Alliance has long been known as a producer of jiu-jitsu world champions. Young aspiring athletes come from all parts of Brazil to train under the guidance of Fabio Gurgel and amongst the best competitors at the Alliance headquarters in Sao Paulo.

One athlete who has chosen this path in hopes of attaining jiu-jitsu’s highest achievement is brown belt, Rafael Paganini.  

A 23-year-old from Sao Paulo, Paganini, is a top competitor in the medium-heavyweight division and has already earned medals at Pans, No-Gi Worlds, South Americans and Brazilian Nationals.

Paganini started jiu-jitsu at 14 years old and trained at a smaller school in Sao Paulo until he received his purple belt. At that time he decided to pursue jiu-jitsu professionally and moved to Alliance in 2014 to increase his opportunities in the sport.  

The young brown belt comes from an upper-middle-class family and was able to earn a business degree in 2017, all while training jiu-jitsu full-time. Now with college out of the way, he’s focused 100 percent on training and becoming a world champion.

He credits his time at Alliance with developing not only his jiu-jitsu skills but his mindset and behavior as a top competitor. There are many past champions who lead by example at the HQ, and he values most the opportunity to train with athletes who have tough minds and spirits.

Paganini has been a brown belt since 2016 and “can’t wait to fight against idols” and challenge himself against the big names in the sport as a black belt. He lives every day in preparation for that time and the single goal of winning a world title at the most elite level. 

"Everyday I wake up I do my best, I eat right, I train right, all for when I'm a black belt so I'm ready for the challenge to win Worlds."

The medium-heavyweight considers himself a “guardeiro” and prefers the X and De La Riva X positions. He also has a dangerous guillotine but prefers to attack from the back every chance he gets. 

Paganini considers his toughest challenges in the extremely competitive medium-heavyweight division to be Dominque Bell from Atos and Mauricio Oliveira from GF Team. He looks forward to these challenges at the upcoming World Championships in June.

Here is a short list of his recent accomplishments:

Brown Belt:

Brazilian Nationals - 1st Place (weight) / 3rd Place (Absolute)

Pan Championship - 3rd Place (weight)

South American Championship - 2nd Place (weight)

No Gi World Championship - 2nd Place (weight)

You can watch Rafael compete next at the 2018 IBJJF World Championship LIVE on FloGrappling.