This Saturday, February 08, 2025, celebrates the 31st edition of the Polaris Invitational. Arguably, Britain’s foremost professional jiu-jitsu show whose events stream on UFC Fight Pass.
Over the past decade, the Polaris invitational has split its format between super fights, grand prix tournaments, and the team vs. team format, which the promotion calls Squads. The latter is what will be on offer this Saturday, in a clash between athletes from the North American Continent (Team North America) and European grapplers (Team Europe). A tried and tested set-up, the Squads have yet to disappoint in every past iteration we’ve seen of this Quintet style ruleset at Polaris. As such, we are excited to see what this line-up will bring to the grappling crowd.
POLARIS 31 SQUADS LINE UP
EUROPEAN SQUAD P31
Starpower-wise, Jozef Chen is the bigger name in this team as he doubles (or triples) his fellow teammates in numbers of social media followers. On the mats, however, starpower has no claim to victory. The Taiwanese-German grappler made waves back in 2023 by winning the ADCC Qualifier, which earned him a Breakthrough Athlete Of The Year award from FloGrappling. Although a very talented competitor, Chen is yet to make his big stand in the sport after a somewhat disappointing 2024 where he went 5-3 without beating any high ranking competitor.
The veterans and most accomplished athletes in this squad will be the veterans Santeri Lilius and Eoghan O’flanagan, though you can expect the last minute replacement of Owen Jones, Polands Paweł Jaworski to be the dark horse of the show. Despite his brown belt rank, Jaworski had a fantastic 2024 using his strong leg-lock game and a ton of athleticism and stamina. Certainly one the finest leg-lockers in the continent and a very entertaining grappler.
– Santeri Lilius
– Paweł Jaworski
– Jozef Chen
– Taylor Pearman
– Mateusz Szczecinski
– Eoghan O’flanagan
TEAM NORTH AMERICAN SQUAD P31
An interesting line-up and a real North American squad with a healthy mix with athletes from the USA, Canada, and Costa Rica. PJ Barch and Espinosa are, arguably, the most exciting players from an entertainment and consistency standpoint. Competition-wise, a few of these names have ran hot and cold over the past couple of years (Kichuk, Perez, Chris Wojcik), but when they are “on” you can expect the entertainment to be top-notch and the submissions to come quick. Devonte Johnson will be the biggest and toughest man to submit in this team, although he is not a submission oriented competitor with his sub-ration at under 30%.
– Mike Perez
– PJ Barch
– Kieran Kichuk
– Devonte Johnson
– Julián Espinosa
– Chris Wojcik
SUPERFIGHT
Also on the Polaris 31 menu will be a match between two of the brightest young talents in the sport; Helena Crevar, John Danaher’s submission-machine student who will be facing Anabel Lopez, a London-based grappler developed in one of the most fruitful jiu-jitsu schools in the country, Fightzone, under coach Marco Canha. Two opposing styles with Crevar being the a close range athlete who thrives on patterns and mechanics, and Lopez more of a Berzerker type competitor who has great wrestling, and thrives working from the outside and in faster and blitz-type exchanges.
