Emerging Stars of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the Current Era

Sports of all kinds have been becoming popular day by day for many years. Out of all sports, it is the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that is increasing its popularity very fast. Each year, many young, talented kids and teenagers join the game and make their mark in the prestigious events of the BJJ world. There are many events of BJJ that are conducted, such as IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation), ADCC (Abu Dhabi Combat Club), ONE Championship, and many more. 

These events produce many new stars of BJJ and bring many existing talented stars into the limelight through their remarkable achievements in the matches conducted under these events. There are many BJJ athletes who were once unknown and have now started coming into the limelight due to their stunning performance in professional BJJ matches and BJJ events. Besides these, there are many who are young and recently made their debut. They are very talented and won many matches in the BJJ events, defeating the favorites of the match. This article will discuss all those emerging stars of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world. Following are the top seven emerging stars in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world.

Mica Galva, with the real name Micael Ferreira Galvao, was born on October 8th, 2003, in the Amazonas state of Brazil. Galvao was born in a family in which many had taken training in martial arts. His grandfather was very famous as an instructor of Kung fu. Training at an early age is not a big deal for Brazilian inhabitants. So, like many others, he started training at the age of just four. His father started training him. Later on, Galvao joined the academy for proper training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In the childhood, besides BJJ, he also took training in wrestling and judo.

Mica Galvao has made many achievements in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game. He won many events in the juvenile, colored belt, and black belt events. He took his black belt, the ultimate dream of all BJJ athletes, at the age of just 17. Surprisingly, he took that belt less than three years after being promoted to the blue belt. In juvenile BJJ events, he got the IBJJF championship title four times. He became IBJJF European, South American, Pan, and world champion.

In his black belt career, he got himself in second place in the WNO (Who is Number One) championship. He also took him to the second number in one of the most prestigious championships of the BJJ world, the ADCC submission fighting championship. He became the champion as a black belt in the Abu Dhabi World Pro and Abu Dhabi Grand Slams.

Cole Anthony Abate, with the nickname ‘Ice Cold,’ was born on November 16th, 2004, in the Texas, state of America. Soon after coming into the BJJ world, he became famous as Ice Cold. His fans gave him this name because he used to remain calm and cool every time despite his young age. Unlike many other American kids, Ice Cold was very fond of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu since childhood. His childhood passion for BJJ forced him to start BJJ training at the age of just five. After some years, Cole’s family moved to Costa Mesa, city of California. In California, he started training in the Art of (Brazilian) Jiu-Jitsu. He used to compete against many adult BJJ stars in his teenage. This took him ahead of many other BJJ stars of his age.

Ice Cold won many juvenile titles in his childhood BJJ career. He reached his dream BJJ black belt and played his first match as a black belt BJJ athlete in 2023. He made many remarkable wins as a BJJ black belt. He won the IBJJF world championship title as a purple belt. He also won the ADCC Trials championship. He got third position in the IBJJF Pan Championship as a BJJ purple belt. In juvenile events, he got many prestigious titles. He won the IBJJF Pan Championship and the Pan Championship No Gi. He also won the juvenile IBJJF world championship. In kids BJJ competitions, he won the IBJJF American Nationals kids championship many times. In the IBJJF Kids Pan championships, he got second and third place many times.

Jozef Chen was born in the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei, on July 30, 2004. Josef spent his childhood in several cities in South Asia, such as Doha, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur etc. His favorite sports in childhood were swimming and track and field. After a few years playing these two sports, he first heard about the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and started gaining interest in the UFC. Later on, he found martial arts interesting. Ultimately, he heard about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and found his passion in this sport. At the age of 14, he started training for the BJJ. He joined BJJ academy for training for his ultimate childhood passion. Jozef also took an interest in Muay Thai in his early life. He thought he could make his career well in mixed martial arts. But later on he focused only on the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and trained hard for it.

Although he trained for just a few years, he still made many remarkable achievements in his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu career. In the Oceanea trials, he won the bronze medal. He also bagged many big wins in the ADCC Asia championship and successfully won the bronze medal. In another event in the next year, after getting a bronze medal in these two events, he got a gold medal in the ADCC European championship trials.

Luke Griffith was born in South Africa on December 27th, 2000. BJJ was running in his family. He is the son of famous BJJ practitioner and athlete Lioyd Griffith. It was normal for him to have a passion for BJJ because he had seen his father practicing and training BJJ since his childhood. He started training under his father for BJJ. Besides training under his father, he also trained for another renowned BJJ coach, Bobby Karagiannidi. Both his father and Bobby took Luke to achieve his purple belt. Later on, as he continued his training for BJJ under these two coaches, he became more interested in the No Gi BJJ.

He went to Texas, America, and started training under one of the best coaches of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game, John Danaher. Danaher soon realized that Luke was a promising talent and hard-working BJJ practitioner. John shifted him from the ordinary BJJ training group and asked him to join the professional athlete's group. Later on, he also trained under Gordan Rayan (widely known as Gordan King Rayan), who is considered the greatest No Gi BJJ athlete of all time.

He became famous when he won the ADCC South African trials. After winning the ADCC South African trials, he bagged the ADCC European trials. In the following year, he won the trials again. He also made his name in the ADCC world championship and got himself in second place. Moving forward, he won many other titles. He successfully marked his name in the Pan championship and No Gi championship titles.

Andrew Henry Tackett, with the nickname Pirulitto, was born on March 1st, 2003, in America. Like many great BJJ stars, Andrew has a childhood passion for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He became famous as Pirulitto because he was very slim and skinny and had a big head. Pirulitto means lollypop. Andrew’s father was very fond of the combat sports. BJJ academy was opened near his house. This led to Andrew’s father admitting him into the academy. Both Andrew and his brother William Tackett were admitted into the academy.

Both brothers took a lot of interest in the training and soon started training hard for the BJJ. Both became interested in the competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Both thought they should fight and play in professional Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu matches. After their debut, they made many remarkable achievements in the game. They made many big wins in the game against big opponents. Soon, the Tackett brothers became famous in the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The fans applauded them because of their aggressive style of fighting.

Andrew Tackett made his name by winning many BJJ championship titles. His focus was on the submission-type BJJ grappling championships. He became famous and proved himself when he won the ADCC world championship. Further on, he won the ADCC trials. Apart from these, he won many other titles, such as ADCC Open, AIGA (Amateur International Grappling Association), and WNO (Who is Number One). All these titles he won were submission oriented. He is the emerging submission grappling Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu star.

Roberto Jimenez, with the nickname ‘prodigy,’ was born on May 19th, 2000, in the City of Miami, Florida. Roberto started training when he was just four years old. He started training BJJ in Miami. But after some time training in his home city Miami, he moved to Texas and started training in Texas. In Texas, he took BJJ seriously as a career and worked and trained very hard for it. He started competing against BJJ opponents as a teenage grappler. His first big BJJ event was ROYAL. Out of all the competitors, Roberto was the youngest of all. He won against many big opponents in that event and got recognition among BJJ fans on the big stage. 

Roberto's big achievement was winning the IBJJF No Gi championship in 2023. Apart from this big achievement, he won many other titles and made his name in the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He also won the ADCC South America trials in 2022. Other titles that Roberto earned include Pan championships, American Nationals, and Grand Slams. He also won 3CG Kumite and took the title many times to his name.

Jacob Rodriguez with the nickname ‘Jay Rod,’ was born in February 2002 in the United States of America. Jacob played many sports. He took an interest in many forms of sports. Football was the first sport that took his interest. After football, he started playing wrestling. Both Jacob and his brother used to take an interest in wrestling. He took wrestling seriously and played many wrestling matches as a teenage wrestler. Jacob won many tournaments and titles in regional and district level wrestling championships. They also joined the wrestling training academy to take training in wrestling regularly. Both Jacob and his brother used to go for training daily after school. 

Jacob transitioned his interest, passion, and career from wrestling to No Gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after graduating. BJJ took his interest, and he started investing his everything in that sport. Soon after he started training, he was promoted to blue belt in just seven months of training full of discipline, punctuality, and hard work. Jacob surprised everyone with his wins in the ADCC West Coast Trials both in 2022 and 2024, putting himself in the top position and in second place respectively. In ADCC World Championship 2024, he took himself to second position after defeating many big opponents of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. 

BJJ has been producing many big stars each year. These were some examples of those emerging BJJ players. The reason behind these fast rising and emerging BJJ stars in recent years is the fact that learning BJJ techniques and moves has now become much easier. There are a lot of tutorials available for learning a single technique. Whether you want to learn it visually or you want to learn by reading the instructions, you have a lot of options available. With the learning so much easier now, the competition has now become even more difficult. Now, you can improve your game by watching many tutorials available online. You can also improve your game by watching the games of others. Tougher BJJ competitions will now produce even bigger players.

Photo Credit: @flograppling, @coleabatejj, @jozefchenjj, @danaherjohn