Tye Ruotolo has now officially become the youngest IBJJF world champion in the history of the sport, after Mica Galvao was stripped of his title just a few weeks ago. The pair put on a fantastic match in the final of the lightweight division at the IBJJF world championship 2022 and at the time, either one of them would have become the youngest champion ever if they had won. When the buzzer sounded for the end of the match, Galvao had won by just two points and made history by taking home the gold medal.
Since then however, it has surfaced that Galvao actually failed a PEDs test that was conducted at the event he has been stripped of his title as a result of that test-failure. As that year’s silver medallist, Tye Ruotolo has now been promoted to world champion and will retroactively make history as the youngest one in IBJJF history. While this is obviously not the way that anyone wants to win a world title, it’s still a huge achievement and will make a huge impact on the legacy of the Ruotolo brothers.
That same year, Tye’s brother Kade also made history at ADCC 2022 by becoming the youngest champion in that organization’s history too. Tye did compete at the event too, although he wasn’t able to make it out of the opening round of his division. He earned redemption later on in that weekend in the absolute division though, as he took out several bigger opponents in order to take home a bronze medal. Now, the Ruotolo brothers have collectively broken major records at both of the sport’s biggest grappling events and the stage is set for the rest of their career where it’s likely that many more records will be broken.
The news that Tye Ruotolo had now officially become the youngest IBJJF world champion in the history of the sport was announced in a post to the Ruotolo brothers’ official Instagram account:
