Sweden’s Marlon Tajik won the 2025 IBJJF No-Gi Pans at brown belt medium-heavy with a 100% submission rate, dominating the field with a crafty leg locking game. Marlon, one of Atos’s best colored belt prospects, won four matches with inside heel hooks.
The IBJJF No-Gi Pan Championship is one of the toughest tournaments of the year, and the unofficial start of the IBJJF’s no-gi season. Every match from the No-Gi Pans streams live exclusively on FloGrappling.
Round One
Marlon took the mats as the top seed in the bracket and showed everyone why with his round one match against Neven Langan. A quick pull led Marlon into a cross ashi entrance and inside heel hook for the quick win. Marlon’s use of the far arm to enter legs is very impressive and that was on great display here.
Quarterfinal
In the next match, Marlon again wasted no time getting to his game against Nikolay Todorov. Todorov tried to lock Marlon into a cradle but Marlon was still able to invert his way to a false reap and heel hook – the best move in his no-gi arsenal. Two matches and into the semifinals, with under two minutes of total mat time so far!
Semifinal
Marlon needed less than one minute to punch his ticket to the finals against Reese Aubin, using his far drag grip to off balance his opponent and invert under again. From his third straight opponent, he got the tap after the inside heel hook in under a minute – a stark contrast to last year when he was in much closer matches. Clearly Marlon has improved a lot.
Finals
With the gold medal on the line, Marlon would take more time than all his previous matches combined but ultimately found the same result against Luuk Aaron Van Nieuwamerongen. This time, Luuk pulled and Marlon was able to work some from top, escaping entanglements and applying pressure. Finally as his Dutch opponent pressured back, Marlon snatched an inside heel hook and got his fourth straight submission for gold.
Marlon Tajik has emerged as one of the biggest colored belt prospects in the no-gi scene this year, with impressive performances under multiple rulesets where he showed off an exciting, sub-oriented game. The Atos brown belt has all the momentum he needs to continue making his name this year as an up-and-comer to watch.