Samuel Braga

Samuel Braga won the Worlds in his first year at black belt. In 2005, a few months after receiving it from Vinicius Draculino, he beat Felipe Costa in the roosterweight semifinal and Gabriel Moraes in the final. Three years later, now at light-featherweight, he was back on top, with Japan’s Dai Yoshioka as runner-up and Daniel Beleza among the bronze medalists.

A native of Belo Horizonte, he earned a taekwondo black belt as a teenager and started jiu-jitsu around 2000. He studied jewelry design and worked as a jeweler before committing to an athlete’s career in 2004. At the colored belts he won the Worlds at purple in 2002 and at brown in 2004, plus five straight Brazilian Nationals from 2001 to 2005. Known for his De La Riva guard, he says he was already using the berimbolo as a purple belt in 2003.

At the Worlds he also took bronze in 2006, silver in 2007, losing the final to Robson Moura, and silver in 2010, when he closed out the bracket with Gracie Barra teammate Pablo Silva, who took gold. In 2009 he lost the final to Guilherme Mendes on advantages, and in 2011 he won bronze. He was also the 2007 No-Gi world champion and a Pans runner-up in 2008.

He moved to the United States in 2007 and opened Gracie Barra Knoxville in Tennessee. He now runs Outbox BJJ in the same city and, in 2017, launched the jewelry brand NXS Design.