Lucas Lepri - 2022 IBJJF Hall Of Famer

Lucas Lepri was a sports guy from his early childhood. He liked sports and games and participated in many sports like Judo, skating, futsal (indoor soccer), swimming, and Capoeira.

Lucas got familiar with BJJ in 2000 for the first time when he saw an MTV program, “Vinte e Poucos Anos”. In this program, Fernando “Margarida” Ponts was talking about his daily routine workout when he was preparing for Pan American Championship. Lucas was very impressed with BJJ and decided to try it.

Lucas started his BJJ journey with Elan Santiago in his coaching center. Lucas executed great potential for BJJ. Elan Santiago played a crucial role in the basic and early training of this world champion. But Elan Santiago closed his BJJ academy and Lucas had to switch to another academy to continue his journey in BJJ. 

Lucas joined Fernando Terere’s TT academy and continued his training with Fernando till the end of 2004 and 2005. But soon this new academy also stopped offering training sessions and Lucas had to start his BJJ journey with some other academy.

After the closing of Fernando’s academy, Lucas Lepri along with his first coach, Elan Santiago joined the famous Alliance academy.

After one year of training in Alliance, Lucas won his Black Belt in 2006 after winning the World Championship and Bronze Winner at the Pan American Championship.

In the very next year, just after winning Black Belt, Lepri earned fame in the grappling world by winning the title of World Champion and surprised his fans with his outstanding performance.

Team Alliance needed a coach to train their students and they found Lucas as the best person for this responsibility. So Lucas accepted their invitation and joined Alliance and relocated to the ÙS and started his BJJ coaching career.   

Lucas Lepri is a Black Belt under coach Elan Santiago. He started his BJJ journey in 2000 and conquered the world of BJJ with his continuous achievements. He won all major BJJ World Championships and remained the World champion in the IBJJF for five consecutive years in the lightweight division. To acknowledge Lepri’s 9x world championship wins, on 19 May 2022 IBJJF inducted Lucas Lepri in the IBJJF Hall of Fame.

At this another moment of international recognition, Lucas expressed his views:

Lucas Lepri proved himself a great and most successful grappler of all time in the lightweight division of his era. He won all major World Championships of BJJ. Lucas maintained his position as a World Champion in the IBJJF World Championship for 6 continuous years. In his complete fight history, he just lost two matches by submission.

This bout was between Lucas Lepri and Kaynan Duarte in the open weight division. Both competitors are world champions. This match was the most exciting match that happened in the European Championship 2019.

At the start of the match, Kaynan Duarte took down Lucas Lepri and succeeded to keep his back on the mat to score two points. Kaynan Duarte struggled hard in this match to beat this score. Lucas Lepri repeatedly tried to take down his opponent and applied single leg X guard but Kaynan maintained his balance and successfully defended his position.

At the last minute, Lepri took down Kaynan. 

So,  Lucas Lepri surprised his fans to achieve this target. Lucas Lepri won this match by Points 4x4 and penalty.

This match was between Lucas Lepri and Alexandre Molinaro in the 2019 European Championship.
 
Alexandre was very strong and tried hard in the complete match to take down Lepri. But Lepri did not commit any mistakes and fought with a strong base. At the start of the match, Alexandre Molinaro tried to apply full guard but Lucas did not let him and countered by grabbing him from the back. Lucas forced him into a Turtle position and then applied a wrist lock. But Molinaro, artistically, got himself free from the choke.

At the end of the match, Lucas submitted Alexandr with a Collar Choke. 

This match was between Lucas Lepri and Marcel Goncalves in the 2013 Pan Championship under the lightweight division.

Lucas tried to take down Goncalves but Goncalves maintained his balance. Goncalves took down Lucas but failed to score any points.

Lucas once again tried to take down his opponent by strangling him from the back. This time, Lucas succeeded and overcame Goncalves.

In the end, the match ended with a tap from Marcel and Lucas won the match by RNC.

Most Exciting Match of European's 2019 / Lucas Lepri vs Kaynan Duarte

Lucas Lepri VS Jonathan "JT" Torres / World Championship 2016

Lucas Lepri VS Lucas Valente / World Championship 2019

Lucas Lepri VS Rodrigo Freitas / World Championship 2019

Lucas Lepri VS Alexandre Molinaro / European Championship 2019

Photo credit: @lucaslepri