An explosive match has been announced for Fight To Win’s Oct 1st event in Tampa, Florida between two local grapplers. 

The headline bout will feature a grudge match between the Florida born-and-bred Gracie Barra black belt AJ Agazarm and Vagner Rocha, who has a jiu-jitsu school in Pembroke Pines. 

Fight To Win president Seth Daniels explains that there is no love lost between the two. 

AJ really wanted to fight in his home town of Tampa, when looking at opponents the one that stuck out was Vagner Rocha. There is some bad blood between the two – as is normal with AJ – so it wasn’t hard to get Vagner to accept the match.

 
Agazarm and Rocha have fought a number of times before at the lower ranks. This match, which will take place in the gi, will be a 10-minute submission-only bout as per Fight To Win black belt rules. If no submission takes place, three judges will render a decision. 

“AJ is an opponent I don’t care too much for,” says Rocha. “I have known him for over 10 years from the competition scene and we have fought many times before but I’m not sure if we’ll ever get along. I want to get in there and shut him down, do my game and get the submission.”  

Seth Daniels believes that Rocha agreed to the match to settle the score between them. 

“I think Vagner agreed to gi for a chance to beat AJ in his hometown in front of his friends and family. Regardless of the outcome, this will be a fun match to promote with two very high level guys with big personalities, and it’s a great way to start Fight To Win Pro on the East Coast."

In typical humble style, Agazarm had these words for Rocha: 

The time has come to close up accounts with an old enemy and bring order to the universe by laying him low. Fight To Win 14 marks the end of Vagner Rocha’s journey as a top-level jiu-jitsu practitioner, and the next victory on my quest for grappling immortality.

 
Fight To Win Pro 14 goes down on October 1, 2016 in Tampa, Florida. Tickets are available for the live show, and you can watch the live stream of the event exclusively here on FloGrappling.