Erik Wanderley

Erik Wanderley was already used to Worlds podiums by the time he reached black belt. In 1998, as a purple belt, he won the heavyweight division, with Fábio Leopoldo finishing second. In 2001, as a brown belt, he took silver at heavyweight and bronze in the open class. A student of Vinicius “Draculino” Magalhães at Gracie Barra in Belo Horizonte, he received his black belt from Carlos Gracie Jr.

At his first Worlds as a black belt, in 2002, he reached the medium-heavyweight final and lost to Saulo Ribeiro. A year later he moved up to super-heavyweight and beat Roberto Tozi in the final to take gold, on a podium that also had Fábio Leopoldo and Pedro Galiza.

A few months after the title, in September 2003, he made his MMA debut against Maurício “Shogun” Rua at IFC Global Domination in Denver and lost by TKO in the second round. He fought six times through 2011, with three wins and three losses. Two of the wins came in 2010 at Brazil Fight in Belo Horizonte, one of them by heel hook over Johnny Marcus.

In Belo Horizonte he set up his own team, Erik Wanderley Team, and today he is a coach and partner at Gracie Barra Cobre, in the Cruzeiro neighborhood, where he is listed as a sixth-degree black belt. Marcelo Gomide, promoted in 2019 and now his partner at the school, is among the black belts he has produced. In 2018, looking back on his own promotion, he wrote: “It is an honor to be a student of my master Vinicius Draculino and to have received my black belt from the legend Carlos Gracie Jr! Always competing for Gracie Barra, I kept and still keep the legacy alive.”