Abu Dhabi: The Brazilians are the most affected with the rule change in this year’s Jiu-Jitsu World Pro.
With a strong contingent of around 450 professional fighters, the Brazilians have to battle it out amongst themselves first to book a berth in the main draws of each weight category.
The move could well hurt their medals tally as each country will have only two representatives battling for the top prize in each weight category.
Hence, some of the top fighters — including defending champions of various categories — have to go through a preliminary round.
Last year, Brazilian Felipe Pena created the biggest upset by beating the fancied and crowd favourite Jose Junior to win in the Black Absolute belt.
The victory for Pena meant that Jose was missing out on the title for the second year in a row. Pena, with that triumph, had atoned for the failure of retaining his Black belt in the 94kg division where he lost to compatriot Erberth Mequita in the quarters.
However, this time round, with the absolute class being scrapped and the new qualifying rule coming in, Pena too was forced to take the hard route.
On Thursday, he had to go through three testing fights — against Maciel Trindade, Vincent Cavalca and Helton Junior — to cement a place in the quarter-finals.
Pena defeated Trindade and Cavalca by submission before going on to beat Junior with a sweep (2-0) but not before trailing by advantage points for over four minutes.
“I did a sweep to finish the contest but I had to keep it calm, you know. And keep believing in my work and managed to get those crucial points,” said an elated but exhausted-looking Pena, who went on to add that the rules change had made things really hard for him.
“I would have preferred there was no change in the rule as you have to work harder now. You now have to fight a lot of tough guys. Maybe earlier you would be meeting these tough guys later in the tournament,” said Pena, adding that he believed in the organisation and felt that the move was taken only because ‘they value their athletes’ and he was happy to abide by it.
Having cleared the first hurdle, Pena was of the view that he can go all the way but for now he is focusing on one bout at a time.
“I don’t know who my next opponent is but the aim is to keep working hard and focusing on each fight and, hopefully, I can go all the way and win,” he said.
In the adult 69kg Black Belt qualifiers, Talison Costa made it to the quarter-finals defeating Luciano De Araujo 6-4 on points before coming back and beating Victor Moraes and Isaque Paiva.
Priscila Cerqueira of Brazil also made it to the quarters of the women’s 70kg adult Brown Black beating Natalia de Souza 6-0 on points. Cerqueira, in round one, had beaten Sabrina de Souza by submission.
“I want to win the gold, so I doubled my efforts from the time I got back home,” said Cerqueira, adding that the fights don’t become any easier with so many competitors from all over the world and the only way one can win is by working harder and with a bit of good fortune.
“I believe I worked hard, made a lot of sacrifices to win my biggest title in Jiu-Jitsu. If I have to come back and defend my title, I have to train even harder for next year. I hope I can.”
