Within the past year, Mike Pope has battled his way to two championships in the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation, plus weight class Blue Belt titles at the Pan No-Gi Championship and World No-Gi Championship.
By doing that, the Florida native, whose family claims a political background, earned name recognition in the jiu-jitsu world. Now, on his return to another one of his combat sports loves – mixed martial arts – Pope will use the confidence from those wins.
The main difference is, he’ll be restarting on the bottom rung.