Igor Veríssimo

Igor Veríssimo was born on October 3, 1993, in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Long before he found BJJ, Veríssimo was a competitive swimmer, taking up the sport at age 8 and training regularly until his early teenage years. When he stepped away from the pool, he carried with him the discipline and competitive instinct that would later define his grappling career.

At 17, Veríssimo sought a physical outlet to build strength — his frame notably lean through adolescence — but had little appetite for the repetition of conventional weightlifting. The decisive nudge came from within his own family: his uncle was an enthusiastic jiu-jitsu practitioner whose firsthand endorsement pointed Veríssimo squarely toward the mats. His first coach was Leonardo Oliveira, a Gracie Barra black belt under Vinicius Draculino, who grounded him in the fundamentals of the sport. The competitive instinct surfaced immediately — Veríssimo entered his first tournament after just one month of training.

Blue Belt: Competing as a Classroom

Once the competition bug took hold, Veríssimo pursued it with singular focus. As a blue belt, he made a habit of competing every weekend, treating each event as both a proving ground and a learning opportunity. This commitment led him to transfer his training to Gracie Barra Belo Horizonte Headquarters, where he came under the instruction of the well-regarded Marcelo Azevedo, known throughout BJJ circles by the nickname "Uirapuru." It was Uirapuru who awarded Veríssimo his purple belt.

Relocating to São Paulo

The limits of competing in Minas Gerais soon became apparent. The state offered few high-level tournaments, forcing Veríssimo to travel regularly to test himself against the best. When the financial burden of constant travel grew unsustainable, he made a consequential decision: relocating to São Paulo, home to Brazil's most competitive BJJ circuit and the hub of its most significant national events.

In São Paulo, Veríssimo joined PSLPB Cicero Costha — the Projeto Social Lutando Pelo Bem academy founded by Cicero Costha — initially sleeping at the gym itself before moving into the team's athlete house. Within that environment, he forged one of the most important relationships of his career, befriending Leandro Lo, then the academy's standout competitor. Lo invited Veríssimo into the heavyweight training sessions, where he was consistently the lightest athlete in the room — a baptism by fire that sharpened his game considerably and expanded his technical repertoire under sustained physical pressure.

Colored Belt Results

The results across his colored belt years reflected the investment. At purple belt, Veríssimo claimed the CBJJ South Brazilian title in 2014 and reached the podium at both the IBJJF South American Championship and the IBJJF Rio Winter International Open in 2015. At brown belt, he earned a podium finish at the 2016 IBJJF European Open before capping his pre-black-belt career with a championship run at the CBJJ Brasileiro in 2017.

When Leandro Lo chose to leave PSLPB and establish his own project — New School Brotherhood, based in São Paulo — Veríssimo followed without hesitation, a testament to the trust and bond the two athletes had built. Under Lo's direct guidance, Veríssimo received both his brown and black belts. The black belt was formally conferred in a ceremony held on October 21, 2017, marking Veríssimo's arrival among the sport's elite.

Within New School Brotherhood, Veríssimo established himself as one of the camp's most prominent competitors, standing alongside his mentor as a standard-bearer for the team. Competing in the Peso Médio division at 82.30 kg (181.5 lbs), he continued to build his black belt résumé with a podium appearance at the CBJJ Brasileiro Championship in 2018 and a gold medal at the 2019 IBJJF Curitiba Summer Open. His trajectory — from a lean teenager in Belo Horizonte who chose BJJ over weightlifting to a black belt champion under one of the sport's most celebrated figures — stands as one of the more compelling stories to emerge from the São Paulo scene in the late 2010s.