Luigi Mondelli

Luigi Mondelli was born on March 24, 1972, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, spending his formative years moving between the "Marvelous City" and the mountain town of Petrópolis. His introduction to martial arts came at 15, when he began exploring karate, kung-fu, and judo. None of those disciplines fully captured his commitment until he discovered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in 1991.

What set BJJ apart was the immediacy of its feedback. Unlike the other martial arts he had tried, jiu-jitsu offered daily testing of technique against real resistance in sparring — a quality Mondelli found both compelling and honest. The comparatively lower injury risk that grappling offered over striking arts like boxing and muay thai reinforced his decision to stay on the mats.

His first coaches, Adalberto "Buda" de Souza and Crézio de Souza, ran an academy in Petrópolis with a distinctly old-school orientation. Training under Crézio emphasized no-gi and vale-tudo (no-holds-barred) competition — a demanding foundation that shaped Mondelli's grappling identity early. Judo, which he had taken up during those initial martial arts years, never left his training regimen. Throughout his entire BJJ career, Mondelli continued to practice judo alongside his grappling — a habit common among practitioners of his generation and one that would later define the philosophy behind his own organization.

Mondelli's path through the belt ranks took a pivotal turn at purple belt, when his family relocated back to Rio de Janeiro. That move brought him into contact with André Almeida — widely known in the BJJ community as "Dedeco" — one of the most respected and influential coaches the sport has produced. Almeida's academy served as a training ground for a remarkable number of important figures in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, among them Rafael Mendes (known as "Formiga"), Leandro "Escobar", and Michael DeLuca.

Under Almeida's guidance, Mondelli refined the technical and competitive instincts he had developed in Petrópolis, earning both his brown and black belts from the coach. The black belt was awarded in December 2001, marking the formal completion of a decade of disciplined training that had begun in the early 1990s. The relationship with Almeida also carried a consequential lineage connection — it was through Dedeco that Mondelli would come to be invited into American Top Team, as Almeida's own instructor was Ricardo Liborio, one of ATT's founders.

In 2003, Mondelli brought his jiu-jitsu to the United States with the goal of establishing himself as a teacher in the Northern Hemisphere. After researching viable locations, he settled in Danbury, Connecticut — a city that would become the base for his coaching career. Shortly after his arrival, Ricardo Liborio extended an invitation for Mondelli to affiliate with American Top Team, the Miami-based organization that Liborio had helped build into one of the most prominent combat sports camps in the world.

Representing ATT throughout his competitive and coaching work in the US, Mondelli steadily built a reputation as one of the country's top grappling instructors. His expertise extended beyond sport competition into mixed martial arts, where he worked with fighters from American Top Team and athletes connected to John Hackleman's The Pit. Among his MMA pupils, UFC light heavyweight contender Glover Teixeira stands as the most prominent — a fighter whose grappling development reflected the depth of Mondelli's coaching capabilities.

In 2011, Mondelli formalized his own vision for the sport by founding Kore Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. While he maintained his association with ATT, Kore was structured as a separate, grappling-specific organization — distinct in purpose from ATT's broader MMA focus. Built around the adage "Bushido for Life," Kore was conceived as a cooperative institution that placed values alongside technical development at the center of its identity.

Kore Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was not simply a competitive team — it was the expression of a philosophy Mondelli had carried since his earliest days on the mats. The organization's defining mission was the reintegration of BJJ with the foundational grappling arts from which it grew: judo and wrestling. For Mondelli, this was less a theoretical position than a lived practice. Having never set judo aside during his decades of jiu-jitsu training, he was uniquely positioned to model and teach the kind of cross-disciplinary grappling that Kore championed.

Kore's cooperative structure distinguished it from conventional team hierarchies, placing shared values at its core. The "Bushido for Life" ethos — borrowed from the samurai code of conduct — signaled an intention to cultivate character alongside technique. At the same time, Kore BJJ remained committed to the evolving competitive landscape of sport jiu-jitsu, ensuring its practitioners were equipped for modern competition at the highest levels. That dual commitment to tradition and contemporary development gave Kore a coherent identity that set it apart within the broader BJJ ecosystem.

Luigi Mondelli's competitive record places him among the most accomplished American-based competitors of his era in the Masters and Senior divisions. A three-time IBJJF World Champion, Mondelli reached the top of the sport across multiple divisions and career stages — a distinction that reflects both exceptional skill and sustained dedication to competition over many years. His confirmed world titles include the 2008 World No-Gi Championship in the Senior 1 division and the 2012 World Masters Championship, with a third IBJJF world title documented across multiple records of his career.

Pan American Championship Dominance

At the Pan American Championships, Mondelli was a dominant force across a sustained competitive window. He claimed gold in 2004 (competing as a walkover, WO) and then won consecutively from 2006 through 2009 in the Masters division — five Pan American titles in total. That four-year winning streak speaks to the level of preparation and technical mastery he brought to each appearance. Runner-up finishes followed in 2010 and 2011 in the Masters division, and a third silver medal came in 2012 — this time in the Senior 1 division, highlighting his willingness to compete across age categories and the continued sharpness of his game deep into his competitive career.

Full Competitive Record

Beyond those headline results, Mondelli's record includes the International Masters & Seniors Championship title in 2002 (earned at brown belt in the Master division), Miami International Open victories in 2009 and 2011, Las Vegas International Open gold in 2010, and Houston International Open gold in 2010, all in the Masters division. A Rio de Janeiro State Championship (FJJ-Rio) in 1999 at purple belt rounds out a competitive history stretching from his time in Brazil through more than a decade of high-level performance in the United States. A third-place finish at the Pan American No-Gi Championship in 2015 in the Master 2 division demonstrated a competitive longevity rare in any grappling career. Throughout his black belt career, Mondelli competed in the Ultra-Heavyweight division, at weights above 100kg (221lbs).