Langhi has already won once this year at the European. Photo: Ivan Trindade
The Jiu-Jitsu Pan-American takes place April 8 to 11 in California. In 2009 Alliance duo Michael Langhi and Lucas Lepri dominated the lightweight category, closing out the weight group. This year Lepri has already conquered other expressive results, like his win over Roberto Cyborg in the absolute final at Long Island Pride. Now Langhi won all the competitions he was in in 2009. To show the duo is on fire, they also doubled up at the European Jiu-Jitsu Championship this season.
God willing, we’ll close it out again. We’re always working towards that. With every year that goes by the category gets tougher, more tightly disputed, but the idea in our heads is that. We’re going to close this one out too. We know how hard it is, but we’re putting in the work, training just right, with our eyes on our adversaries the whole time so as not to be surprised,” says Michael Langhi.
Langhi doubled up with Lepri at the European. Photo: Ivan Trindade
Training is for the most part done and Alliance general Fabio Gurgel leads his troops in the USA.
“We’re already in the final phase of training. We worked hard this week here and on Tuesday night we’ll head for the Pan-American. We’ll get to California on Wednesday and we’ll have a big training session Wednsday and Thursday to get the guys’ bodies moving,” Langhi reports.
“We’ll have a full squad, with Bruno Malfacine, Sérgio Moraes, Cobrinha, Lucas Lepri, Antonio Peinado, Leo Nogueira, Bernardo Augusto… The only one not yet confirmed is Tarsis Humphreys, who will compete at the World Pro next week. But everyone else is confirmed,” he adds.
On the World Pro, an event he won in 2009, Langhi says he’ll stay out of it this time around.
“My greater focus, as it has been every year, is the CBJJ and IBJJF championships. Those are the most important ones during the year. As the World Pro is the week after the Pan, it’s kind of unviable. I opted for the Pan because it’s much more important,” he says in finishing.