Kaua Gabriel has been one of the top prospects in BJJ for quite some time now, and he’s just been promoted to black belt after an excellent performance at the IBJJF No Gi Brazilian National Championship 2023. He won gold medals in both his own weight class and the absolute division at brown belt, an incredibly impressive feat for someone who competes at lightweight. This is far from the first time that he’s challenged himself by taking on significantly bigger grapplers, and he actually came away with a silver medal in the absolute division of the ADCC Sao Paulo Open earlier this year.
This is just the latest in a series of impressive performances by Kaua Gabriel and his promotion to black belt came at the hands of his long-time coach Melqui Galvao. Not only has Galvao managed to produce several of the top competitors on the planet, but he’s also known for working with athletes from a young age and guiding them along their journey through the colored belt ranks before they hit the highest level. Gabriel now joins the ranks of Mica Galvao, Diogo Reis, and Fabricio Andrey as someone who came up under Galvao’s guidance and it’ll be interesting to see what he’s able to do against the toughest competition.
Gabriel already has an appearance booked at the AIGA Champions League Semi-Final as part of Team Modolfo, and no doubt he’ll be looking to test himself as soon as possible. Seeing as he’s put in so many great performances in no gi competition, it stands to reason that he’s going to be competeing in the first ADCC Trials in South America. It’s unclear whether he’ll cut that little bit more weight to make it 66kg or move up to 77kg but one thing is for certain, Gabriel is going to be a force to be reckoned with no matter what division he competes in.
Melqui Galvao announced the news that he had promoted top prospect Kaua Gabriel to BJJ black belt in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
