Claudio Calasans has just carved out a special piece of grappling history for himself with his latest competition performance, as he’s become the first person to ever win an IBJJF, ADCC, and Judo world championship. He was born into a strong grappling family, with his father being an important figure in the Brazilian Judo scene and the youngest Brazilian to receive his coral belt in the martial art. He was a frequent and successful Judo competitor throughout his childhood and he only turned to Jiu-Jitsu when he was a teenager and in search of a way to improve his groundwork.
Calasans was eventually promoted to black belt in both Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, and he became known for his fantastic standing grappling when he began competing at the highest level of Jiu-Jitsu. The best year of his competitive career came in 2015, when he won both the ADCC and IBJJF World Championship. Although he had reached the top of the mountain in both gi and no gi grappling, a world title in his first martial art still eluded him. Now at the age of 42, Calasans competed at the Judo World Championship 2025 in the 40-44 year old division and took gold at under 81kg.
Claudio Calasans announced the news that he had added a Judo world title to his ADCC and IBJJF world titles in a recent post to his official Instagram account. The rough translation can be found below:
World Masters Judo Championship, there were 6 fights against two athletes from Georgia, one from Switzerland, Azerbaijan, France and Brazil. My last Judo championship was 16 years ago… I started Judo at the age of 3 and seeing Aurelio Miguel who was a winning machine and Rogerio Sampao being an Olympic champion, I told myself I’m going to be a champion like those guys, years passed and for some reason I didn’t have the opportunity to have an international career in Judo and other doors opened. I always had a curiosity in Judo which was to be able to fight in a championship against athletes from other countries and now in this event I am grateful to have had this opportunity. In Jiu Jitsu I was often called a “judoka”, in Judo I was often called a “Jiu Jiteiro” and I am a lover of the fight that has rules, that greets the opponent and that only one comes out a winner, whatever name you give to the fight or to the fighter. Moral of the story: Monday is training day lol”
”One phrase in particular from a friend that motivated me to prepare to come fight: “Take advantage of today to do what you want to do and what you are blessed to be healthy enough to do because in a year the scenario may not be the same and you will have missed a great opportunity”
