One of the most decorated jiu-jitsu athletes of all time has signed with One Championship.
Nicolini just retired from BJJ completions following the defeat in the finals of her division at Worlds. Her MMA shot comes at a critical time since a lot of jiu-jitsu player have been struggling with their transition into MMA and it’s been argued that MMA settings and the accent on stand up makes the whole adaptation much more smooth for wrestlers.
But Michelle Nicolini is quite determined to make it work so she will be joining reigning champion Roger Gracie in players representing jiu-jitsu at ONE championship.
Nicolini has a lot of accolades: she’s won Worlds 10 times, she also has 2 ADCC medals, one gold and another silver in addition to a large amount of other titles.
The move to ONE wasn’t expected. Nicolini told Yahoo why she signed with ONE:
“My last contract with Legacy, they had a hard time finding fights for me. I was getting ready for fights, and they cancelled two or three times. After that, I just lost focus.”
Nicolini has relocated to Singapore and is training full time at Evolve MMA:
“I just moved to Singapore to train full-time at Evolve MMA and I already signed with ONE Championship,” said Nicolini. “I am super excited to have my first fight, and I think we really have the best team at Evolve MMA.
Michelle Nicolini, 34, is looking forward to her next fight especially considering her long time rival Mackenzie Dern just had the pleasure of having the bjj community rally behind her and support her MMA debut. Nicolini is 2-1 so far. It’ll be interesting to see how she does in the prestigious championship especially given how competent some competitors over there are like the young up and comer – Angela Lee who is also a strawweight !
In the mean time, Nicolini is slowly becoming enamored with Singapore!
Falling in love with this city ????? Me apaixonando por esta cidade?❤️
A photo posted by Michelle Nicolini (@michellenicolinibjj) on
