Road To Gold: Gabriel Arges Becomes A World Champion

It's World Champion Wednesday here on FloGrappling, and today we are highlighting the efforts of Gracie Barra stud Gabriel Arges.

After making a name for himself as a high-level purple and brown belt, Arges thrust his way onto the competitive black belt scene last year when he shocked the world by making it to the black belt finals in just his first year. After taking home the silver in a closeout with teammate Octavio Sousa, Arges hit the international competition scene hard. 

Japan, Abu Dhabi, Brazil. You name it, and Gabriel Arges most likely won a gold medal there. But one year later, a gold medal at the World Championships was still on his mind.

"It's been 365 days, and it's the only thing I think about," Arges said. 

"I try to think about something else, other goals, just to keep myself busy but nothing else comes to my mind when I go to sleep besides this gold medal."

Arges repeated his 2016 success by making his way to the finals once more after taking out Alliance mainstay Jamie Canuto and edging out Felipe Silva via ref's decision. This time, however, he faced Marcelo Garcia black belt Marcos Tinoco in the gold medal match.

"I think [Tinoco] came very well prepared for the knee bars," Arges said. "I tapped him last year in the semifinals with a knee bar, and actually his kneebar game was on point. He popped my knee a couple times, but it's the final of the World Championships."

After a back-and-forth match, Arges took control with minutes to go and hunted hard for a finish. Exactly nine minutes into the match, Arges forced Tinoco to tap and thus finally fulfilled his dream of becoming a world champion.

Bonus Content:

Gracie Barra came into the 2017 World Championships with one of the most competitive stables of any team.

Gabriel Arges, Octavio Sousa, Edwin Najmi, Felipe Pena, Romulo Barral, Magid Hage, AJ Agazarm, and more were all contending for medals at the mega-tournament. But when the finals were set, only one team member was still standing. Check out the wisdom Gracie Barra team leader Romulo Barral shared with Arges just hours before he became a world champion.