4/10/2022 By: Danny O'Donnell

The 2022 Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championships went down this past weekend and delivered some of the best matches in recent memory. Adult black belts competed on Saturday April 9^th and Sunday April 10^th at the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Florida. Below are some of the key moments of the second major championship of 2022.

Gabrieli Pessanha wins adult female black belt open class

InFight JJ’s Gabrieli Pessanha started out the year with a double gold medal performance at the European Championships and came into the Pans looking to earn two more gold medals and retain her spot as the #1 ranked adult female black belt competitor. Gabrieli had to defeat a familiar foe in Yara Soares, as the pair met in both the super heavy and open class finals. In the super heavy final, Gabrieli won by a score of 4-0 with three advantages to Yara’s one. The open class final was an even closer match. Gabrieli came up from a double guard pull in the beginning of the match and nearly passed the guard near the end of the match to win by two advantages.

AOJ takes home three golds in adult black belt divisions

The Art of Jiu-Jitsu academy opened in 2012 and has since produced some of today’s best black belt competitors. Professors Gui and Rafa Mendes put a lot of effort into developing their kids’ programs and have groomed some of these kids into elite black belts, namely Tainan Dalpra, Johnatha Alves, and Jessa Khan, all of whom won Pan gold medals this weekend. Jessa Khan competed in the light feather division, where she beat Sophia Amarante on Saturday to advance to the final against Thamires Aquino on Sunday. Jessa scored a sweep and a near back take roughly halfway through the match to go up 2-0. She maintained top position for the rest of the match to capture her first Pan title as a black belt.

2021 Pan champions Johnatha Alves and Tainan Dalpra won the lightweight and middleweight divisions, respectively. Johnatha’s run to the final included wins over Eduardo Roque, Daniel Aquino, and Natan Chueng. In the final he faced Atos ace Andy Murasaki. Johnatha scored an early sweep to go up 2-0 and held onto that lead for the remainder of the match, capturing his third Pan title as a black belt. Tainan Dalpra made it to the middleweight final after defeating Roberto Jimenez, Eduardo Avelar, and Ronaldo Junior. The match with Ronaldo Junior was one of the most action packed of the entire tournament as the two kept a high pace and exchanged positions throughout. In the middleweight final, Tainan defeated Jeferson Guaresi of Unity Jiu-Jitsu after securing a guard pass for a 3-0 victory.

Mayssa win another major championship gold medal

Mayssa Bastos of Unity Jiu-Jitsu won gold at the 2022 European Championships in the light feather division but returned to the rooster weight division for the Pans. In her semi-final match, Mayssa defeated 2021 brown belt World Champion Jhenifer Aquino of Atos Jiu-Jitsu. In the final she faced Lavinia Barbosa of CheckMat, who won the rooster weight division at last year’s Pans. Mayssa swept, passed, took the back, and nearly finished Lavinia on her way to a 9-0 victory. The #1 ranked rooster weight plans to compete at the Brasileiros in May as her next competition.

Ana Rodrigues wins second major tournament at featherweight

Ana Rodrigues made her featherweight debut at the 2022 European Championships and came away with a gold medal. She continued to test out her new weight class at the Pans, where the Dream Art standout had two matches to take home another gold. In the semi-final she defeated AOJ’s Sophia Dalpra in dominant fashion, winning via armbar after scoring 10 points. Her finals match was against Amanda Canuto of GF Team. Amanda pulled guard and worked her spider guard game for the better part of the match. Ana eventually broke free and forced the half guard position. From there Ana passed straight to the mount and began working on a cross collar choke, a move that eventually forced Amanda to tap. Ana is now two for two with gold medal performances at both major tournaments of 2022.

Carlos “Bebeto” Oliveira wins stacked rooster weight division

GF Team’s Carlos “Bebeto” Oliveira entered a stacked Pans rooster weight division as the #2 seed. In his first match, Bebeto defeated Osamah Almarwai of Atos Jiu-Jitsu by a score of 8-4. He advanced to the semi-finals where he faced Frank Cespedes of Alliance. In a close match, Bebeto defeated Cespedes 10-8, as the two exchanged sweeps throughout the match. The final was against #1 seed Thalison Soares, who entered the Pans coming off a European Championship gold medal. Bebeto started the match up one advantage after coming up from a double guard pull and began working his passing game. Thalison swept Bebeto from 50/50 about halfway through the match but was penalized for fleeing the mat as Bebeto tried to sweep back. The two traded sweeps in the latter part of the match, but it was the advantage from the double guard pull at the start that gave Carlos “Bebeto” Oliveira his first Pan black belt title.

Below are the adult team results:

Adult male teams

1. Atos Jiu Jitsu
2. Dream Art
3. Alliance

Adult female teams

1. Dream Art
2. CheckMat
3. InFight JJ