No Gi Worlds Is Irrelevant

It's never really been that prestigious, but the IBJJF No Gi World Championship is now becoming nonsensical. People who are entering elite level professional grappling tournaments are competing in IBJJF events at a blue and purple belt level. This year we have Pat Downey (a US national team wrestler, CJI competitor and MMA fighter) competing at blue belt and Michael Pixley (current ADCC Medalist) competing at purple belt. First issue, as many have stated in the past world championships for anything other than black belts are weird. Next issue, if there is no qualifying process for world championships, we need to separate the professional grapplers from the hyper-hobbyists. Downey and Pixley don't need black belts, but they also shouldn't go from competing against elite athletes to a guy who trains after he gets out of his regular life. It may be a bias but to me this really only applies to no gi, if you put Pixley or Downey in a gi it would not be as big of an issue for me, I may have a different stance if it were elite level judoka though. Overall, I think as a sport we need to start separating people who regularly compete and win against black belts,or exhibit high level grappling skills for m hobbyists in our supposed World Championships.