Rolando Samson is one of the top BJJ competitors in his weight class and he’s just been promoted to second degree BJJ black belt by ATOS founder and head coach, Andre Galvao. Samson has been a fantastic grappler for quite some time, winning several IBJJF world championship gold medals in both gi and no gi during his journey through the colored belt ranks. He was eventually promoted to black belt by Galvao back in 2017, shortly after he won a silver medal at the IBJJF world championship at brown belt.
Despite the early success that Samson enjoyed, he’s been a relatively infrequent competitor since joining the highest ranks of BJJ athletes. He’s still able to compete at that level though and has won a number of IBJJF opens since that promotion, but 2023 has marked his best year to date. Samson competed in the middleweight division of the IBJJF Pan Championship earlier this year and managed to come away with a bronze medal in an incredible tough division where he lost to the champion Tainan Dalpra.
The next event that Samson competed in marked another excellent performance, as he left with another bronze medal at the IBJJF World Championship 2023. It appears as though Samson is having a much busier year in competition now, and it’ll be interesting to see how he fares when the IBJJF no gi season starts in just a few months. It’s not confirmed whether or not Samson will be competing in the no gi editions of the most prestigious IBJJF tournaments, but he would be a force to be reckoned with in the middleweight division if he does choose to do so.
Andre Galvao shared the news that he had promoted Rolando Samson to second degree BJJ black belt in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
