Gabriel Almeida
Address
Niteroi, southeast, Brazil
Phone
About Us
Gabriel Almeida was born on June 4, 1992, in Niteroi, a well-known city in southeast Brazil, connected to Rio de Janeiro by a bridge across Guanabara Bay.
During his teenage years, Almeida’s fascination for jiu-jitsu led him to sign on to a grappling gym, Eduardo Flexa being his very first instructor and the man who graded Gabriel with his blue belt.
An outstanding student from the get-go, Almeida’s path became somewhat of an uncommon one in this sport. After coach Eduardo Flexa realized Gabriel’s tremendous potential for grappling and that his small gym was not suited to explore his athleticism to the fullest, he helped and incentivized his student to find a suitable home for progress. They found it in Fight Zone Rio de Janeiro (Checkmat) with Ricardo “Rico” Vieira (an honorable gesture reported by BJJ Heroes in 2014, in the piece “Being a Master“).
From the time he joined Checkmat, Almeida’s accomplishments stacked up, with medals in our sport’s biggest events, both in the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) and the United Arab Emirates Jiu-Jitsu Federation (UAEJJF). The two most important governing bodies in BJJ.
With his path closely followed by 3 of the world’s best, Rico and Leonardo Vieira as well as one of the senior Checkmat team members, Thiago Sá, it didn’t come as a surprise when Almeida was accepted by the Rising Stars BJJ scholarship program (May 2018). The initiative aimed to help 5 of the sport’s rising stars in the colored belt divisions, by giving them high-level coaching, a residence, food, and an opportunity to earn a living from competing. Almeida was selected from a list of over 1000 candidates and became one of the program’s most familiar faces.
The intense schedule put forward by Rising Stars bore fruit, and on October 13, 2018, Gabriel Almeida was promoted to black belt by his longtime coaches Rico and Leo Vieira.
