Felipe “Lipe” Machado

Felipe Dexheimer Machado, known as Lipe, is from Rio de Janeiro and started Jiu-Jitsu at age 8. He stopped training for a while as a brown belt, came back and built his career in no-gi with Pirâmide Grappling, a Rio team led by Marco Queiroz.

His first major title came in 2023. After taking silver the year before, he won the Brazilian No-Gi Nationals at featherweight, beating Welerson Gonçalves in the final. “I came close last year and I already knew this title was mine,” he told VF Comunica. That same year he won the AIGA Champions League team title with Team Modolfo, submitting his opponents in the semifinal and the final. In 2024 he won the IBJJF South American No-Gi Championship.

He reached a wider audience in December 2024, when he faced Mikey Musumeci in the main event of UFC Fight Pass Invitational 9 in Las Vegas and lost 2-0. “I fought the best in the world in my division. I fought against his best game and his best attack,” he said after the match. While preparing for the event, he had explained how he sees his career: “I think marketing and self-promotion are even more important than the fight itself.”

In 2026 he was runner-up at the Brazilian No-Gi Nationals and made his debut at the ADCC World Championship, in Kraków, Poland, in the under 66 kg (145 lb) division. He lost in the round of 16 to American Gianni Grippo, 3-0.