José Olimpio, more known as “Zé Radiola”, one the top 3 leaders of the Gracie Barra organization 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 has 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.

Ze Radiola has just made a statement in Portuguese from Atlanta airport (Atlanta is the HQ of Gracie Barra rival Team Alliance  in USA) that he has left Gracie Barra and he is forming his own team. He will very soon make a statement detailing the reasons why he chose to leave GB, the organisation that he defended for 20+ years…

It is still unclear just how many prominent black belts under Ze Radiola (Estima bros, Otavio Sousa etc..) will follow their master in this move. 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 control much of Uk’s Gracie Barras. Ze’s black belts Cristiano Rodrigues controls Gracie Barra Nice in France. Otavio Sousa and Lucas Rocha run their own academies in California…

As of now, Ze Radiola’s black belt Max Carvalho from Hungary, who controls over thirty schools in Central-Eastern Europe + Russia and Asia, has joined ZR Team and has announced:

“The green storm is coming”

Some of Max Carvalho’s many schools:

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 and possibly joining  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):