Luiza Monteiro just announced her retirement at the IBJJF World Championship 2024, leaving her black belt on the mats in an old tradition that is used to signal the end of a competitor’s career. Monteiro has already enjoyed a much longer time at the top of the sport than most combat sports athletes would ever imagine, as she retires at the age of 35. She had already won two IBJJF World Championship gold medals in 2015 and 2017 prior to this tournament, and adding a third title at the world’s most prestigious gi grappling tournament was a fantastic way to bring an end to her illustrious career.
Monteiro has also won 3 IBJJF No Gi World Championship gold medals throughout her career, along with a huge haul of medals from all of the various major IBJJF tournaments. She has done all of this over more than a decade at the top of the sport and has beaten pretty much every elite competitor of her generation at one point or another. Monteiro is truly at a point that she has nothing left to prove, and it makes sense that she might want to move on from her competitive career as she approaches the latter half of her 30s.
Monteiro also used her moment in the spotlight to pay tribute to a fellow BJJ legend, one who unfortunately was taken from the world in the prime of his life. Luiza Monteiro locked up a toehold to submit Brianna Ste-Marie in the final of the lightweight division and she immediately started to celebrate. Once she was officially declared the winner, she removed her belt to leave on the mat and retrieved a Leandro Lo t-shirt. Lo was one of the biggest figures in the sport and was beloved by everyone, but was sadly shot and killed in 2022 after an altercation in a Brazilian nightclub.
Luiza Monteiro shared the footage of her announcing her retirement at the IBJJF World Championship 2024 in a recent post to her official Instagram account:
