Caio Almeida

Caio Almeida Silva was born on February 2, 1986, in Itaquera, on the east side of São Paulo, the same neighborhood where he built the team that carries his family name. He received his black belt in December 2009 from Gabriel Vella, and with his brothers Diogo and Gustavo he founded Almeida JJ, which began as a social project and became a training center with four competition-size mat areas, expanded in January 2025.

Before developing champions, he trained under Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles for many years. “Cobrinha is a guy who changed my life. I was his student for many years. We trained six hours a day, and it was with him that I really learned how to train. To this day I carry that way of training with me and with my students,” he told VF Comunica.

Almeida JJ has developed athletes such as Bianca Basílio, a world and ADCC champion, and Cléber “Clandestino” Sousa, who received his black belt from Caio in December 2016 and now trains with Cobrinha in Los Angeles. The team also produced Maria Luiza Nunes, who won the 2025 Pans by beating Cássia Moura, and a generation of athletes who keep reaching IBJJF podiums.

Caio has never stopped competing. In the adult division, for Ryan Gracie Team, he took bronze at the 2013 and 2014 South Americans and the 2013 Brazilian No-Gi Nationals. In the master divisions he won the 2020 South Americans and the 2023 Master International North America, took silver at the 2024 Pans and Europeans and bronze at the World Master Championship in 2023 and 2026. He is also a three-time Abu Dhabi World Pro champion on the AJP circuit. “I still want to compete. The fire is still burning inside me,” he told VF Comunica in 2025.

For him, what separates champions shows up far from the podium. “For me, a champion’s greatest quality is staying loyal to your own dream. It is continuing to work when no one is watching. It is continuing to train when the results don’t come,” he said.