Jonathan “JT” Torres

Jonathan “JT” Torres won ADCC at 77 kg twice in a row. In 2017, in Finland, he beat Lucas Lepri in the final and became the first American to win the division. Two years later, in California, he won the tournament again, beating Vagner Rocha in the final.

Born in the Bronx, New York, on September 2, 1989, he started Jiu-Jitsu at 15 and quickly stood out on the East Coast circuit. In 2009 he was a Worlds runner-up as a brown belt and received his black belt from Jared Weiner. Over the next few years he competed for Team Lloyd Irvin and made the Worlds podium as a black belt for the first time in 2011, with bronze at lightweight.

In 2013 he moved to San Diego to train at Atos under André Galvão, and that same year he won the No-Gi Worlds. In 2014 he beat Michael Langhi in the Worlds semifinal, by an advantage, and lost the final to Lucas Lepri. He took bronze in 2015 and 2016, and in 2015 he also won the Europeans and the Pans.

Known by the nickname “Spiderman,” he is now a fourth-degree black belt and runs Essential BJJ, the academy he founded in White Plains, New York.