It's been a few days and we've had plenty of time to sit back and reflect on what happened at KASAI Pro 4. Let's take a look at who shone brightly and who underperformed at KASAI Pro 4.

Winner: Gianni Grippo 

If there was a pound-for-pound ranking of hardest working people in the game, Gianni would without argument be in the top 3. 

The 26-year-old’s career has always suffered from the fact he competes in such a talent rich and deep division. It comes with the territory of being a featherweight. Now that a number of the incumbent champions have moved aside, aged or shifted focus it has opened a path for Grippo to shine. 

That’s not to say it’s going to be easy for the black belt from New Jersey. He had to fight tooth and nail to come out on top at KASAI Pro 4, and it honestly looked like he wasn’t going to do it. That was until he hit that dramatic last-ditch effort sweep against Paulo Miyao in the final. Game, set and match Mr. Grippo. 

Gianni Grippo is your @KASAIGrappling Pro Featherweight Champion! pic.twitter.com/250LQ0H86Y

— FloGrappling (@FloGrappling) November 11, 2018

In a division as competitive and challenging as featherweight there is no guarantee that Grippo will stay on top for long. Hometown advantage aside, to win a loaded bracket like KASAI Pro 4 is a huge accomplishment and one he should be rightly proud of, and will give his confidence a boost heading into the next challenge. 

Winner: Matheus Lutes 

“The Rottweiler” comes from Marcelo Garcia’s gym, which has long had a reputation for pumping out killer brown belts. Lutes was supposed to face Dante Leon first but the Canadian got hurt. So did his replacement PJ Barch, which left a tough vacancy to fill. 

Up stepped Jeremiah Vance, Barch’s 10th Planet teammate. A crafty submission hunter who has been making a name for himself as a relatively new black belt Vance was given one hell of a job, and not one many people would have readily accepted. 

Lutes is no ordinary brown belt: crazy strong, extremely dynamic and with a killer instinct he went after Vance hard and found what he was looking for with a match-ending north-south choke. 

If there’s any justice in the world Lutes won’t remain a brown belt for long. He fought to third place at the 170lb tournament at KASAI Po 3, won double gold (weight and absolute) at IBJJF No-Gi Pans, and now this. Hopefully Marcelo gives him a nice Christmas present. 

Losers: 10th Planet 

It’s not nice having to include an entire team on the list of biggest losers, but when judged as a whole 10th Planet just didn’t have a good night at KASAI Pro 4. 

Geo Martinez only won one of three matches in the 145lb tourney, although he did mess up Bruno Frazatto's leg enough to take him out of the entire event. He narrowly lost on points to Paulo Miyao and Frank Rosenthal and didn’t make it through to the medal rounds. 

His 10th Planet comrades Marvin Castelle, Jeremiah Vance and Rey de Leon didn’t have much better luck. Castelle lost in golden score against Carlos Rosado to a takedown, Vance was submitted (as mentioned above) and Rey de Leon got heavily outscored by Juny Ocasio. Steve Kasten was the only 10th Planet squad member to score a submission, submitting Thago Rela on the undercard with an inside heel hook. 

It would be unfair to claim that all 10th Planet competitors suffer in events with points, but the evidence definitely leads in that direction. With only a handful of pure submission-only events on which to compete, it’s time Eddie Bravo preps his soldiers for life where points count– after all, you can’t blame the rules forever. 

Loser: Paulo Miyao 

Miyao looked nearly untouchable up until the final with Grippo. In fact, he had only conceded two points all night up until the moment he got swept in the last 15 seconds of the final. 

Evidently heartbroken by the result, this is the third major event in a row that Miyao has suffered a loss in the finals. For a competitor who is so accustomed to winning, this must be tough to deal with. You can count the amount of times Miyao loses per year on one hand, but the result at KASAI Pro 4 followed losses in the finals of the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam Los Angeles (versus Grippo) and the Spyder Invitational BJJ Championship, to brown belt Johnatha Alves. 

Miyao is as tough a competitor as they come and as he himself he said, wins and losses don’t define him. They must certainly weigh heavy on his mind though. How he bounces back from this slide is what will really define him as a competitor. 

Bonus Loser: Gordon Ryan’s Bloodwork 

When we heard the news that Gordon Ryan was out of KASAI Pro 4 we passed through the five stages of grief in quick succession: denial, anger, depression, acceptance and so on. 

As we came to terms with the fact he wouldn’t be participating we sought to find out why. But there was an air of mystery over why he was out. Nobody could answer what was wrong. 

It quickly became clear that it was far bigger than we could have imagined: Ryan’s blood work showed evidence of hepatitis C. This was crushing news that sounded like an end to Ryan’s plan of becoming an MMA fighter. 

Ryan took to Instagram to clarify matters: he’d been born with the disease but treated throughout childhood and proclaimed free and clear since he was a teenager. The problem was that the thorough tests done by the New York State Athletic Commission wouldn’t come back until past show time, putting Ryan out of the action until the matter could be resolved once and for all. 

The bloods did eventually come back and they showed him to be clear, but fans were denied the opportunity to see him go against Matheus Diniz. Hopefully we get another chance to see this happen.

Watch the full KASAI Pro 4 replay, or go to the FloGrappling archives to check out the individual matches.