Renato Canuto "King of Armbar"

Renato Forasieppi Canuto was born in São Vicente, on the coast of São Paulo state, and grew up training under his father, Valdir "Tio Chico" Canuto, a Checkmat black belt who shaped Renato's technical foundation from a young age. That upbringing produced a competitor whose signature has become one of the most recognizable submissions in the sport: the armbar, a technique he has taught in instructional series bearing titles like "50 Shades of Armbar" and which earned him the nickname "The King of Armbar."

As a black belt representing Checkmat, Canuto built a deep and varied competitive résumé, winning six IBJJF World Championship titles, five Pan American titles, and two Kasai Pro Grand Prix championships across different weight brackets. His IBJJF World Championship results include a silver medal in 2018, a bronze in 2019, and gold in 2021, showing a competitor who kept climbing the podium across multiple appearances rather than winning once and fading. He also claimed IBJJF World No-Gi and American Nationals titles, along with a UAEJJF Grand Slam stop in Los Angeles.

Canuto's game is built around constant motion: arm drags into sit-up sweeps, scrambles that end in armbars or back takes, and a willingness to hunt submissions from positions many competitors would treat as neutral. That style has made him a popular figure with grappling fans and instructional buyers alike, and it translated well into superfight and grand-prix formats that reward finishing ability over point accumulation.

In recent years, Canuto has expanded his footprint beyond traditional IBJJF competition. Alongside his wife, fellow competitor Raquel Canuto, he co-founded Hybrid Jiu-Jitsu, a training and competition hub based in Las Vegas that has become a base for grapplers transitioning between jiu-jitsu, no-gi grappling, and mixed martial arts. Canuto himself has pursued a crossover into MMA, competing under organizations like ONE Championship and expressing ambitions of eventually competing in the UFC, while remaining connected to his grappling roots and continuing to represent Checkmat internationally.

Still active and competing as of 2026, Canuto remains one of the sport's most technically distinctive middleweights, and his ongoing crossover into MMA marks him as one of the more versatile competitors to emerge from the modern Checkmat lineage.

An armbar and arm-drag specialist known for flowing sequences between sweeps and submissions, using scrambles to set up a dangerous and highly technical arm-att