Lucas Lepri Slays Giants At Euros, Has Early Match Of The Year
Lucas Lepri Slays Giants At Euros, Has Early Match Of The Year
There is a reason Lucas Lepri is renowned as one of the best pound-for-pound technicians in the game.
There is a reason Lucas Lepri is renowned as one of the best pound-for-pound technicians in the game, and he showed it during the absolute division at the 2019 IBJJF European Championship.
The lightweight was the smallest competitor in the 24-man division, where 14 of the entrants were heavyweights or bigger.
Lepri has to face off with a series of huge opponents, beginning with ultra-heavyweight Renan Marcel Rodrigues Vieira. Lepri won by clock choke.
In his second match of the day Lepri faced off with giant French-Moroccan black belt Seif-Eddine Houmine, a man-mountain who weighs over 300lb. Lepri finished him with a choke from the back.
The efforts required in defeating two such huge opponents didn’t seem to slow Lepri down, and he needed all of his energy for the semifinal: a showdown with rising star heavyweight Kaynan Duarte of Atos, who had his own tough run up to that point.
Duarte had three matches before facing Lepri, submitting Fellipe Andrew via guillotine and outpointing 2018 European medium-heavyweight champ Horlando Monteiro in the quarterfinal.
Lepri went down two points early in the match and fought hard to get catch up the scoreboard. Duarte remained composed and appeared in control– Lepri found hard throughout from seated and single leg X-guard to catch a reversal via a single leg, but Kaynan’s base and balance would deny him. That was until the last 30 second of the match, when Lepri managed to put him down and edge ahead.
The final result: 4-4, 1-1 adv but with one penalty against Duarte.
Lepri enjoyed massive crowd support throughout all of his matches and rightly so. It’s not often we see a lightweight enter the absolute, let alone make it to the finals.
In 10 years we’ve never seen an athlete below middleweight make it into the final of an IBJJF European Championship black belt absolute division.
LUCAS ALVES vs. RENAN MARCEL
LUCAS ALVES LEPRI vs. SEIF-EDDINE HOUMINE
LUCAS ALVES LEPRI vs. KAYNAN DUARTE (early candidate for Match of the Year)
Watch the 2019 IBJJF European Championships
Jan. 15-20 | Lisbon, Portugal