Last weekend at UAEJJF’s Argentina National Pro in Buenos Aires, a brown belt named Gustavo Batista defeated the legendary 7x world champion Xande Ribeiro. Batista is a student of Leandro Lo and in 2015 won the IBJJF World Championship as a blue belt.
Batista won his brown belt division and qualified for the brown/black absolute where champions such as Gabrield Arges, Xande Ribeir, José Junior, and Rodrigo Martins were present. Batista ended up defeating 4 black belts including Jose Junior and Xande Ribeiro!
The 36 year old Xande Ribeiro is a 7x black belt World Champion and ADCC champion. He won his division (94kgs black belt) beating the very talented Gabriel Arges.
The weekend before at the The Brazil National Pro, Xande Ribeiro lost to another young gun in the final: the best brown belt in the world in 2016, 22 year old Nicholas Meregali who was promoted to black belt by Mario Reis just last December. In his first ever competition in his new rank, Meregali made a huge statement.
Here is the match Batista vs Ribeiro:
