Roger Gracie

Roger Gracie was born September 26, 1981, in Rio de Janeiro into the family that gave Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu its name. He is the grandson of Carlos Gracie, the co-founder of the art, and the son of coral belt Mauricio Gomes, who moved the family to London while Roger was still a boy. Roger split his early training between his father in England and his uncle Carlos Gracie Jr. in Rio, along with time on the mats with Renzo and Rilion Gracie, absorbing a version of the art built on precision fundamentals rather than flash. He racked up world titles as a colored belt before Carlos Gracie Jr. awarded him his black belt in 2003, at age 22.

What followed was arguably the most statistically dominant run in the sport's competitive history. From 2004 through 2010, Roger won ten IBJJF World Championship titles across weight and absolute divisions, becoming the first competitor to capture the open-weight crown three times. Every one of his black belt World final wins came by submission, most often the same technique: a cross-collar choke applied from mount or back control after he had already worn an opponent down with suffocating top pressure and a guard pass that gave opponents almost nothing to work with. His most talked-about single performance came outside the IBJJF, at the 2005 ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship, where he submitted all eight opponents he faced across his weight class and the absolute division — a feat that remains unmatched in the event's history. He added an ADCC superfight title in 2007. Across a competitive career spanning roughly two decades, Roger was never submitted, a claim few elite grapplers of his era could make.

Roger's game was not built on the guard-based innovation that later generations of the sport chased. Instead, he refined a small number of positions — closed guard, mount, back control, and the choke itself — to a level of technical purity that made them nearly impossible to defend even when opponents knew exactly what was coming. That simplicity-as-mastery approach became a template that is still taught by instructors trying to explain why 'basics' win at the highest level.

He stepped away from grappling competition for several years to pursue mixed martial arts, fighting in Strikeforce and the UFC before finding consistent success with Evolve MMA and ONE Championship, where he won the promotion's inaugural Light Heavyweight title in 2016 and finished his MMA career with an 8-2 record. He returned to jiu-jitsu one final time in July 2017 for an exhibition super-match against Marcus 'Buchecha' Almeida at Gracie Pro in Rio, submitting him with a collar choke in under seven minutes and announcing his retirement from competition in the same breath.

Roger was inducted into the IBJJF Hall of Fame in 2014 and became the first inductee into the ADCC Hall of Fame in 2021, recognition of both his unmatched competitive record and his lasting influence on how positional dominance is taught. He now runs the Roger Gracie Academy network he founded in London in 2004, and is widely cited by peers and historians of the sport as the greatest gi competitor of all time.

Fundamentals-based top pressure and mount control, finished almost every major final with a cross-collar choke