BJJ star Mikey Musumeci signs first-of-its-kind UFC deal

Blaine Henry

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Publish Date: 11/15/2024

BJJ champ Mikey Musumeci has signed a deal with the UFC that will see him compete with the promotional machine behind him.

One of the best grapplers in the world today, “Darth Rigatoni” has been competing under the ONE Championship banner since 2022. Now, the New Jersey native is jumping ship and moving to the dark side of the combat sports world.

Musumeci is a four time IBJJF World Champion in the Gi and once in No-Gi. In recent years, he’s competed seven times in ONE Championship. Dana White announced the signing on his Instagram account today.

Mikey Musumeci signs BJJ deal with the UFC

In his announcement, Dana White revealed that the UFC was signing Mikey Musumeci. Mentioned by White, Musumeci is undefeated over the past eight years. White also announced that there would be more signings to come.

“Over the course of the last year, I’ve been working on developing the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu program in the world. I’m excited to announce that we’ve signed Mikey Musumeci to the first ever exclusive BJJ promotion agreement in the promotion’s history.”

White also mentioned that Musumeci would also make his debut on Dec. 5th against Felipe Machado at the UFC Fight Pass Invitational 9. The announcement also mentioned that White intended to sign more top level athletes for the Fight Pass Invitational.

Mikey Musumechi is commonly viewed as one of the best grapplers alive today and perhaps one of the best of all time.

ONE Championship on the ropes

It’s been a rough couple of months for ONE Championship. Just last week, the promotion announced that Mikey Musumeci was leaving the promotion. Musumeci was the promotion’s submission grappling flyweight champion for some time.

Musumeci was then set to face Kade Ruotolo for the lightweight grappling title on Sept. 6th. Just six days before the tournament, Ruotolo withdrew from the bout due to injury. Musumeci accepted a short notice match with Bebeto Oliveira at featherweight. This, of course, led Musumeci to miss weight. ONE stripped him of his title and the mood was soured.

It wasn’t but two months later that ONE announced that Musumeci and the promotion had parted ways.

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Things look rough for ONE Championship. Along with the Musumechi news and Sage Northcutt leaving the promotion, the company also saw another big departure. Former two weight champion, Reinier De Ridder, also made his UFC debut last week and took to the media to warn fighters not to sign with ONE Championship.

ONE Championship also has well documented struggles financially, with the promotion losing hundreds of millions already.