Gabriel Sousa - BJJ Light Featherweight Champion

Gabriel Sousa was born in Fortaleza, the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceara, on January 10, 1997. Sousa is considered one of the best light featherweight grapplers and has won many championships in his weight division. Sousa has achieved immense success in martial arts despite coming from a non-athletic background. Sousa has won many international tournaments, both as a colored and black belt, including the IBJJF World Championship and the IBJJF Pan Championship. 

Sousa grew up with his family in Brazil and spent his childhood practicing capoeira, which is a dance-like martial arts in Brazil, playing futsal and dabbing. However, Sousa lacked natural athletic skills, which led many of his friends to make fun of him.

In November 2009, Sousa was introduced to jiu-jitsu at the age 12. Sousa immediately became impressed with this martial art and eventually decided to pursue it professionally.

Sousa started his BJJ training with instructor Jefferson Teixeira at Gracie Barra Academy.

After receiving a blue belt in BJJ, Sousa decided to try Judo to improve his grappling  techniques and self-defense. Later, he competed at the Ceara state tournament under the FECA judo federation and secured first place.

After being promoted to the purple belt, Sousa competed at the IBJJF World Championship in the United States. There, he met a former Gracie Barra grappler, Lucas Rocha, who also belonged from northeast Brazil, and settled a camp with him.

Rocha had affiliated himself under the ZR Team banner in the Northern Hemisphere during that time. After building a strong connection with Rocha, Sousa decided to join Rocha’s work and team. However, in July 2023, Sousa announced on Instagram to part ways with the ZR Team.

Sousa received both his brown and black belts under Lucas Rocha in a ceremony that happened in June 2018.

Sousa started his coaching career in 2015 with the ZR Team and has been training in Jiu-Jitsu for the past eight years.

Sousa relocated to the USA in 2018 after receiving his black belt in BJJ.

Sousa has competed and won many international championships, both as a colored and black belt. He is a three-time IBJJF World Champion, twice as a colored belt and once as a black belt, and a two-time IBJJF Pan Champion in the colored belts. Sousa has scored 2nd place in the 2022 ADCC World Championship.

In July 2023, Souza announced that he had decided to represent the Essential Jiu-Jitsu Team after leaving the ZR Team. Consequently, Souza is now training BJJ with JT Torres, a legendary BJJ black belt and instructor. Souza had already started training with JT Torres for the 2022 ADCC World Championship. With Torres at the helm of Souza’s training, Souza managed to win a silver medal in the tournament. He is now determined to bag a gold medal at the 2024 ADCC World Championship and for this reason he has decided to join the Essential Jiu-Jitsu Team full time. To share this news with his fans, Souza took to his official Instagram account. His original post is in Portuguese, a translation of which is provided below for ready reference:

Sousa has been dating Ffion Eira Davies, who is also a BJJ athlete and representative of Essential Jiu-Jitsu Academy.

Sousa competed with Felipe Linhares at the 2021 Pan Championship in the black belt, featherweight division. Sousa got one advantage point by taking down Linhares and immediately another advantage point with the back take. After a long and intense fight, Sousa won the fight with the advantage.

Sousa competed against Ruan Alvarenga at the 2022 ADCC Worlds Championship in the blackbelt, light featherweight division. At the beginning of the match, Alvarenga performed an intense guillotine. The referee ended the fight considering Sousa to be unconscious; however, Souza was conscious enough to continue the match. Therefore, the fight resumed and Alvarenga tried to perform the guillotine again; however, this time Sousa escaped it. Sousa scored two points with the takedown. At the end of the match, Sousa scored three points with the back-take technique and won the fight.

Sousa faced Mikey Musumeci at the 2021 Who’s Number One (WNO) Championship in the black belt, light featherweight division. At the beginning of the match, Musumeci tried to apply the berimbolo technique, however, Sousa escaped it successfully. After ten minutes in the fight, Sousa performed the north south choke technique on Musumeci and won the fight. He also received a $30,000 prize for this remarkable victory.

Gabriel Sousa v Joshua Cisneros / Pan Championship 2021

Alex Sodré VS Gabriel Sousa / World No-Gi Championship 2019

Gabriel Sousa VS Cole Franson / European Championship NoGi 2019

Gabriel Sousa v Fabricio Barbarotti / Charleston Open 2023

Photo Credit: @gabrielsousabjj