Daniel Gracie

In the IBJJF results he is listed as Daniel Simões. In MMA and in the academies he became known as Daniel Gracie. A cousin of Renzo, Ralph and Ryan Gracie on his mother’s side, he was born in Rio on June 28, 1972, and reached four Worlds finals as a black belt between 1997 and 2001, taking silver in all of them.

His black belt came in 1996, after he won the open class at the first Worlds as a brown belt from Carlos Gracie Jr.’s Gracie Barra. The following year, now a black belt, he was runner-up at heavyweight, a division won by Fabio Gurgel. He moved up to super-heavyweight and took silver again in 1998, when the gold went to Roberto “Roleta” Magalhães, in 2000, when Saulo Ribeiro was the champion, and in 2001, when he lost the final to Fernando Marques. In 1999 he took bronze in the same division. He won the Brazilian Nationals in 1996, 1997 and 1999.

In the early 2000s he took his Jiu-Jitsu to MMA in Japan, where he beat Takashi Sugiura, Wataru Sakata and Shinsuke Nakamura, the last by armlock, and lost to Kazuhiro Nakamura. He fought again in the United States, for the IFL in 2006 and for Bellator in 2011, and finished with a record of five wins, four losses and one draw.

As a coach he worked for years in the United States, tied to Renzo Gracie’s team, and gave his name to a group of academies. In September 2026 he took over as head of Semper Fight Academy in Boituva, in São Paulo state, which presents him as a coral belt.