Lucas Barbosa

The nickname came from training partners in Rio, impressed by his takedowns and pressure passing, and Lucas Hulk Barbosa lived up to it at the 2018 Worlds. At medium-heavyweight he beat Nick Schrock 4-0, took Matheus Diniz’s back for a submission and edged Rudson Mateus on advantages. In the final, across the bracket was Atos teammate Gustavo Batista, who took silver, and Lucas won the world title.

Born on February 13, 1992, in Boa Vista, Roraima, he tried swimming, basketball, volleyball, taekwondo, judo and Muay Thai before starting Jiu-Jitsu at 15, in 2007, while visiting his godfather, with lessons from Diego Lopes. He got his blue belt from Cristiano Carioca and trained with André Fabiano. As a purple belt he moved to Rio to compete full time under Márcio Rodrigues, and the 2014 web series The Team made him known across Brazil. André Fabiano gave him his black belt on July 7, 2015, and at the end of that year he moved to California to join Atos.

At black belt he won the No-Gi Worlds three years running, from 2015 to 2017, the last one in his division and the open class, and won Pans in 2018 and, with double gold, in 2019. After his 2018 world title he returned to the final in 2021, taking silver behind Gustavo Batista. At ADCC he took bronze at 99 kg in 2019, stopped by Gordon Ryan in the semifinal, and silver at 88 kg in 2022, when he beat Santeri Lilius, Josh Hinger and Vagner Rocha before losing the final to Giancarlo Bodoni.

He has also made his mark in superfights. At BJJ Stars he beat Leandro Lo in 2020 and choked out Gilbert Burns in 2021. At the 2024 Craig Jones Invitational he submitted Jozef Chen and reached the semifinal, lost to Levi Jones-Leary. In 2025 he entered The Crown at heavyweight and beat Windson Torres before losing to Nolan Stuart. He now travels the world teaching seminars.