One of the more surprising rivalries of 2021 was that between Mikey Musumeci and Geo Martinez. After four years of competing exclusively in the gi, Musumeci jumped back into the no-gi scene with full force last year. Martinez, on the other hand, has been a fixture of the no-gi submission-only scene for years.
When the two met at The Road to ADCC on July 17, 2021, there was a fair amount of bad blood, at least by jiu-jitsu standards. That much was obvious when, before the match, Martinez refused to shake hands with Musumeci.
Musumeci explains his side of the beef here.
That night, Musumeci defeated Martinez on points, seemingly coming close to finishing more than one submission on the ultra-experienced Martinez. After the match, Musumeci went on a tirade against Martinez, even going so far as to say he doesn’t deserve his black belt rank.
Now, Musumeci wants a rematch with Martinez, the man he already defeated. But why? On a recent episode of the WNO Podcast, Musumeci explained.
I really want to get the chance to roll with [Martinez] again. In the match, I feel like at the end, my emotions got the best of me. So a part of me felt like I lost because of my emotions. I would really like to have the opportunity to roll with him again. He’s also really tough, he’s really hard to submit and I really want to try to submit him. So it motivates me to have a match with him again.
In interviews, Musumeci had said that he wants to break one of Martinez’s limbs. He also clarified what he meant by that comment.
He’s super flexible. When I said that, I wasn’t saying I want to break something on him. I’m saying that he’s so flexible that the only way to submit him would be breaking one of his limbs, because he’s not gonna tap unless it goes all the way. Getting the chance to roll with someone flexible like that, it makes you level up your breaking mechanics so I would love that chance to work it. It excites me to have the chance to roll with him again and to keep working my way up. I’m working really hard right now for ADCC and all the potential matches that come after this are exciting.
Musumeci is coming off a successful defense of his WNO bantamweight title against Estevan Martinez (no relation). Geo Martinez has not competed since suffering a loss to Cole Abate at the WNO Championships in September 2021.
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