There is a ton of great action going down right now here at the 2016 IBJJF No-Gi World Championship, but it's the weirdest tournament we've been to in a while. 

Tim Spriggs, who was one of our picks to win the super heavyweight division, didn't show up. Hid coach Lloyd Irvin and teammate Mahamed Aly are here, with Aly ready to compete tomorrow in the ultra heavyweight division semi-final, but Spriggs didn't even get on the plane. We're trying to find out if he's injured or what the status is with him and we'll let you know. 

Durinho and Murilo Santana both missed weight and didn't compete in their divisions (middleweight and medium heavyweight, respectively), but they both signed up for the absolute division so we'll still get to see them compete. No point coming all the way to San Francisco, otherwise. 

We saw Hunter Ewald on Thursday night and he told us he felt good even though he'd hurt his knee at Grappling Pro Championship back in September. He was all set to go this weekend in the middleweight division but got his MRI results back yesterday and found out he's got a full tear of his ACL, and so withdrew. 

Augusto 'Tanquinho' Mendes lost via referee's decision to Rodrigo Freitas in the black belt lightweight division, and unexpected result as we had tipped Tanquinho as an almost guaranteed presence in the semi-finals. 

The absolute division gets underway at 4pm local time, with semi-finals and finals of the black belt weight categories taking place Sunday Nov 6.