Brazilian authorities are getting involved after a Jiu-Jitsu competitor was left seriously hurt in a No-Gi match over the weekend. A prosecutor’s office in Paraná has formally asked Civil Police to launch an investigation into how Willian Hiroyuki Masuda, better known on the circuit as Kabuto, ended up with a severe neck injury during a bout in Londrina. It’s worth being clear about what this step actually is: nobody has been charged or found guilty of anything. The request simply directs investigators to dig into the sequence of events, the ruleset the tournament was operating under, the full video record, how the referee handled the moment, and what the medical findings show.
The injury happened at Super Pro Jiu-Jitsu 2026, held at the Ginásio de Esportes Moringão on Saturday, August 22. Masuda was matched against Juliano Di Pelli Machado, a black belt from Maringá who, per his lawyers, has European and world medals to his name and no disciplinary record. The bout fell under the event’s No-Gi absolute bracket, a format that pits fighters against opponents outside their own weight class.
Masuda’s camp says he’s had spinal surgery and is currently in the ICU. Early word suggests the damage may be centered on the C5-C6 vertebrae, though his medical team hasn’t put out an official confirmation yet. For its part, the tournament organizer acknowledged that a competitor was hurt, called it an out-of-the-ordinary incident, and noted that an ambulance crew and medics on-site treated him right away.
Reporting out of Brazil identifies the prosecutor as Renato Lima Castro, who filed what’s called a notícia-crime, essentially a formal request for police to open a case, with Paraná’s Civil Police on Monday, August 24. Castro is said to have been watching the event’s live stream and flagged, in his own filing, the size mismatch between the two black belts and how that played into the strain on Masuda’s cervical spine.
His filing lays out a specific to-do list for investigators: lock down the unedited match footage before it can be altered or lost, fold Masuda’s medical records into the case file, pull the competition’s rulebook for review, and get statements on record from the organizers, the officiating crew, coaches, and anyone else who witnessed it. None of that presumes an outcome. It’s simply the groundwork any fair look at the incident would need.
Castro has reportedly floated the possibility that this could amount to grievous bodily harm under a legal standard known as dolo eventual, roughly the idea that someone pressed forward with an action despite recognizing it could cause serious harm, without necessarily meaning for that specific harm to occur. Again, this is a theory attached to a request for a probe, not a verdict. Nothing here establishes that Di Pelli is criminally liable or pins a specific degree of fault on him. If police do open the inquiry, that’s where the evidence gets collected and both sides of the story get tested.
Footage that’s been circulating, shared on r/bjj under the title “Illegal piledriver incident at Super Pro Jiu-Jitsu (8/22/2026; Londrina, Brazil)”, captures Masuda upside down, head toward the mat, right before Di Pelli brings him down and lands on top of him with his full weight. Masuda’s neck took the brunt of the impact on the ground, and he stopped moving. You can see the referee react almost instantly, throwing a hand up and calling for medical help the moment it’s obvious something has gone badly wrong.
Brazilian outlets have labeled the technique a “bate-estaca,” the local term for a piledriver, a move that’s been off-limits in Jiu-Jitsu for a long time precisely because of injuries like this one. Still, even striking footage like this has limits. A clip can show you the moment of impact, but it can’t by itself tell you everything that led up to it, what either athlete intended, who bears legal responsibility, or whether the referee and rules were properly followed in real time. Getting a full picture means looking at the entire recording, the specific rules that applied to that bracket and event, the referee’s own account, and the complete medical file, all considered together rather than judged off one angle of one clip.
Di Pelli’s lawyers, from the firm Felipe de Melo Advocacia, released a statement through Tribuna do Paraná saying their client is “profoundly shaken” by what’s happened to Masuda and has reached out with support to his family. According to the statement, Di Pelli is willing to speak with authorities whenever needed, but his team wants any real assessment to happen through the proper channels: forensic review, a look at the rulebook, and input from the officials who worked the match, rather than a verdict reached on social media. They also pointed out that Di Pelli is a professional competitor with international medals and, they say, a clean disciplinary history.
Separately, the Fundação de Esportes de Londrina, the foundation that runs the Moringão facility, said it was saddened by what happened but noted it had no hand in organizing the tournament itself.
Where things stand right now: an athlete in intensive care recovering from spinal surgery, a formal request for police to dig into the circumstances, and a defense side pushing back against any conclusions before the facts are fully examined.
A freelance journalist with more than seven years of experience covering a wide range of topics, with a focus on delivering accurate, engaging, and well-researched reporting. He studied at the University of Birmingham, where he developed a strong foundation in journalism and communications. Martin is a 10th Planet BJJ brown belt and has been training for approximately 10 years and a keen follower of submission grappling.
