I’ve wanted to compete on Who’s Number One for a few years now, but it’s been a bit of an obsession since I moved to Austin in the middle of 2023.

Since becoming an honorary Austinite, I’ve competed all over the US and Europe, won many matches, lost many matches, and competed in pretty much every ruleset out there. I competed in ADCC at the T-Mobile Arena, I did 15 matches in one week at PGF, and competed in a ton of local gyms and small events along the way.

Last Friday, I got to check a big item off my grappling career bucket list: my WNO debut.

I also competed alongside six of my B-team teammates, including Nicky Rod, who had been preparing for his mega match with Kaynan Duarte since January.

Here’s what the last few months have been like inside B-Team Jiu-Jitsu.

Skill-building camp began in March.

Coach Dima Murovanni came in early March, and when Dima and everyone else are in town, the vibe at B-Team is different.

It’s more intense. It’s more professional. Everyone is more locked in, and yet it is more fun to come to the gym every day.

“The skill building camp” was an 8 week program that Dima created to help the entire room learn the new meta of ankle locks that have become so popular in last couple years from guys like Mateusz Sszczeciński, Diego Pato, Owen Jones, and myself (although there is sense of imposter syndrome including myself in this list, as 3 guys listed before me are the guys who I study).

Either way, the skill-building camp began in March with a heavy focus on ankle locks.

Every noon class for the last few months has covered everything one would need to know on foot locks – set-ups, breaking mechanics, variations, and more.

But for me, it’s been a little different. I’m already a leg locker, and so are Owen and a few of the other guys in the room.

This meant that we had to do some extra work on building different skills.

For me, a big skill in my game that I am trying to develop is my wrestling, specifically my ability to finish takedowns.

Many people have told me about my foot sweep in my match against Josh Hinger last ADCC, but there is far more footage of me not finishing takedowns than there is of me finishing them.

So, for the most part, my last few months have included leg locks at noon and wrestling at night, basically every day. I was also lifting weights twice per week during camp.

It was a challenging camp physically and mentally.

But we were also preparing for one of the biggest WNO matches ever, among other things.

A few days per week, we’ve been doing competition simulations.

This is one of the best parts about having Dima here. Despite training more than normal, I felt less overtrained than normal.

Most of these simulations are far more difficult than any superfight or tournament.

First, we preparing Ethan for the brutal Sapateiro 100k Invitational. All the while, Nicky Rod was in camp for the mega match with Kaynan. At the same time, a few of the other guys in the room we’re also getting added to the WNO card.

I had my fingers crossed that I’d be on the card myself, but I honestly wasn’t sure it was going to work out.

This is one of the hard parts about grappling professionally – you can only control so much.

I can train hard, promote myself, and do everything I can, but at the end of the day, if opponents aren’t available or willing to take you on or if the match is not right, you don’t have opponents.

But thankfully, Riccardo and the guys at Flo were able to find me an opponent about 3 and a half weeks out. The best part was that when my match got picked, I’d already been deep in training camp for 4 weeks. I was itching to compete.

Let’s get to match week.

I’ve been training at B-Team since 2023.

One part about training at this gym is that we’re pretty much always getting ready for the next WNO. There have been about 10 WNO events since I’ve moved here, so I’ve been a part of the camps and going to the events for quite a while now.

The only difference was that this time, I got to be a part of the exciting night myself.

But really, it was an exciting, busy, and kind of stressful week.

It doesn’t matter if I’m getting ready for ADCC or the local tournament up the street, competition is always stressful. Superfights tend to be more stressful.

The consequences for not executing are greater. There are fancy walkout songs. More people are watching (although I’m not sure I’ll ever get as many people watching me as I did last summer at the T-Mobile Arena).

Plus, I had a kind of busy week. On Monday, I did 2 podcasts. On Tuesday, I had our last competition simulation, where I had to go to war with multiple-time ADCC Trials winner Kenta Iwamoto for 15 minutes. My match was only 9 minutes, but I spent the entire camp preparing as if it were for 15.

Wednesday was my first real “easy” day, but by that point, adrenaline was already starting to hit me. On Thursday morning, I woke up on weight (thankfully no cut for me to compete at 185)  and headed over to Round Rock with the guys for weigh-ins, media, and to take on my first opponent – a baseball bat. It was kind of a long day because I did the early weigh-in, so from about 9 to 2, I was at the venue.

I didn’t really feel like it was time to rest until that evening when I got home. My girlfriend and I went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, and my pre-comp meal was a fat bowl of fettuccine alfredo, half a Cinnabon cheesecake, and 3 San Pellegrinos. The diet of a professional grappler is actually pretty simple.

My lady and I went home, watched an episode of The White Lotus, and went to bed.

Match day.

The main reason I ate so much the night before the match is that I don’t like to eat much at all on the day of. My stomach is very sensitive.

Doing a single match in the evening also means that it’s a long day before you go to compete. We didn’t leave for the venue till 4:45 to be there around 5:30.

My girlfriend and I walked for a coffee in the morning, went for an acai bowl at noon, walked the dogs, and then I just mindlessly watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine while trying to avoid doomscrolling my day away. My girlfriend did some remote work.

It was a relaxing day before the chaos of the evening.

We eventually headed out to the venue, gave the competition mats a feel, and went straight to the warm-up mat, where I pretty much stayed for about an hour before I even got changed to warm up.

I had some bananas. I drank 2 green Gatorades. I took my Grapple Science nootropic, and I got myself in the zone.

One match happened. Then another. The next thing I knew, I was on deck and being taken backstage. It was time to compete.

2 months of working on wrestling every night. Learning new leg locks. Getting beaten up by Nicky Rod and the many other monsters in the B-Team room every single day. Months of training were about to be put to the test.

Then, they played my opponent’s walkout song. Next, it’s my walkout song. It was Café Con Ron by Bad Bunny. This is what happens when you let your Latina girlfriend choose your walkout song. It was a good choice, though.

I got on the mat.

The match is about to begin.

I’m hunting the ankle the whole time. I either wanted to finish with a Woj Lock or a side straight ankle lock.

Within 2 and a half minutes, it was over. I got the ankle lock on the secondary leg off of my opponent’s Woj Lock defense. It’s tragic that “Woj Lock defense” actually exists.

And just like that, WNO is over for me, and it’s time to watch my teammates.

Closing Thoughts

I love competition.

But I love training more. I will train far longer than I compete.

After nearly every competition I do, I’m on the mat again within 48 hours. This is usually to factor in a day off, a travel day, or something else. After I did 15 matches at PGF, I flew straight to LA and did a 2-hour seminar. I just love being on the mat.

After WNO, I was back on the mat the next morning. Nearly everyone who competed for us that night was there as well.

There’s never really too much time to sulk or to beam with pride after these things. It’s really just a few hours or days of feeling high or feeling low (really just feeling a lot of things), and then on to the next one.

This, I’ve found, is the better mindset to have.

Anyway, this is what the WNO experience was like for me. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

I can’t wait to compete again.