EUG Series: Matheus Gabriel, The Featherweight King
Credit: @mike_anderson_bjj instagram
This post is in paid partnership with EUG Promotions, hosting its first event on April 3, 2021, live on FloGrappling. Their inaugural event features an 8 man single elimination tournament of the sports best as they compete for $10,000 cash prize.
On April 3rd, 2021, eight of the world’s best lightweight grapplers will compete not only for bragging rights, but for a $10,000 prize. These competitors include Pan American Champions, UAEJJF Champions, and ACB Grand Prix Champions aside from the myriad of placements all of the competitors have at various IBJJF and ADCC tournaments. However, one man stands above the rest, and should come in as the favorite to claim the EUG title and cash prize: Matheus Gabriel.
Hailing from the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu hotbed of Manaus, Gabriel was quite literally unstoppable as a color belt, going 33-1 throughout his brown belt career with his only loss coming by disqualification in an absolute division match. Gabriel’s dominance transferred seamlessly once he was promoted to black belt in 2019, as he became the first featherweight in history to win the brown belt and black belt world championships in consecutive years, a feat not even the legendary Rafa Mendes could match.
Despite hitting a few stumbling blocks in the forms of Paulo Miyao, Kennedy Maciel, and Marcio Andre in his first few forays at blackbelt, Gabriel was able to right the ship at his first IBJJF major at black belt, the 2019 Pan American Championships. In a scintillating matchup between two men who should define the lighter weight divisions for the next decade, Gabriel announced his arrival with a savage armlock on the heir to the “Cobrinha” legacy in Kennedy Maciel.
Since this highlight reel submission, the Checkmat prodigy has added both an IBJJF Pan American Championship and the 2019 IBJJF World Championships to his already overflowing resume, while simultaneously defeating some of the best featherweight competitors of his era. Gabriel’s main strategy when it comes to defeating world class opposition is to get under his opponent’s base and sweep his opponents.
A guard player through and through, Gabriel uses a variety of guards that allow him to trap at least one of his opponent’s legs before inverting underneath their base to force their back to the mat, allowing Gabriel to come up for two points. The primary entry he employs is the oft-used De La Riva to berimbolo entry. This entry is extremely prevalent in the lower weight classes of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because it allows athletes to get their entire core underneath their opponents, giving them the leverage to control the base of their opponent.
Gabriel starts the sequence with an attempted mermaid sweep; this forces his opponent to raise his hips to step away, effectively compromising his base. Gabriel establishes a hook underneath his opponent as he elevates the ankle and uses the De La Riva hook to drive his opponent to the mat until his opponent posts, forcing the base to widen and giving Gabriel room to invert underneath. As he goes to invert, Gabriel manipulates the balance of his opponent by dragging the collar, thereby breaking the posture, until he is able to control both of his opponent’s leg. From there, his opponent has no way of standing up, allowing Gabriel to advance position and score two points.
While Gabriel will employ the crab ride off of the berimbolo entry occasionally, his real goal is to use the position to enter the 50-50 position, often attacking the free leg after he goes for the berimbolo. In order to sweep and hold from the 50-50 position, Gabriel controls the knee line of the trapped leg, controls the trapped leg with a hand, and keeps his hips from being directly in-line with his opponent’s hips.
Traditionally, the berimbolo is used as a direct avenue to the back, instead Gabriel uses the position to get under his opponent and controls both legs. Gabriel will maintain control over the ankle of the leg he used to invert while using his other hand to control the knee line as he passes the trapped leg over his own body, solidifying the position.
The 50-50 position is truly Gabriel’s bread and butter as during his 2019 IBJJF World Championships’ featherweight final match against fellow EUG participant Marcio Andre, Gabriel went to it immediately. Despite multiple foot based attacks from the wily veteran, Gabriel was able to secure the two points and nearly took Andre’s back.
Gabriel’s proclivity for the 50-50 position might also be explained by his style of top game. While we may not have seen nearly as much as Gabriel’s passing and top game, in comparison to his exquisite guard, his balance in top position truly stands out. Once Gabriel reaches a passing position, it is extremely difficult to even off-balance him, let alone sweep him.
Gabriel’s ability to maintain his base against world level opposition presents a variety of problems, especially when he is leading in matches. In a weight-class where the vast majority of athletes rely on inversions which especially require a broken base to implement, Gabriel doesn’t need a signature pass to be dangerous, as Marcio Andre found out in their World Championship match.
Andre starts with a shallow lasso as he looks for a Reverse De La Riva hook against Gabriel. Gabriel lowers his base and uses his free hand to maintain the distance between Andre and himself, not allowing Andre to use get underneath him, which would allow Andre to elevate him. Andre realizes he must get under Gabriel and attempts to use his free arm to remove the hand Gabriel has on what looks to be his collar so that he can fully invert while removing the lasso hook so that he can use the kick to restart his momentum. This frees both of Gabriel’s arms to attack Andre’s stray arm, resulting in the armlock that gave Matheus Gabriel his first black belt world title.
Just 23 years of age, Matheus Gabriel has an extraordinary amount of jiu-jitsu ahead of him despite already claiming the most prestigious prize in sport Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His ability to routinely disrupt and get under the base of world class caliber opponents is only matched by his ability to prevent them from doing the same. Coming into EUG’s Lightweight 8-man elimination tournament, Gabriel must be considered the favorite to walk away with the $10,000 prize.