Otávio Sousa "The Steamroller"

Otávio Sousa was born in July 1986 in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco in Brazil's northeast, and started training jiu-jitsu at thirteen after a friend invited him to Gracie Barra's Recife headquarters. He rose through Gracie Barra's system entirely under that one banner, and in 2009 he received his black belt directly from Carlos Gracie Jr., the head of the Gracie Barra organization.

Sousa's competitive peak came in the middleweight (-82kg) division, where he became one of the most consistent IBJJF performers of the early-to-mid 2010s, winning the World Championship in that weight class three times — in 2012, 2013, and 2015 — along with multiple Pan American titles across 2009, 2010, 2017, and 2020. That volume of gold medals across nearly a decade, at one of gi jiu-jitsu's more stacked weight classes, is what earned him the nickname "The Steamroller" among students and training partners, a reference to the relentless, high-pressure pace he set in matches.

Sousa also built a real no-gi résumé at ADCC, competing at -77kg rather than his usual gi weight. In 2013, in Beijing, he fought his way to the final of the -77kg bracket before being submitted by a guillotine choke from Kron Gracie, taking home the silver medal — arguably the signature open-mat achievement of his career, given the level of competition in that bracket that year. He returned to ADCC in 2015 but was edged out in the bronze-medal match by Gilbert "Durinho" Burns, finishing fourth that year without a medal. Across both appearances, Sousa showed a takedown-heavy, top-control approach that stood out among a division full of guard-passing specialists, and he was noted sharpening his wrestling entries for ADCC alongside camp partners such as Rafael dos Anjos and "Babalu" Sobral.

Since relocating to the United States, Sousa has settled in Huntington Beach, California, where he now owns and teaches at Gracie Barra Huntington Beach as a third-degree black belt in the Carlos Gracie Jr. lineage. He remains an active instructor there, running the academy's adult and competition programs while focusing primarily on coaching the next generation of Gracie Barra competitors.

What sets Sousa apart from many of his gi-focused peers is that he built his career and reputation almost entirely inside a single global organization — Gracie Barra — rather than moving between super-teams, racking up titles across nearly every rank he held on the way to black belt. His three IBJJF World titles at middleweight, combined with a legitimate ADCC silver medal, make him one of the more complete résumés to come out of the Gracie Barra competition program, and a fixture in conversations about the organization's best-ever competitive product.

Relentless, high-pace top pressure with a takedown-heavy approach that stood out in gi and no-gi alike