UFC Fight Pass Invitational 4

Eric goes over the UFC's horribly named fourth attempt at hosting a grappling event.

Date: June 29, 2023
How to Watch: UFC Fight Pass (subscription required)

The UFC are hosting yet another grappling event, using the EBI ruleset, under their company banner with arguably the most lazy event series title of all: UFC Fight Pass Invitational. This is like if a baseball game is just called MLB Baseball Game. I feel like a big company valued at something like twelve billion dollars would probably have better marketing people but I’m sure Carl will assume I’m infringing on his gimmick if I go too much further.

I would do a nice list or photo displaying the full card but because this is a grappling event finding one anywhere on the official site or social media is a bit of a crap shoot. That is certainly the case here too, so instead please accept this piece of AI generated art meant to convey the theme of the main event.

MAIN EVENT (Aussie Man vs Sloth): Craig Jones vs Felipe Pena

UFC Fight Pass Invitational 4 will be headlined with a main event between Craig Jones taking on Felipe Pena for what I believe to be the first time though they may have met at IBJJF tournaments or the like that just aren’t popping up on any of the databases I used to determine this. This is Craig’s first match since the 2022 ADCC World Championship where he took silver (his favorite medal) in the -99kg division. Felipe has been a bit busier first with a win earlier this year over Craig Jones’ training partner and friend Nick Rodriguez at Tezos WNO Pena vs Rodriguez (god these grappling event names are terrible). So this is our main event and, yeah, that’s a pretty good pairing for the two as they’re both really skilled and some of the best in the world.

CO-MAIN EVENT (The Tooth Incident 2: Grappling Boogaloo): Anthony Smith vs Glover Texeira

There’s a lot of promotion of this specific match between Glover Texeira and Anthony Smith than really the rest of the event itself. That sort of makes sense since they’re both more likely to be known across a wider audience as they’re mainly MMA guys these days but are both really skilled jiu jitsu guys. Glover made a big name for himself in jiu jitsu before transitioning to MMA and eventually capturing the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. He retired after his KO loss to Jamahal Hill at UFC 283 and this serves as his first major grappling match since the swap to MMA.

Currently active, even though some of us here think maybe he should retire, Anthony Smith actually fought earlier this year in a losing effort against Johnny Walker. Smith and Texeira have actually faced off before, but in MMA and it was a pretty brutal and one-sided affair which saw Texeira take home the win a few years ago. However, what was more notable was when Smith, in the midst of being pummeled on by Texeira while in a turtle position, threw some of his teeth that had gotten knocked out over to his cornemen to hold on to. It uh…it was certainly a weird incident in a sport rife with weirdness. Smtih has praisable grappling credentials himself and has been a bit more active in the grappling scene having competed in a Quintet rules match at Quintet Ultra where he was part of Team UFC and saw some action versus Hector Lombard who he took to a draw.

As a co-main event on a UFC show for a typically non-UFC oriented sport this is a pretty decent one and not too bad of a matchup as both guys have solid grappling credentials.

MAIN CARD: Absolute Division Tournament

The bulk of this event is going to be seeing an eight man tournament play out in the absolute division for a cash prize of $30,000. I just want to laugh for a moment that guys who get signed to the UFC through the Dana White Tuesday Night Contender Series start out at $10,000 to show with a $10,000 win bonus and that’s less than what the UFC is dropping on this tournament. I don’t know, that’s kind of funny to me.

Anyway, the tournament features the likes of Nick Rodriguez, Haisam Rida, Dan Manasoiu, Fellipe Andrew, Vagner Rocha, Gabriel Arges, Fedor Nikolov, and Pedro Rocha. Keeping in mind that Vagner Rocha is currently serving a suspension based off a failed USADA test at the 2022 IBJJF No-Gi Worlds after refusing to submit to testing both out of competition and at the event, its comical to see him on a UFC ran grappling event when the UFC is partnered with USADA for MMA.

Details on the bracket aren’t available at the time of writing so we can’t do anything like try to predict who wins what match and get that wrong. Instead let’s take a quick rundown of who is involved.

Nick Rodriguez seems like a favorite as he’s a well established grappler winning silver medals at the 2019 and 2022 ADCC World Championship while being, if I recall, still only a purple belt (he was a blue belt in 2019). He’s got great wrestling, a solid passing game, and trains with some of the best people in grappling in one of the best gyms centered solely on no-gi.

Haisam Rida is also there and is a recent addition to Nick & Craig’s B-Team group. Rida had a great showing at the 2022 ADCC World Championship submitting a former gold medalist in Roberto Abreu, though did not place ont the podium. In addition, Rida saw a lot of success in the Quintet events held in Japan a few years ago and is one of the most explosive guys in this tournament.

Vagner Rocha is also another big name. He is one of the oldest guys in the event (probably thanks to some questionable supplements) but is still certainly game. He took 3rd in the 88kg division at the 2022 ADCC World Championships and is the current Lightweight champion for Combat Jiu Jitsu with whatever value you assign to the latter accolade.

One of John Danaher’s proteges, Dan Manasoui is also someone to look out for. He has some seriously good leg lock skills which were on display on that one FloGrappling attempt at a The Ultimate Fighter knock off show on YouTube.

I know next to nothing about Gabriel Arges, Fedor Nikolav, nor Pedro Rocha so I’m just going to skip past them, but say “maybe they’re good because tey’re in this and it seems like a decent tournament.”

Lastly, Fellipe Andrew is a guy I’ve heard about due to his success in the gi and it seems he’s making the transition to no-gi. He’s been a top ranked IBJJF competitor as a world championship level as well so there’s that too.

MAIN CARD: More People But Zero Info About It

Also on the card is Roman Bravo-Young taking on UFC veteran and fighter Alex Perez. Perez, you may know, currently competes at flyweight in the UFC and had a shot at the UFC Flyweight Championship at UFC 255 a couple of years ago.

Roman Bravo-Young is someone you may not have heard of but when I say he’s a two-time NCAA Wrestling champion you kind of immediately know he’s not a slouch. Oh also he’s a five-time NCAA All-American at 133lbs and has beaten current UFC Bantamweight Champion Aljamain Sterling in a wrestling match in the past. Bravo-Young will be making his first foray into jiu jitsu competition but given he’s such an accomplished wrestler I don’t really see him having too much difficulty making the transition.

UFC Fight Pass Invitation 4 takes place this Thursday and probably is one of the better grappling events, aside from that name, that you can watch and actually enjoy around.