DECEMBER 6, 2024, Last night we had the opportunity to watch another edition of FloGrappling’s Who’s Number One (WNO) event, the company’s crown jewel and one of the best no-gi events on the professional circuit. This was the 25th WNO show and keeping true to its tradition, the card was heavily based on teams New Wave, B-Team, Atos, & AOJ.
This WNO 25 had a lot of fun matches, including a back-and-forth clash between Leilani Bernales, who surprised a few people in how she handled herself against the heavy favorite Helena Crevar and showed very good skill, particularly regarding her defense. Arguably the match of the night was Fabyury Khrysthyan’s war with Daniel Sathler a barn-burner style clash with everything on offer, including fun takedowns, back attacks, submission attempts, sweeps, and more. These two athletes proved (again) why they are among the best in the world and among the promoters love to sign as the show is always guaranteed when they are on the mat.
The evening performance should go to Felipe Pena. Preguica is having a fantastic year thus far, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Pena proved he is truly back to his old form and his performance against B-Team’s Declan Moody proved it. Great offense and defense, Felipe was ahead in the match the full length of the match, finishing with an arm-in guillotine off of a failed Darce choke attempt.
Less interesting were the main event(s). the light-heavyweight title between Pedro Marinho vs Izaak Michell was not a good match to follow, so much so that we saw no actions worthy of mention. These 15 minutes of collar ties beg the question: “why didn’t the referees intervene?”. Maybe it is time for WNO to take a page off of the IBJJF referees and enforce non-combativeness penalties earlier in these matches.
Kaynan vs Jimenez and Fornarino vs Cassella weren’t particularly interesting matches but certainly easier to follow than the aforementioned light-heavyweight clash. Kaynan is well-known as a counter-grappler who thrives from his opponent’s forward movement and, sadly, Roberto was unable to bring that to the table on this occasion, despite him being (usually) one of the most entertaining and aggressive athletes in the sport. Adele Fornarino and Sophia Cassella had a foot battle from the double guard pull position where Fornarino demonstrated why she is at the top of the sport’s ladder by finishing the black belt rookie.
WNO 25 MATCH RESULTS:
Prelims:
– Thaynara Victoria def. Cathryn Discianni via decision
– Sebastian Attard def. Dylan Melton via decision
– Isaac Cordova def. Nate Hernandez via Arm in RNC
– Julian Espinosa def. Randy Baker via decision
Undercard:
– Carlos Henrique def. Max Hanson via decision
– Fabyury Khrysthyan def. Daniel Sathler via decision
– Helena Crevar def. Leilani Bernales via decision
– Felipe Pena def. Declan Moody via Guillotine
Main-card:
– Pedro Marinho def. Izaak Michell via decision
– Adele Fornarino def. Sophia Cassella via Straight ankle lock
– Kaynan Duarte def. Roberto Jimenez via decision
