Three-time blue belt World Champion Andrew Wilts went into the Royal Invitational as one of the dark horses. Even with three world titles to his name, not too many people knew about the kid from Mt Vernon, IL. 

23-year-old Wiltse comes from a place where the weather is a far cry from the sunny beaches of Rio or San Diego. He lived on an island in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where at times there is several feet of snow on the ground and temperatures stay well below zero. 

It wasn’t unusual for him to have to shake out his frozen gi that had been hanging to dry in the gym, and ice would pool on the mats between training sessions. 

“There are only about 1000 people on Drummond Island,” explains Wiltse. “My senior year of High School I started traveling to a boxing gym in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan about an hour and a half from us. I would take the Ferry Boat off the island and over to the mainland.” 

On one of his trips to the gym he met a couple of guys who were visiting from another state. 

They were traveling around and training and sleeping in gyms and in their car. They had pulled an old wall mat from the closet and they were submission wrestling. This was my first eye-opening experience in life. Not only were they doing things to me I didn't know existed, they were friendly. 

One of the guys was Heath Pedigo, and he was planning to open a gym back south in Illinois. 

“He told me if I wanted to be a world champion I could come live in the gym and train full-time. He had other guys like me who didn't have much and lived and trained with him full-time. I packed what little I had and I moved to Illinois.” 

How He Was Disqualified, And Almost Banned By The IBJJF

Since then Wiltse has lived in the gym and done nothing but train. He won PanAms at white belt and was excited for Worlds, but just as he was about to step on the mat they disqualified him. 

They had pictures of me competing in a local tournament with a blue belt in the white/blue open. They suspended me from competition and made me return all the IBJJF medals we had won.

“I never stopped training. I wanted it more, I didn't care at what belt. Finally after several back and forth messages the IBJJF allowed me to register as a blue belt, after threatening to make me sit until purple.” 

Since then he has won four PanAm and three World titles at blue belt. 

“Living in the gym, surrounding myself with people who wanted what I wanted regardless of what we had, paid off. Our team was able to build several relationships from our hard work as a team,” says Wiltse. 

Wiltse received his purple belt from his coach literally seconds before his first match at Royal, and it was made official upon his return home. 

Watch his first match from Royal for free, below.