No-Gi Pans 2026: AOJ and Alliance Lead Day 1 as Black Belts Take the Floor | No-Gi Weekly Sep 28–Oct 4, 2026
Secaucus hosted the first Pan No-Gi of the fall, and while the marquee black belt brackets only wrapped as this went to press, the week gave no-gi plenty to talk about before a single black belt match even started — from academy standings to a legend coming out of the stands and back onto the mat.
No-Gi Pans 2026: Blue and Brown Belts Set the Tone on Day 1
The 2026 Pan IBJJF No-Gi Championship kicked off October 2 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, with more than 2,300 athletes registered across the weekend. Day one belonged to the adult blue belts and female brown belts, with champions crowned across nine weight divisions on each side plus a full slate of masters brackets.
Lorenzo do Nascimento Tarouco of Alliance was the standout of the day, winning gold at medium-heavy and then adding the open class on top of it. In the academy race, AOJ led the adult men’s point count with 25 points, trailed by Alliance at 22, while Gracie Barra topped the adult women’s standings at 18. Renzo Gracie’s academy held the overall lead across every masters division — a reminder that the Pans trophy race is as much about team depth as it is about any single bracket.
Further down the brackets, the day also belonged to competitors most casual fans won’t recognize yet. Armando Salvatore Clemente took rooster gold for Tiger Kang Martial Arts, and James Andrzej Wiseheart Sarnecki closed out the super heavy division for Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu — both representing smaller academies punching above their weight against the usual roster of superteam names. That’s the real texture of a 2,300-athlete tournament: the headline brackets get the coverage, but the depth chart underneath them is where most of the actual jiu-jitsu gets decided.
The 2026 Pan No-Gi Championship opened October 2 in Secaucus, New Jersey, with blue and brown belts taking the mats first.
Andre Galvao and Pawel Jaworski Lead the Black Belt Weekend
The adult black belt divisions took over Saturday and Sunday, and the story going in wasn’t just who’s favored — it’s who showed up at all. Andre Galvao, who’s spent the past year mostly in a coaching and ownership role, registered for the Master 3 heavyweight division and stepped back onto the competition mat for the first time in months, lining up against fellow veteran Natã Tenca in a bracket nobody expected to see him in this season.
At medium heavyweight, Pawel Jaworski walked in off the best year of his career — fresh ADCC gold in Krakow — looking to defend the Pan No-Gi title he’s held since last season. He’s drawn Jacob Couch and Wallisson Oliveira Souza, the same name he needed a tight semifinal win over last year, in a bracket that also includes Sarah Galvao and Andre Galvao on the women’s and masters side of the same card. With both Galvaos and the reigning ADCC -88kg champion all competing on the same weekend, this is the deepest black belt field the No-Gi Pans has drawn in years.
Pawel Jaworski enters the 2026 No-Gi Pans as the reigning ADCC -88kg champion and defending Pan No-Gi titleholder.
Tye Ruotolo Gets His Shot at ONE Gold in Just His Third MMA Fight
Tye Ruotolo’s MMA career is barely two fights old, and ONE Championship just handed him a world title shot anyway. Reigning lightweight and welterweight champion Christian Lee will defend his lightweight belt against Ruotolo at The Inner Circle 37 on November 6 in Bangkok — a stunningly fast turnaround for a grappler who’s 2-0 in MMA with both wins by rear-naked choke.
It’s not as reckless a bet as the record suggests. Ruotolo is 9-0 in ONE’s submission grappling ruleset and already has a signature win over the Lee family: he handed Christian’s younger brother Adrian his first-ever loss. Beating a second Lee, this time with a strap on the line, would be the biggest result of Ruotolo’s young combat sports career and a real test of how far elite no-gi credentials carry over once the gloves come on.
It’s also a bet on styles over seasoning. Lee is a finisher with a deep MMA résumé and real durability at 155 pounds; Ruotolo is two fights into learning how to strike, wrestle off his back against strikes, and manage a five-round pace instead of a ten-minute grappling match. If this goes anywhere near the mat, the submission threat is real on both sides — Lee has finished plenty of his own opponents on the ground. But if Ruotolo has to find the finish standing or through a scramble against a champion who’s seen every version of a grappler trying to close distance, November 6 becomes the clearest data point yet on whether no-gi’s current generation can actually cross over, not just get booked.
Christian Lee defends his ONE lightweight MMA title against Tye Ruotolo on November 6 in Bangkok.
Lee is unbeaten in his last run through the lightweight division heading into the Ruotolo defense.
UFC BJJ’s Minors Problem: Gadelha on the Kolby Gonzalez Kimura Break
UFC BJJ 11 produced one of the hardest moments the young promotion has had to answer for. Seventeen-year-old Kolby Gonzalez — the first minor ever booked on a UFC BJJ card — suffered a visible arm break to a kimura during his match, and the clip spread fast enough that promotion boss Claudia Gadelha had to address it directly at the post-event press conference.
“This is a professional event and we should be a little bit more cautious with bringing in young athletes that are still learning how to compete,” Gadelha said, calling the decision to book Gonzalez “probably a mistake on our side.” No minimum-age rule has been announced, and Gadelha stopped short of committing to one on the spot, but she said she’d work with UFC leadership, including Dana White and Hunter Campbell, on clearer guidelines going forward. For a promotion that’s leaned hard on young talent to build its roster, this is the first time that strategy has visibly backfired on camera.
Claudia Gadelha called booking 17-year-old Kolby Gonzalez at UFC BJJ 11 “probably a mistake on our side.”
ADCC Tightens the Rules After the Krakow Brawl
We covered the matside brawl that broke out at ADCC 2026 after Dorian Olivarez submitted Bekzat Kapashov, and the fallout just produced a real rule change. ADCC announced a new code of conduct barring coaches, parents, and spectators from entering the competition area or the perimeter around it while a match is live. Break that rule, threaten officials, or ignore referee instructions, and the consequence lands on the athlete — not just the person who caused it. Head judges now have standing authority to halt a match, declare an immediate forfeit, and eject whoever’s responsible from the venue, with suspension or a permanent ban on the table for repeat offenses.
It’s the clearest answer yet to the question Kovacs raised the week after Krakow: that retaliation and escalation need to be penalized the same way the original infraction is. Whether it actually changes corner behavior at the next major event remains to be seen, but on paper, ADCC just closed the loophole that let one team’s brawl swallow an entire semifinal.
The timing also matters. This rule lands just as ADCC’s regional trial circuit — the same system that feeds Worlds qualification — keeps expanding into venues with less security infrastructure than a sold-out arena in Krakow. Putting the cost of a corner’s bad decision directly on the athlete is a blunt tool, but it’s also the only lever that actually changes incentives: a coach who might risk a scene for their own reasons is a lot less likely to do it if it costs their athlete the match instead of just drawing a warning.
The matside brawl at ADCC 2026 in Krakow is the direct cause of the new interference rule.
Looking Ahead
The Pan No-Gi black belt finals wrap up Sunday, so expect a full results rundown — Galvao, Jaworski, and both Galvao women’s and masters brackets included — as part of next week’s roundup. Elsewhere, Polaris 39 went down Saturday at the Doncaster Dome in England with a stacked six-fight main card headlined by Eoghan O’Flanagan vs. Tommy Langaker and Shye Lilly vs. Julia Livesey; full results were still trickling in as of this writing. WNO’s Italy vs. Spain team showcase closes out the week on Sunday.
Between a black belt Pans field this deep, a Ruotolo chasing ONE gold, and ADCC already legislating off the back of its own brawl, no-gi’s fall calendar isn’t slowing down for anyone. We’ll have it all again next week.
Jaworski and Wallisson Oliveira Souza meet again this year after last season’s tight semifinal.
