JUNE 02, 2019, the 4th day of action at the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) World Championship, and the 2nd for the black belts. The event took place in Long Beach, California, USA, and, as per usual, gathered grappling’s very best. This second day of black belts saw the 1/4 finals, semi-finals, and finals of each division. Below are our findings of the event:

The legendary competitor, Lucas Lepri, made history today by becoming the most victorious lightweight world champion the sport has ever seen. 7 ‘Mundial’ titles for the Alliance leader. Also in a mood for history was Marcus Almeida who conquered yet again, double gold, further increasing his own record of titles by closing the open weight class with his friend Leandro Lo.

A sad day for the Marcelo Garcia group of killers, which consisted of Matheus Diniz, Marcos Tinoco, and Gianni Grippo. All three had incredible performances yesterday and seemed to have real solid good chances of winning the tournament this time around. Unfortunately, all three lacked a tiny bit of luck in crucial moments of their match losses. None the less, outstanding performances by the famous trio.

CLEAN SWEEP FOR CICERO COSTHA TEAM AT LIGHT-FEATHER

One of the most stacked divisions this year was the light-featherweight division. Although talent dense, the division was no match to Cicero Costha’s ‘Fab Four’: Hiago George, Tiago Barros, Paulo, and João Miyao. An incredible achievement for one of the best lighter-weight team specialists in the sport.

IS MATHEUS GABRIEL THE NEW KING OF THE FEATHERWEIGHTS?

For as long as most of us can remember, the featherweight division was ruled by two athletes, Rubens Charles, and Rafael Mendes. Since they retired we had Jamil Hill take over (last year), but today Matheus Gabriel further cemented his claim to this weight class.

After beating Jamil Hill, Kennedy Maciel, Leo Saggioro and Rafael Mansur at the Pans earlier this year, today the 2018 brown belt world champion, Matheus, ran through Marcio Andre, Gianni Grippo, Osvaldo Queixinho and João Bisnaga. For an athlete with less than 1 year of black belt experience, one could make the case that Checkmat’s Matheus Gabriel is the successor to Rafa Mendes’s featherweight throne. Is there anyone who can stop him? Not for now, as he is the new world champion.

MUSUMECI SIBLINGS MAKE HISTORY

But from all the lovely moments spent on this World Jiu-Jitsu Championship, none was more remarkable than the feat undertaken by the Musumeci siblings. Two competitors who allocate much of their time to their academic endeavors, and are not professional athletes, do the unthinkable by conquering gold medals at black belt in the same year. An unprecedented feat between siblings. More remarkable even when considering Tammi did not train for the majority of the year, because of her law school obligations. The soon to be lawyer has finally conquered the well-deserved world title.

If this was not impressive enough on its own, Mikey, the other part of the Musumeci siblings, became the first American athlete to win gold medals in two different weight classes in the World Championship adult black belt division, while also becoming the first non-Brazilian to conquer three gold medals.

3 NEW CHAMPS IN THE FEMALE DIVISION

In the female division, Musumeci wasn’t the only athlete to have a very special moment. Black belt newcomer, Mayssa Bastos continued her path of destruction and conquered yet another title in her first year in the big league. Truly a special talent is the Unity / GFT competitor.

Joining Mayssa and Tammi in the group of ‘1st time World Championship gold medalists’ in the adult black belt division was Andressa Cintra. Interestingly, all three world champs are related to three world-class athletes, namely Tammi with brother Mikey, Andressa, who is married to the lightweight world championship finalist Lucas Valente and Mayssa, who is in a relationship with 2019 brown belt world champ, Thalison Soares.

Aside from the aforementioned Bastos, Cintra, Musumeci, all other 2019 female champions were recurrent “offenders” with multiple world titles to their credit.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS: male divisions

ROOSTER WEIGHT

1/4 FINALS
– Mikey Musumeci def. Koji Shibamoto by 8×2 pts
– Bruno Malfacine def. Caio Terra by decision (6×6 pts)
– Rodnei Barbosa def. Carlos Alberto by RNC
– Cleber Sousa def. Tomoyuki Hashimoto by 6×4 pts

SEMIFINALS
– Rodnei Barbosa def. Cleber Sousa by 2×1 adv, 0x0 pts
– Mikey Musumeci def. Bruno Malfacine by 10×8 pts

FINALS
– Mikey Musumeci def. Rodnei Barbosa by straight-ankle lock

LIGHT-FEATHERWEIGHT

1/4 FINALS
– Tiago Barros def. Alex Sodré by 2×1 adv, 4×4 pts
– João Miyao def. Rene Lopez by 2×1 adv, 2×2 pts
– Paulo Miyao def. Pablo Mantovani by 7×2 pts
– Hiago George def. Pedro Dias by 2×0 pts

SEMIFINALS
Cicero Costha (PSLPB) Team close out

FEATHERWEIGHT

1/4 FINALS
– Osvaldo Queixinho def. Luciano Queiroz by straight-ankle lock
– Matheus Gabriel def. Gianni Grippo by 4×2 pts
– Márcio André def. Leonardo Saggioro by 1×0 adv, 2×2 pts
– Isaac Doederlein def. Rafael Mansur by straight-ankle lock

SEMIFINALS
– Márcio André def. Isaac Doederlein by 4×2 pts
– Matheus Gabriel def. Osvaldo Queixinho by 4×2 pts

FINALS
– Matheus Gabriel def. Márcio André by violin armlock from triangle

LIGHTWEIGHT

1/4 FINALS
– Rodrigo Freitas def. Ygor Rodrigues by double-collar choke
– Johnny Tama forfeit to training partner Lucas Lepri
– Renato Canuto def. Michael Langhi by 2×0 pts
* Lucas Valente advances to SF. due to both athletes on the other side of his bracket being DQ’ed for passivity (Leon Taffa and Levi Jones-Leary).