Edwin Najmi will compete in the Copa Podio Lightweight Grand Prix on Jan. 9, his first major competition as a black belt. In this exclusive blog for FloGrappling, he gives us an insight into his mentality leading up to the biggest tournament of his career so far. 

I’ve been a black belt for six months but I haven’t competed much. I’m definitely a ‘fresh’ black belt. Competing against all these guys at Copa Podio on January 9, is going to be awesome. 

There’s no warming up at black belt, I’m just going to get to it! Some of these guys, like Lucas Lepri, were black belt world champions before I even started jiu-jitsu. I only started in 2009 – that’s pretty insane when you look at it that way. But I’m excited! Excited to go out there and see how it goes. 

I’m excited to make my comeback to competition. I’ve had some bad luck in the past five months, I got hurt a lot. But I feel 100%, ready to go and test myself. I had a couple of matches at black belt but I feel this is my real test – these are some of the best guys in the world, every one is a beast. I’ve got to be ready for war in every round. 

Pushing The Pace In Training

Training is going great. I’m training with Romulo Barral, Gabriel Arges and the crew at Gracie Barra Northridge, getting beat up every day. I feel like having people bigger than me and at that level is going to help me in the matches, because if I can go six-minute rounds with them, I can go six-minute rounds with anybody, especially people close to my weight class. 

To get ready for the grand prix I’ve been trying to train more six-minute rounds. We usually train eight to ten minute rounds. I’ve been trying to move more in the rounds, a lot of scrambles, getting ready for that. I’m expecting it to be all crazy matches, lots of scrambles, pushing the pace and non-stop action, so I’ve been emulating that in my training to be prepared for that. 

I arrived in Brazil six days before the competition, I feel that’s enough time to acclimate and get ready for the tournament. I’m staying in Belo Horizonte – “BH” – with Felipe Pena, and training with his Preguica Team and Gracie Barra BH. I’ll probably get to Rio two days before Copa Podio, just chill and relax and get ready to compete. 

I came to Brazil to compete once before on Copa Podio, but that was a superfight – this is a Grand Prix. It’s a huge difference – I have to be 100% and everything has to go smoothly for me to win six fights against some of the best guys in the world. You got to be on point. 

How The Lightweight Grand Prix Will Go Down

How do I want the Grand Prix to go down? My goal is for sure to win. I never do anything in my life not to be the best. I wouldn’t compete if my goal was not to win. 

Competing against Dillon Danis in the first round is going to be a sick match-up that people are looking forward to, we both have ‘go forward’ styles, we’re always going for the submission. I’m 100% sure there’s going to be a submission in that fight – it’s going to be a barn-burner, I’m looking forward to it. Me and him are pretty cool, but I’m sure when we shake hands it’s going to be a war. 

In a six-minute match you can't make a mistake. You also need a bit of luck

Against such a deep pool of competitors, you can’t expect or predict anything. They’re all monsters! Every single person is really tough, so every match is going to be different – some will be slow, some will be crazy scrambles. Especially in a six minute match, you can’t make a mistake. You’ve got to go in there and have everything on your side, but you also need a bit of luck. 

There are a lot of people more experienced than me, with more time training and more titles, so I can’t really say how it will go. I want to submit all six guys, but I know that’s almost impossible to do. I just want to go out there and have some fun – every time I have fun, I always do well. If I go out with a gameplan, I do bad! I’m going to go out there Najmi-style – go for the kill! 

Edwin Najmi will compete in the Copa Podio Lightweight Grand Prix on Jan. 9, watch it live or on replay only on FloGrappling.