José Olimpio, more known as “Zé Radiola”, who was one the top 3 leaders of the Gracie Barra organisation, has officially left GB to form his own team: ZR Team.
Ze Radiola is one of the most respected and successful BJJ instructors in the world, from his Gracie Barra Pernambuco academy, he had formed world champions such as Braulio Estima, Victor Estima, Otavio Sousa, Lucas Rocha and many others. Last year at the Worlds, he lead the Gracie Barra team.
Last week, Ze Radiola made a statement in Portuguese from Atlanta airport that he has left Gracie Barra and he is forming his own team. He chose to leave GB, the organisation that he defended for 20+ years…
Ze still hasn’t given the reasons behind his decision, so BJJEE spoke to multiple sources high up in Gracie Barra and ZR Team and found out the cause of the split and consequences.
One of Ze Radiola’s black belt students had opened a Gracie Barra school in the city of Natal in Brazil, in an area where there were already 3 other Gracie Barra schools under the same instructor. In the USA. there is a rule that 2 Gracie Barra schools have to be more than 8 miles away from each other, but this does not apply to Brazil. The school owner complained to Gracie Barra HQ who then instructed Ze Radiola’s student to move. A dispute followed between Ze Radiola and Gracie Barra’s leaders and after a few months, Ze decided to leave Gracie Barra but didn’t announce publicly until last week.
Ze Radiola and his students control around 120 Gracie Barra schools in Brazil, around 15 in the US and over 40 in Europe. More teams are also expected to join in them in few days and weeks. On Gracie Barra’s website they say that they have 300 BJJ schools worldwide but the correct figure is now around 1,000 schools (500 affiliated and 500 non-affiliated) . This would mean losing a big chunk of schools and more importantly many of their champions.
At this point, it is still unclear just how many prominent black belts under Ze Radiola will follow their master in this move but as the days go by, it will be clearer who has chosen whose camp. Losing someone as valuable as Ze Radiola will be a big blow for Gracie Barra.
Reading comments from Ze’s students showing their support for their master shows signs of a planned exodus of Ze’s instructors from GB to ZRTeam. Ze Radiola is one of the most loved and respected instructors in Jiu-Jitsu and his students are very loyal to him. Many of them have already changed their Facebook profile picture to ZR Team.
The Estima bros who control much of Uk’s Gracie Barras are not joining. Otavio Sousa still has a 3 years left in his Gracie Barra academy contract so will not join as of now but will wear the ZR Team patches when competing,
Ze’s black belts in France Cristiano Rodrigues (ZR Team Nice) and Alessandro Oliveira have joined. Lucas Rocha, Ze’s nephew has joined. The biggest player is Max Carvalho from Hungary, who controls over thirty schools in Central-Eastern Europe + Russia and Asia.
All in all, the following countries will have ZR Team schools and all together over 150 schools and counting:
Austria, Australia, Brazil,Cyprus, Croatia, France, England, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Russia,
Ukaine, Hungary, U.S.A and Romania.
Gracie Barra Serbia has decided not to join.
Max Carvalho announced on Facebook:
“The green storm is coming”
Gracie Barra HQ recently had a meeting where various topics were discussed including Ze Radiola’s departure:
For the past weeks, BJJEE has also learned from sources close to Ze Radiola’s ZR Team and from Gracie Barra’s arch nemesis Alliance Jiu-Jitsu that ZR Team would be working close together with 11x world champions Team Alliance. Ze Radiola hasn’t confirmed it yet but Ze Radiola’s son Guilherme posted a suggestive picture on Facebook.
You can see Ze Radiola, Gui Rocha and Lucas Rocha having a meal with Alliance leader Fabio Gurgel:
“Barbecue to finalise new plans…#ZRTeam #Alliance”
The ZR team hand sign is the same as Zenith Jiu-Jitsu’s (Drysdale-Cavaca):
