Rafael Lovato Jr. is an American jiu-jitsu black belt, former Bellator middleweight champion and academy owner in Oklahoma City. His Instagram covers teaching, competition and MMA.
Background
Lovato was born on 25 June 1983 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and moved to Oklahoma City with his family at eight. Wikipedia describes him as a black belt under Carlos Machado, and its infobox lists a fifth-degree black belt under Saulo and Xande Ribeiro. He runs his own academy in Oklahoma City.
Jiu-jitsu career
- IBJJF World Championship: gold at +100 kg in 2007, silver in 2008, then bronze every year from 2009 to 2014.
- IBJJF World No-Gi: gold in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
- 2007 Grand Slam: in 2007 he also won the Pans, Europeans and Brazilian Nationals. He added the Brazilian Nationals absolute in 2013.
- ADCC: fourth in 2022, then silver at −99 kg in 2024.
- 2025: Wikipedia says he became the first person to win all four IBJJF majors in both gi and no-gi.
MMA career
Lovato is undefeated in MMA at 11–0, with seven submissions, two knockouts and two decisions. In June 2019 he won the Bellator middleweight title with a majority decision over Gegard Mousasi. In February 2020 he gave up the title after being diagnosed with a cerebral cavernoma, a brain condition, European commissions said they would no longer clear him to fight, and as of March 2023 he remained indefinitely suspended by commissions in the United States and Europe. He returned in December 2022 and submitted Taiga Iwasaki with a kimura.
Notable grappling matches
In November 2021 he beat Polish heavyweight Adam Wardziński on penalty points in a superfight at Raw Grappling 1. Wardziński went on to win the IBJJF Worlds in 2024 and 2025.
Related pages
His channels show teaching at his academy, competition preparation and MMA training. See our mount, side control and kimura pages. Follower counts are curated snapshots, not live data.