Checkmat brown belt Elder Cruz is no stranger to elite competition. This September, he’ll compete in the Olympics of submission grappling, as he was granted an invite to compete at the 2022 ADCC World Championships.
The organization announced the invite on Instagram.
ADCC 2022: Elder Cruz makes his ADCC debut in the -99 KG division. Cruz was impressive at trials this year, taking home a silver and bronze medal. El Monstro’s high level wrestling and aggressive passing are a welcome fit to the ADCC rule set. El Monstro will be going up against some of the biggest names in the sport such as Kaynan Duarte, Yuri Simoes, Vinny Magalhaes, Rafael Lovato Jr etc.
Cruz has used his takedowns and relentless guard passing to establish himself as arguably the best brown belt competitor in the world. He won double gold at the 2021 IBJJF Pans as well as the 2021 IBJJF no-gi Worlds. Cruz parlayed that success into opportunities to compete at Who’s Number One (WNO) where he picked up the biggest win of his career — a decision over ADCC heavyweight silver medalist Nick Rodriguez.
In Cruz’s most recent outing, he suffered a submission loss to Haisam Rida at WNO.
Below is the current -99 kg division at the 2022 ADCC World Championships. View all current competitors here.
99 kg.
- Henrique Ceconi
- Joao Costa
- Rafael Lovato Jr.
- Kaynan Duarte
- Perttu Tepponen
- Yuri Simoes
- Tim Spriggs
- Patrick Gaudio
- Nicholas Meregali
- Vinny Magalhaes
- Elder Cruz
- Paul Ardila
- Jon Blank
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