Rui Alves

Rui Alves Neto was born on November 11, 1999, in Osasco, São Paulo State, Brazil, and grew up in the neighboring city of Carapicuíba. As a child, he channeled his energy into football (soccer), but his enthusiasm for the sport faded as adolescence brought a new fascination: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The catalyst for that shift was his father, Nilson de Melo Alves, a black belt and active competitor on the São Paulo circuit.

In 2015, Nilson Alves began coaching Rui out of the family garage — a humble setting that proved foundational to the younger Alves Neto's development. Under his father's guidance, Rui progressed through the kids' belt system and earned his blue belt, with Nilson serving as both technical instructor and competitive mentor throughout those formative years.

As Rui Alves Neto's competitive ambitions intensified at blue belt, his father's work schedule made it increasingly difficult to match the training volume those ambitions demanded. To maintain momentum, he joined Gracie Barra in Cotia — though that stint proved short-lived.

The professional jiu-jitsu project Dream Art identified Alves Neto as a prospect and recruited him to represent the team in the blue belt medium-heavyweight division. From that point forward, he remained with Dream Art across every subsequent belt level, developing under the supervision of coaches Isaque Bahiense and Gabriel Figueiró. That continuity of environment allowed him to steadily refine his technical game and competitive approach as he advanced from blue through purple, brown, and ultimately to black belt.

On November 18, 2022, shortly after capturing the AJP Abu Dhabi World Pro title, Isaque Bahiense promoted Alves Neto to black belt — a milestone that recognized both his personal growth and the dominant campaign he had just completed.

A defining feature of Rui Alves Neto's jiu-jitsu is his deep expertise in the Lapel Guard — a highly technical guard system that demands precise grip sequencing, sharp body control, and the ability to construct layered attack chains from the bottom position. His mastery of this system has been a consistent thread throughout his competitive identity across multiple belt levels.

Alves Neto stands as a central figure within the 'Geração Lapela' — or Lapel Generation — a cohort of Dream Art athletes who have collectively elevated lapel-based techniques to the highest tier of competitive jiu-jitsu. This movement has brought renewed attention to the depth of the gi game, and Alves Neto's tournament results serve as compelling evidence of the system's effectiveness against elite opposition. His success with lapel-based approaches at major international events has contributed meaningfully to the broader conversation around the evolution of guard play in modern Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Rui Alves Neto's brown belt tenure stands as one of the most accomplished runs in his division during that period. Competing across both the IBJJF and AJP circuits, he produced a series of high-profile results that confirmed his standing among the world's best grapplers at the weight.

2022: A Landmark Year

In 2022, Alves Neto won the IBJJF World Championship at brown belt — one of the sport's most coveted titles — adding it to an already formidable résumé. That same year, he swept through the AJP Grand Slam circuit, claiming titles in Abu Dhabi, London, and Rio de Janeiro, and also won the AJP South America Continental Pro. His victory at the AJP Abu Dhabi World Pro directly preceded his black belt promotion, underscoring the peak form he had reached by the close of his brown belt career. In recognition of his performances across the AJP Tour that year, Alves Neto received the #1 Ranked Rookie Player AJP Tour Award for 2022.

Alongside those victories, he demonstrated consistent competitiveness at every level of the circuit — reaching the final of the IBJJF Pan Championship and earning a third-place finish at the CBJJ Brazilian Nationals during his brown belt years.

Rui Alves Neto enters his black belt career with a clear sense of purpose and a well-defined competitive hierarchy. His stated goal is to establish himself among the top medium-heavyweights in the world — an ambition that shapes how he prioritizes his tournament schedule.

Of all the competitions on the calendar, Alves Neto regards the IBJJF World Championships and the CBJJ Brazilian Nationals as the two most meaningful. He views the World Championships as the most mentally demanding event, citing the global prestige and psychological weight it places on every competitor who enters. The Brazilian Nationals, by contrast, he considers technically tougher — a reflection of the exceptionally high level of Brazilian athletes who are ineligible to compete in the United States and therefore concentrate their efforts on the domestic circuit. This nuanced reading of the demands each event presents speaks not only to Alves Neto's ambition, but to a mature understanding of what elite-level jiu-jitsu requires across different competitive environments.