It’s truly difficult to pick just one up and coming athelte from Unity Jiu-Jitsu- they have the most savage lightweight purple belt squad on the planet right now including wonder-kid Thalison Soares and competitors like Jonas Andrade, Wilson Pereira, and many more.  But as we had to settle on one, we chose Levi Jones-Leary.

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Levi Jones-Leary is a 21-year-old athelte hailing from Sydney, Australia.  He has made the commitment to split his time training between Garage jiu-jitsu in Sydney and Unity Jiu-Jitsu in NYC in order to train with longtime his idols the Miyao Brothers and Murilo Santana.

Levi training with Italo Moura at Unity Jiu-Jitsu. Photo: Chase Smith

And the results speak for themselves.

Levi most recently took bronze at the 2018 Abu Dhabi World Pro and gold in the MASSIVE brown belt lightweight division at the 2018 Pan Championships, besting top prospects Luan Barros & Paulo Gabriel Martins in the process. He also placed 1st at the 2018 European Championships to kick off the year.

Levi Jones-Leary vs Paulo Gabriel Martins

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All this, in his very first year as a brown belt. 

Where does Levi’s drive to become the best come from? It at least partially stems from being at at-risk youth looking at fewer options and shrinking opportunities for success.  A youth program introduced Levi to MMA when he was 10 years old which saw Levi make the jump to the gentle art, throwing all of his efforts behind the goal of becoming great.

And we think Levi Jones-Leary has all the tools to do it.