10th Planet founder Eddie Bravo has just been promoted to fourth degree BJJ black belt by his long-time coach and fellow legendary competitor, Jean Jacques Machado. Bravo started out his Jiu-Jitsu journey all the way back in 1994 and he has been training under Machado since he first started practicing the sport. He was eventually promoted to BJJ blue belt in 1998 and then became a purple belt in 1999, which was around the time that he started to experiment with the same techniques he would later become famous for. Bravo has been innovative since the earliest days of his BJJ career, and he was already developing the Twister and rubber guard back then.
Bravo was still relatively unknown at this point in his career though and it wasn’t until 2002 that he broke through to the highest level of the sport, as he won the 66kg division of the very first ADCC Trials event. Although it was impossible to tell at the time, that event would go on to change the face of professional grappling. Over two decades later, there are 8 ADCC Trials for each ADCC world championship and each one attract hundreds of competitors from all around the world. While that event might be an important part of history looking back now, the biggest moment in Bravo’s career came the following year at ADCC 2003.
He was still just a brown belt at the time and not only did he submit veteran competitor Gustavo Dantas in the opening round but he shocked the world by submitting Royler Gracie. On his return to the United States he was promoted black belt and opened his very first 10th Planet school shortly afterward, focusing on no gi exclusively. Now twenty years later, Eddie Bravo has been given the fourth degree on his black belt by John Jacques Machado and 10th Planet has become one of the biggest BJJ affiliations on the planet. There are 10th Planet gyms all around the world and dozens of elite grapplers representing the team in competition.
Bravo hasn’t limited himself to being a competitor and a coach though, as he’s also had an extensive career as a promoter. First he created the Eddie Bravo Invitational, an event that popularized the unique EBI overtime ruleset that has been replicated in dozens of different promotions all around the world. After a few of these events he created the concept of Combat Jiu-Jitsu, another unique ruleset that still hosts world championships on a regular basis. He also spearheaded one of the world’s first female-only grappling promotions using a combination of these two formats; Medusa.
Eddie Bravo announced the news that he had been promoted to fourth degree BJJ black belt by his long-time coach and training partner Jean Jacques Machado in a recent post to his official Instagram account, and Machado shared a group photo of the affiliation gathering:
