Road to Gold: Mateo Cardona Submits His Way Through Brown Belt Pans
Road to Gold: Mateo Cardona Submits His Way Through Brown Belt Pans
Road to Gold: Mateo Cardona was a perfect 4-for-4 with submissions at Pans, winning brown belt lightweight gold
Over the past few years, AOJ's Mateo Cardona has emerged as one of the brightest prospects in all of jiu-jitsu. He's got all the hallmarks of a future champion black belt and continues to rack up impressive performances as a colored belt. At 2025 Pans, he dominated the field with all submissions in the lightweight division at brown belt. Watch out for Cardona, he will soon be one of the sharks in the waters of the black belt brackets and if days like this are any indication he might be a serious contender already.
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Cardona's game is a really interesting mix of fluid open guard and crushing top pressure. He will use the De La Riva and X guard to get under opponents and wrestle up or hunt the back. Once he's on top, he often goes into pressure positions like double unders and over/unders that are uncommon with his generation and weight class. Combine that with a snack
In his first match against Tristan Pack, Mateo got to his open guard early and got right to work with a wrestle up right into his over/under pass. Cardona makes really good use of the over/under, a pass that really isn't seen at the higher levels as often as the torreando, knee cut, and others. Mateo used this classic pass to crush the guard, pass to side control, and then snatched up a scarf choke for the finish.
In the quarterfinal against Luan Veras, it was again into the open guard quickly and right to his inversions. From here, he was able to wrestle his way on top and begin controlling the match again with pressure. This time he went to his double unders and stacked his opponent heavily but only scoring the advantage. Soon after Luan shot in and Mateo was able to snake in a cradle, then transitioned to the collar choke off a front head lock. Mateo was onto the podium with two solid victories. One small thing that could be cleaned up is Mateo's guard pulling, as he did receive penalties in his first two matches for pulling without a grip. This can hopefully be valuable experience before he is in against the best black belts in the world soon.
Now in the medal rounds, Mateo next took on Jacob Boodhoo. This was maybe his most impressive finish. He got Boodhoo moving back from a fake ankle pick, pulled into open guard, and right to the armbar. It was lightning quick and efficient from Cardona and a major statement about his mindset when he faces tough opponents - he is there to put on a show.
Now into the finals, Mateo snatched gold as quickly as he snatched the collar choke over Madson Sagica da Costa. After wrestling his way up from guard to the back, he jumped for a deep choke and got the tap with only the crown of his head touching the mat. It finished off an all submissions run and an enormous statement from the young AOJ athlete.
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