Rafael Mendes "The Wizard"

Rafael Mendes was born June 20, 1989, in Rio Claro, in the interior of São Paulo state, Brazil. He and his older brother Guilherme were introduced to jiu-jitsu through their cousin Thiago Mendes, a purple belt who saw their potential and connected them with instructors Ramon Lemos and Leonardo Santos. Rafael has said in interviews that his coaches provided mentorship during a period when his parents were separated, and jiu-jitsu became both a sporting and personal anchor for him growing up. He won World Championship titles at every colored belt from blue through brown before Ramon Lemos promoted him to black belt in late 2008.

Rafael's black belt career redefined what a smaller, guard-focused competitor could accomplish against the sport's biggest names. He won a bronze medal at the 2009 IBJJF World Championship in his first year as a black belt, then captured his first World gold in 2010. He went on to win six total IBJJF World Championship titles at featherweight — 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016 — a division record. In no-gi, he became an ADCC World Champion in 2009 in Barcelona, becoming one of the youngest ADCC champions in the event's history at the time, and repeated the feat in 2011 in Nottingham, adding a silver medal in 2013. His competitive rivalry with Rubens "Cobrinha" Charles, spanning more than a dozen matches from 2008 to 2014, became one of the defining featherweight storylines of the era.

What set Rafael apart technically was his role in popularizing two guard concepts that reshaped competitive jiu-jitsu: the berimbolo, an inverting sweep-to-back-take sequence launched from De La Riva guard, and the 50/50 guard, an entangled leg position used to control opponents and threaten leg locks or sweeps from a seemingly neutral tie-up. Both techniques were considered unconventional or even gimmicky when Rafael and other competitors in his circle began using them, but his repeated success with them at the highest level forced the rest of the sport to adapt, and both are now standard components of modern competitive grappling curricula, gi and no-gi alike.

In 2012, Rafael and Guilherme co-founded Art of Jiu-Jitsu (AOJ) in Costa Mesa, California, with backing from sponsor Pat Tenore. Rafael announced his retirement from competition in 2017, at 27 years old, after his final IBJJF World title in 2016, choosing to step back from the demands of the competitive calendar to focus on his family and on coaching. Since then, AOJ has grown into one of the most consistently successful competition academies in the world, producing multiple black belt world champions and earning "Gym of the Year" recognition from industry outlets. Rafael remains deeply involved in the sport as a coach, seminar instructor, and producer of instructional content, and has periodically hinted at a possible return to competition without confirming a concrete comeback. He and his brother are members of both the IBJJF and ADCC Halls of Fame, and their influence on how the guard is played at the elite level is difficult to overstate.

Guard-based innovator known for popularizing the berimbolo and 50/50 guard as high-percentage competitive weapons