Charles Negromonte was born on September 29, 1988, in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, and raised in the nearby town of Paulista. His earliest brush with combat sports came at age six, when a brief stint in judo left little lasting impression — martial arts, at that point, held no particular pull.

Football (soccer) defined his formative years, played competitively at the local club level until financial difficulties forced that club to close. He pivoted to skateboarding, competing in freestyle events and developing the discipline and focused repetition that would later translate directly to his approach on the mats.

In 2005, his brother Orlando — known as "Olhão" — introduced him to jiu-jitsu. Already training at a neighboring academy, Orlando brought Charles through the doors around March of that year. Negromonte channeled into BJJ the same relentless dedication he had once poured into skating, and the gentle art finally gave that competitive drive a permanent home.

Negromonte trained at his local jiu-jitsu club continuously from white belt through brown belt, steadily building the technical foundation that would carry him to elite competition. Reaching brown belt, he committed to professional competition — a decision that demanded an environment his local gym could no longer provide.

He joined Zé Radiola's academy, then operating as the Gracie Barra headquarters in Pernambuco. With limited resources, Negromonte moved into the gym itself, sleeping on the mats as he immersed himself in full-time training. He also began learning the coaching trade, assisting with classes and developing skills that would take him abroad.

His first international coaching experience came during a three-month stint teaching at the Copacabana academy in Poland, a gym affiliated at the time with Braulio Estima — himself a product of Radiola's instruction. Negromonte then relocated to England to train with Braulio and Victor Estima in Birmingham, and began making regular trips to London to work with Roger Gracie.

As a brown belt, Negromonte was a consistent presence on major IBJJF podiums — reaching finals and semifinals at events including the IBJJF World Championship and CBJJ Brazilian Nationals — yet gold repeatedly escaped him, often by margins of just two points. Determined to break the pattern, he requested an additional year at brown belt in 2011. The 2012 season brought the same outcome. On July 1, 2012, Zé Radiola promoted him to black belt.

Following his promotion, Negromonte returned to England and continued training primarily with the Estima brothers in Birmingham. The relationship he had built with Roger Gracie during those visits deepened into a formal offer: a place on the roster of the Roger Gracie Academy in London. With the blessing of both Zé Radiola and Braulio Estima, Negromonte accepted and relocated to the British capital.

The move proved transformative. The narrow margins that had haunted him at brown belt gave way to results, and titles that had once eluded him began to accumulate. He captured the IBJJF South American Championship in 2013 and the IBJJF European No-Gi Open in 2015, establishing himself as a genuine force at the elite level. Over the following years, he continued to collect medals across the IBJJF and AJP circuits — including the World No-Gi Championship, European Championships in both gi and no-gi formats, the CBJJ Brazilian Nationals, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam — cementing his reputation as one of the top medium-heavyweight competitors of his generation.

His consistency on the AJP circuit is reflected in six Grand Slam titles across multiple international stops, a mark that few competitors in his division can match. Negromonte competes internationally representing Great Britain.

One of the defining characteristics of Negromonte's career has been a deliberate commitment to evolving his game in step with the demands of elite no-gi competition. Rather than relying solely on the traditional BJJ skill set that brought him early success, he worked to incorporate wrestling-based takedowns and top pressure into his approach — broadening his offensive arsenal across both gi and no-gi formats.

Equally significant has been his development of leglock counters, deployed both as defensive tools against the submission hunting that defines modern no-gi grappling and as offensive weapons in their own right. This evolution mirrors the wider shift at the highest levels of the sport, where comfort in lower-body entanglements has become a prerequisite for elite competition.

To sharpen these skills, Negromonte trains regularly in London with high-level no-gi grapplers at Los Banditos, an environment that has honed his scramble instincts and submission awareness. The results speak for themselves: in 2023, he won double gold at the Brazilian No-Gi Nationals in the heavyweight division, demonstrating that his technical evolution has produced tangible competitive outcomes at the highest domestic tier of the sport.

Negromonte's most prominent stage to date has been the ADCC submission wrestling circuit. He earned his spot at the 2024 ADCC World Championship by winning the South American Trials at 88 kg, finishing his opponent by submission in the final.

On opening day at the 2024 ADCC World Championship, he announced himself emphatically — submitting Izaak Michell with a kneebar at the 12:00 mark, a finish FloGrappling ranked among the standout submissions of that day's competition. Negromonte then advanced to the quarterfinals, where he was defeated by Chris Wojcik by referee decision.

The Trials victory and the quarterfinal run at the world's most prestigious no-gi event established Negromonte as a serious competitor at the summit of the sport. In May 2025, he was announced as the under-99 kg representative for Team Misfits Europe at CJI 2, further confirming his standing among the elite in his weight class.

In the lead-up to ADCC 2026, Negromonte produced one of the stronger résumés of any athlete in the 88 kg division. He reached the final of the 2026 South American Trials, defeating invited athlete Gabriel Brod 2–0 in the semifinal along the way. Across the broader 2026 invitation cycle, he also recorded wins over Faris Ben-Lamkadem and Santeri Lilius — all three of whom subsequently received direct invitations to ADCC 2026.

Despite those head-to-head results, Negromonte was placed on the ADCC 2026 reserve list rather than awarded a direct invitation. In September 2026, he published a detailed post on Instagram laying out his case, itemizing his body of work: winning the 2024 Trials by submission, reaching the quarterfinals at the 2024 ADCC World Championship, advancing to another Trials final in 2026, and defeating three athletes in the same cycle who all received invitations. He was careful to note the situation was not personal toward any of the invited athletes — including his teammate Faris Ben-Lamkadem — but raised pointed questions about the criteria being applied.

Negromonte also highlighted what he described as an inconsistency in how athletes who won the 2024 Trials, later departed to compete in CJI, were subsequently invited to ADCC 2026 without re-qualifying through the Trials process — despite ADCC reportedly having communicated to departing competitors that Trials re-qualification would be required upon return. Craig Jones and Andrew Tackett commented publicly in support of his position.

The situation was further complicated when Pedro Marinho withdrew from the ADCC 2026 88 kg bracket due to injury and was replaced on short notice by Polish competitor Mateusz Mazur for his ADCC debut.

ADCC promoter Mateusz Łuckiewicz had addressed selection criteria prior to the invitations being issued, speaking on Wolna Mata Podcast episode #101. "Cronyism is always bad," he stated. "This is an international tournament, it's not just Lubońcy. Every person who competes in the tournament has to have some achievements, has to stand out, and has to simply, technically, fit the tournament." On Polish invitees specifically, Łuckiewicz said: "I can always say with a clear conscience that everyone we invited from Poland deserves their place here, and no one will accuse me, because we're simply holding the tournament in Poland and they're Polish." He also cited social media reach as an additional selection signal alongside competition results, referencing athletes like Mateusz Gamrot and Adam Wardziński.

Negromonte's situation drew broader attention to the transparency of ADCC's invitation process at the 88 kg level. Observers noted that his social media footprint compared favorably to that of several invited athletes — a factor that, by Łuckiewicz's own account, carries weight in the selection calculus.