The Ruotolo brothers, Kade and Tye, have shared another belt promotion as the pair of young prodigies were promoted to black belt in BJJ by ATOS founder and head coach Andre Galvao. It comes as no surprise to the grappling community at large of course, because both of the Ruotolo brothers have been training for over fifteen years now and they were already competing with some of the best athletes on the planet as teenage purple belts a few years ago. Their most recent performance prior to being promoted to black belt came in the Lightweight division of the brown belt world championships where both brothers reached the final, with Tye defeating Kade to earn the gold medal.
They earned a lot of respect from the community by agreeing to not close out the final and instead, both young men fought for the gold medal with everything they had. Normally this isn’t much of a problem for the Ruotolo brothers as they often choose to compete in different weightclasses or at entirely different events, as seen by their recent title-winning performances at the Who’s Number One Championships where Tye Ruotolo moved up to Middleweight. Back in 2019, Tye Ruotolo competed at the ADCC world championships and fell just short of earning a bronze medal after an incredibly tough match with the legendary Paulo Miyao and Kade has already booked his place in the 2022 edition of the ADCC world championships by qualifying through winning the North American East Coast trials.
The brothers have spent just a little over a year at brown belt, although that’s hardly unsurprising given the phenomenal performances they’ve both had in that time. The news of Kade and Tye Ruotolo receiving their black belt from Andre Galvao was announced in a post to their official Instagram account:
