Popovitch on medium heavyweight winners' stand. Photo: Dan Rod.
Pablo Popovitch was the big name of the No-Gi Pan held Saturday in New York by the IBJJF.
The Brazilian teacher living in Florida added another two medals to his vast no-gi collection.
Victorious at the last UFC Fan Expo, where he won his Grapplers Quest super match against Lucas Lepri, and at the ADCC in Barcelona, where he stopped Marcelo Garcia, the Jorge Popovitch black belt won four matches in New York and closed out the absolute with CheckMat’s Marcus Bochecha.
In the medium heavyweight division, Pablo first went past Nakapan Phungephom by a score of 4 to 0. Next, he submitted Leonardo “Leléo” Ferreira with a kimura lock, taking gold in his weight division.
In the absolute, Pablo submitted Marcelo Pereira, also with a kimura, and finished off Caio Terra with a rear-naked choke. And the champion wants more:
“I did a lot of work in preparing for this; the truth is that I’m always prepared. Now I have bigger objectives. Now I want to win the absolutes,” Pablo told GRACIEMAG.com. “This is the main lesson I learned in New York: that I have what it takes not just to win my weight class but the absolutes as well.”
And which was the toughest match of his campaign?
“All of them were tough. The most technical one for sure was against Caio Terra. I worked on a half-guard-pass variation to ultimately mount going over his legs. He gave up his back and I finished with a rear-naked choke.”
Check out the complete results on IBJJF.org and check back for more news here, on your most reliable source of news on everything Jiu-Jitsu.