with his collar ties, or just generally being obnoxious. Sometimes this works and gets under the skin of his opponents, but often it’s just annoying and prevents any real jiu jitsu from happening. This match has potential to be one of the best or one of the worst on the card, depending on which Varela we get.

Landon Elmore, training out of Gordon Ryan’s Kingsway, put out a highlight reel at EBI 25 at just 19 years old, tapping all four opponents with leg locks, most in under a minute, including Keith Krikorian. Elmore’s most recent match on UFC BJJ was against Rerisson Gabriel, who shut down Elmore’s attacks and won a clear decision. You might recall Rerisson was one of the coaches on The Ultimate Grappler and faced off against Mikey Musumeci for the inaugural UFC Bantamweight belt. He was widely panned as being super boring on the reality show, and for not being a high level no-gi grappler. The second criticism isn’t aging well as Rerisson (ranked #19) just beat Diego Pato (ranked #2) in the Brasileiro nogi final, winning gold. Mikey also struggled to finish Rerisson for a couple of rounds in their Championship match before eventually finishing a heel hook in the third round. All of this to say, Landon Elmore’s loss against Rerisson looks a lot better after the Brasileiros. Keith Krikorian has been competing against the best for almost a decade and is no slouch with the leglock game himself, so I’m sure he’s eager to avenge his loss and try to slow down The Big Slime.

Max Livingston is a former D1 wrestler at Drexel and has had a lot of success in the Philly local scene. He has a strong front headlock game with several anaconda choke finishes on his record. He’s a friend of a friend so I’ll be cheering him on. He’ll have a strong challenge if Liam Crelinsten is anything like his brother Ethan. There isn’t a lot of history on Liam but he won a couple matches in both East and West Coast Trials and trains with some of the best in the world with B-Team/Simple Man crew.

Azamat Bakytov is an MMA fighter from Kazakhstan with a couple submission victories in his MMA career. Thomas David is an Aussie MMA fighter. We don’t know much about these guys, but hopefully this is an aggressive scrambly match instead of a slow collar tie heavy stallfest.

Disclaimer: All rankings come from Flograppling.com. Grapplers’ records have been taken from multiple sources, including Flograppling.com and BJJHeroes.com, and are definitely incomplete and are merely meant to help provide context, not be a definitive record. I am not a journalist and do not have any inside information or affiliation with any other website, promotion, or organization. I am merely a BJJ fan and practitioner hoping to share information and provide entertainment. Thanks for your support!