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Which Brazilian & American States Have The Most BJJ World Champions?

Which Brazilian & American States Have The Most BJJ World Champions?

In 2015, Brazilian BJJ website BJJ Forum conducted a study of all IBJJF Jiu Jitsu World Championships since 1996, seeking to identify which states have made the most male black belt world championships. Since then, two more issues have appeared (and some titles have been withdrawn after Doping convictions), so they decided to revisit and update the list.
Rio de Janeiro continues to surge in the lead, with almost double the number of São Paulo titles, placed second.
However, the Paulistas have dominated the competition in recent years. Since 2012, there have been 26 titles for São Paulo (8 only in 2016 and 2017), compared with only 9 for Rio de Janeiro (2 in 2016 and 2017). But even at this strong pace, Sao Paulo would take about 15 years to overtake Rio de Janeiro and take the lead!

In summary, the map for Brazil looks like this:

Ranking of Brazilian States:

Rio de Janeiro – 85 golds and 39 champions
2º – São Paulo – 45 golds and 15 champions
3º – Amazonas – 26 golds and 9 champions
4º – Minas Gerais – 23 golds and 8 champions
5º – Rio Grande do Sul – 10 golds 6 champions
6th – Paraná – 7 golds and 2 champions
7th – Pernambuco – 6 golds and 2 champions
8th – Espírito Santo – 4 golds and 2 champions
9th – Sergipe – 4 golds and 1 champion
10th – Federal District – 2 golds and 2 champions
11th – Pará, Goiás and Maranhão – 1 gold and 1 athlete each

UNITED STATES (4 Titles, 4 Athletes)
BJ Penn (Hawaii)
Rafael Lovato Jr (Ohio)
Robert Drysdale (Utah)
Michael Musumeci Jr (New Jersey)

It is important to note that we do not consider closures, but only the official result recorded on the IBJJF website. Other than that, we take as a rule the place of birth of the athlete, although he has more identification with other states. In the case of draws in number of titles, the amount of champions was used as a tiebreaker.

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Notes:

 

USA:  after a 10-year fast, a gold medal was distributed to a non-Brazilian. Michael Musumeci won the Featherweight and won the 4th United States medal in male Jiu-Jitsu history. Before him, the last American to win was Rafael Lovato in 2007. If it were considered as a state, the USA would be in the 8th place in the ranking, ahead of Espirito Santo by the tiebreaker criterion (number of champions)

The flags illustrate the broad Brazilian domain

Giants:  If they were a state, Roger Gracie and Marcus Almeida Buchecha would be tied for 5th place in the Ranking, along with Rio Grande do Sul. Together, they own 9% of all medals that have been distributed in history and would threaten traditional states like Minas Gerais and Amazonas, with 20 diamonds. And the most impressive: only the two won 1/3 of all the absolutes ever disputed.

Dominating Family: Without the Ribeiro brothers Saulo (5 golds) and Xande Ribeiro (7 golds), the Amazon would lose practically half of its titles.

 

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Here is the complete list of world champions we use for our survey:

RIO DE JANEIRO (85 Titles,
38 Athletes)

Alexandre Paiva
Amaury Biteti (2)
Augusto Mendes
Bruno Malfacine (9x)
Caio Terra (2)
Carlos Lemos
Celso Vinicius (3x)
Daniel Moraes (2x)
Daniel Othello
Delson Heleno
Fabio Gurgel (4x)
Felipe Costa
Fernando Augusto (2x)
Fernando Vasconcelos
Francisco Fernandes
Gabriel Gonzaga
Gilberto Burns
Hélio Moreira
Jefferson Moura
Leo Leite (2x)
Leo Vieira
Luiz Guilherme
Marcelo Pereira
Marcio Cruz (3x)
Marcio Feitosa (3x)
Marcos Barreto
Murilo Bustamente
Paulo Barroso
Rafael Correa
RicardoLiborio
Ricardo Vieira
Roberto Correa
Roberto Traven (2x)
Robson Moura (5x)
Rodolfo Vieira (5x)
Rodrigo Medeiros (2x)
Roger Gracie (10x)
Royler Gracie (4x)
Vitor Ribeiro

SÃO PAULO (45 Titles, 15 Athletes)
André Galvão (4x)
Claudio Calasans
Fabio Leopoldo
Fernando Pontes (2x)
Gabriel Vella (2x)
Guilherme Mendes (4x)
Leandro Lo (5x)
Leo Nogueira (2x)
Lucas Leite
Marcus Almeida
Michael Langhi (3x)
Rafael Mendes (6x)
Rodrigo Cavaca
Sergio Moraes (2x)
Tarsis Humphreys

AMAZONAS (25 Titles, 8 Athletes)
Antônio Braga Neto (2x)
Ary Farias
Bibiano Fernandes (3x)
Fernando Vieira
Fredson Paixao (3x)
Gabriel Moraes (2x)
Omar Salum (2x)
Saulo Ribeiro (5x)
Xande Ribeiro

Minas Gerais (23 titles, 8 athletes)
Bernardo Faria (4x)
Erik Wanderlei
Gabriel Arges
Lucas Lepri (4x)
Marcelo Garcia (5x)
Pablo Silva
Romulo Barral (5x)
Samuel Braga (2)

RIO GRANDE DO SUL (9 titles, 5 athletes)
Fabricio Werdum (2x)
Marcio Corleta
Mario Reis (2x)
Mario Sperry (3x)
Nicholas Merehali

PARANÁ (7 Titles, 2 Athletes)
Paulo Miyao
Rubens Charles (6x)

PERNAMBUCO (6 Titles, 2 Athletes)
Braulio Estima (3x)
Otavio Souza (3x)

ESPÍRITO SANTO (4 titles, 2 athletes)
Gabriel Lucas
Ronaldo Souza (3x)

SERGIPE (4 Titles, 1 Athlete)
Roberto Magalhães (4x)

FEDERAL DISTRICT (2 Titles, 2 Athletes)
Bernardo Pitel
Cassio Werneck

PARÁ (1 Title, 1 Athlete)
Marcos Norat

GOIÁS (1 Title, 1 Athlete)
Fernando Marques

SANTA CATARINA (1 Title, 1 Athlete)
Alexandro Ceconi

MARANHÃO (1 Title, 1 Athlete)
Erberth Santos

UNITED STATES (4 Titles, 4 Athletes)
BJ Penn (Hawaii)
Rafael Lovato Jr (Ohio)
Robert Drysdale (Utah)
Michael Musumeci Jr (New Jersey)

ANGOLA (1 Title, 1 Athlete)
João Roque