The 28-year-old IBJJF World Champion will take on Fabricio Andrey in a featherweight submission wrestling match at A Fighting Night 40 on Friday, February 13 at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.
Mendes has a record of 92-34 in his promotional debut. The numbers tell one story. The hunger behind them tells another. Capturing the 2025 IBJJF World Championship represented the realization of a dream that began when he stepped onto the mats at the age of 11.
That win changed everything. Two weeks passed before the size fully registered. World Champion. The title he had thought about every day for sixteen years was finally his.
But dreams don’t stop at one achievement. Opportunities in no-gi wrestling beckoned immediately after he secured his gi championship. Bigger battles, super battles, financial rewards that transform careers. Mendes saw the path forward and took it without hesitation.
“Honestly, I’ve always wanted to fight on the big stage as ONE,” he said. “I think this is the biggest stage in our sport.”
Joao Pedro Bueno Mendes seeks redemption against Fabricio Andrey
Joao Pedro Bueno Mendes and Fabricio Andrey share history. They met at the Pan American tournament in 2021. Andrey won that meeting and the Brazilian understands a fundamental truth about competitive martial arts.
Victories quickly fade from memory. Defeats never go away. Therefore, he remembers their first meeting vividly, while Andrey may have difficulty remembering specific details. Losses are permanently etched into a fighter’s consciousness.
Yet Mendes is not obsessed with revenge. He sees February 13 as a chance to test himself against elite no-gi competition rather than settle old scores. Andrey represents one of the division’s most dangerous fighters, and great challenges have always motivated him more than grudges.
Andrey’s unpredictable creativity makes the preparation complex. Flying armbars, wild throws, attacks coming from positions that shouldn’t create openings. He is dangerous precisely because orthodox game plans do not take his improvisation into account.
“He’s very unpredictable,” he says. “He creates things that only he can create. He jumps for flying armbars, he does crazy throws, so his style is hard to predict. He always creates something new. I think that’s why he’s so dangerous.”
“I think right after I won the title I started thinking about switching to no gi because I know there are more opportunities to do super fights and the money and everything is better in no gi,” he said. “It was my plan: win worlds and then switch to no gi.”
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