Fellipe Andrew

Fellipe Andrew Leandro Silva was born on October 24, 1994, in Caruaru, a city in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco. He started Jiu-Jitsu in April 2011, talked into it by friends after a spell in kung fu. His first coach was Adriano Estanislau, whose academy was often visited by Rodrigo Cavaca. Still a purple belt, he left his family in Pernambuco and moved to Santos, on the coast of São Paulo state, to train full time under Cavaca at Zenith.

In the colored belts he won Worlds at purple belt in 2016 and Pans at brown belt in 2017. His black belt came in December 2017 from Cavaca and Estanislau, after he finished second in the middleweight Grand Prix of Copa Podio, a Brazilian pro event where he faced black belts. In his first year at the new rank he won Brazilian Nationals and reached the podium at Pans and Worlds.

Already living in the United States, he left Zenith for Alliance in July 2020. Between 2019 and 2022 he collected four golds at Europeans and four at Pans, split between super-heavyweight and the open class. The 2020 European open class title included a triangle on Keenan Cornelius. At the 2021 Worlds he took silver at super-heavyweight and lost the open class semifinal to Felipe Pena; in June 2022 the IBJJF disqualified Pena and awarded the title to Fellipe.

2023 was the best year of his career. He dropped from super-heavyweight to heavyweight and won Europeans, Brazilian Nationals, Worlds and the Abu Dhabi World Pro. In November, at the first edition of The Crown, he beat Gustavo “Braguinha” Batista 11-0 in the final and became the event’s first heavyweight champion.

In 2024 he was runner-up at Europeans, won the medium-heavyweight Grand Prix at BJJ Stars 12, a pro event in Brazil, with three wins in one night and an arm-triangle choke on Uanderson Ferreira in the final, and reached the final of the Craig Jones Invitational, in no-gi. In September he accepted a two-year suspension from USADA, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency: a test taken at Pans in March came back positive for clomiphene. The sanction took effect on April 16, 2024, and wiped out his results at IBJJF tournaments from the date of the test, including that Pans gold.

While suspended, he competed outside the federation’s circuit. He won the Abu Dhabi World Pro in 2024 and 2025, making it four titles in a row at the tournament, and lost 2-0 to Leo Ferreira in a BJJ Stars superfight in September 2025.

His return to the IBJJF came at the 2026 Brazilian Nationals, in May. Fellipe submitted Nicholas Maglicic with a straight ankle lock, got past Mathias Luna and was beating Rider Zuchi 13-0 in the semifinal when he hurt his back and could not continue. He took bronze, had a microdiscectomy to treat a herniated disc in his lower back and did not compete at Worlds. “About three months ago I could barely walk. I went through my second spine surgery and fighting again seemed very far away,” he wrote on Instagram in September.

He came back in August at the San Diego Open, where he won his semifinal and closed out the final with his friend Pedro “Bolo” Silva. In September he won the World Master in Las Vegas, with four matches and four submissions in the Master 1 division. He now teaches at Del Mar Jiu-Jitsu Club in California and has represented AOJ, the team of brothers Rafael and Guilherme Mendes, since August 2024.

His game is built on the guard and on finishing: of his 298 wins as a black belt, 179 came by submission, 39 of them by arm-triangle choke and 34 by straight ankle lock, the “botinha” he treats as his trademark. “The goal is to show a loose, forward-moving Jiu-Jitsu,” he said in 2024, before a BJJ Stars superfight.

At The Crown on November 8 he meets Braguinha again, whom he has beaten all five times they have fought, and Leo Ferreira, who beat him in 2025. After the World Master he left a message in a comment on VF Comunica’s Instagram: “See you at the Crown.” His plans for the same month include the Abu Dhabi World Pro, where he is chasing what he called his “fifth belt.”