Victor Hugo
Address
Fortaleza, Brazil
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About Us
Victor Hugo was born on May 01, 1997, in Fortaleza, the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Ceará.
As a child Hugo played a number of sports, from football (soccer) to basketball, swimming, judo and more, but never connected with any of those, feeling he lacked the athleticism to push those forward. Eventually, during his early teens, Hugo dropped his sporting life altogether.
On July 2011, while enjoying a vacation period, Victor’s father noticed a new jiu-jitsu gym had opened where Hugo’s old judo training center had been located. Victor’s dad soon joined the class and influenced Victor to tag along, with the two signing on to the Day Bu Kan Academy (DBK), under the instruction of coach Ricardo Costa.
Although Victor did not enjoy jiu-jitsu at the start, sharing the mats with his father, who always pressed Hugo to keep coming to class, helped him remain in the sport until training became more enjoyable. In an interview given to BJJ Heroes on June 2019, Hugo said about his early, grappling days:
“What made me fall in love with jiu-jitsu was that it didn’t require any natural skills or athleticism. I saw that, by coming to class and putting in the time, I was evolving, a little bit at a time“.
In 2016, after two Brazilian National titles, purple belt Victor Hugo decided to travel to the United States of America for the first time, to compete in the IBJJF World Championship. The event was an all-around success with Victor winning titles in the adult, purple belt, weight, and absolute divisions. While there, Hugo was introduced to the Ribeiro Brothers, Alexandre and Saulo Ribeiro by a mutual friend, Gustavo Dias.
Through Gustavo, Victor Hugo was offered a full scholarship at the University of Jiu-Jitsu, a project led by the Ribeiro Bros, where martial arts are taught under the solid foundations of the Bushido way of life. Victor was studying nutrition at the time but decided to follow his heart, joining the Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu team in September 2016, as a professional athlete.
Under the Ribeiro banner, Victor Hugo became one of the top up-and-comers in the sport, and after 6 IBJJF World titles (4 Gi and 2 No-Gi) in the lower belt divisions, Victor was awarded his black belt from the hands of Saulo and Alexandre Ribeiro, on June 2019.
