Famous actor and star of ‘Saved by the Bell’, Mario Lopez, recently entered a local BJJ tournament and managed to come away with a gold medal for his efforts. The celebrity has been an avid practitioner of Jiu-Jitsu for quite some time and has even gone on record about his hobby in order to spread the benefits of the sport to the public. Not only is he a fan of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but Lopez is also well-versed in other combat sports as well. As a child he took up both Karate and Wrestling, even going so far as to compete regularly as an amateur wrestler and represent his high school while also working on his acting career.
Lopez has also trained boxing and decided to pick up BJJ back in 2017. He managed to reach the rank of blue belt relatively quickly, no doubt in some small part thanks to his wealth of experience in wrestling. According to Lopez, his young son was due to compete at a local Competition Network tournament in Orange County, California and he asked Lopez to enter alongside him:
“When your son asks you to compete in the same tournament as him, you do it. You’re never too old to challenge your yourself & set goals… Thank you to all the homies who helped get us ready!”
In the end, he entered a blue belt division with four stripes on his belt and won relatively comfortably after racking up the points thanks in part to his ever-present wrestling skill. Given that he is clearly a legitimately good practitioner, it shouldn’t be too long before he joins a select group of celebrities and actors to achieve the rank of purple belt, alongside famous names like Russell Brand.
The footage of Mario Lopez winning gold at a local BJJ tournament was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Jiu Jitsu World:
