Rodolfo Vieira is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and UFC middleweight whose Instagram follows his move from the top of gi competition into MMA. He earned the nickname "The Black Belt Hunter" at the 2009 Abu Dhabi World Cup, where he beat Braulio Estima while still a brown belt.
Jiu-jitsu career
Vieira was born on 25 September 1989 in Rio de Janeiro. He came up with the Gama Filho team (now Grappling Fight Team) under Julio Cesar Pereira, who awarded his black belt. Wikipedia lists his current team as Fusion X-Cel in Orlando, Florida. His major titles:
- IBJJF World Championship: weight-class gold in 2011, 2012 and 2013 (−94 kg) and 2014 (−100 kg). He also won the open class in 2011 and took silver in 2013 and 2014.
- ADCC: gold at −99 kg in 2015
- Other: Pan, European and Abu Dhabi World Pro titles
His best-known match is the 2011 Worlds absolute final, where he armbarred Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida. Buchecha beat him in several later absolute finals.
UFC career
Vieira debuted in the UFC on 10 August 2019, submitting Oskar Piechota with an arm-triangle choke. He has used the same choke to beat Cody Brundage, Armen Petrosyan and Saparbek Safarov, and the Brundage and Petrosyan wins both earned Performance of the Night. He also submitted Dustin Stoltzfus with a rear-naked choke.
His losses include:
- a guillotine against Anthony Hernandez at UFC 258
- a head-kick knockout by Bo Nickal at UFC 322
- decisions against Chris Curtis, Andre Petroski and Eric McConico
Wikipedia lists his MMA record as 11–5.
Related pages
His channels follow fight camps, grappling training and competition. Readers studying top play can start with our pressure passing and side control pages. Follower counts are curated snapshots, not live data.