Rodolfo Vieira

Rodolfo Vieira Srour (born September 25, 1989, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a four time Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) World Champion and a six time World Cup champion. Rodolfo's Jiu-Jitsu style displays a very diverse set of skills, allied with a fast pace guard passing style, great cardio and huge physical prowess, making him the most dominant Heavyweight in Jiu-Jitsu's recent years by completely dominating most of his fights. He is highly regarded for his guard passing skills. His recurrent matches with Marcus Almeida are among Jiu-Jitsu's most famous rivalries.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Rodolfo started training under Arlans Maia when he was 13, because he felt overweight. A few years later he joined the Gama Filho team (now Grappling Fight Team) under Julio Cesar Pereira, as a purple belt, where he would go on to receive his brown and black belts.

Rodolfo first made an impression on the international scene in 2009, by winning the World Cup Brazilian north trials as a brown belt in a mixed brown and black belt division. He went on to win his division World Cup with a victory over two-time world champion Braulio Estima, whilst he was still a brown belt, this earned him the nickname "black belt hunter". After promotion to black belt, injury sidelined him throughout most of 2010. He returned in 2011 at the black belt division, first winning his division and the absolute at the Pan American Championships then repeating the feat at the World Cup and then the World Championships, he faced Bernardo Faria in five out of the six finals. Vieira would go on to compete at the 2011 ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship, after defeating Joseph Lee Blaize and Antonio Peinado, he lost by heel hook to Dean Lister, in the semi-finals. In 2012 after winning double gold at the European Championships and the World Cup again, he went on to the World Championships. He suffered a defeat to Marcus Almeida in the quarter-finals of absolute division, he went on to defeat Xande Ribeiro to win his weight class for a second time. In 2013 he competed in the Copa Podio in Brazil, where he won his weight division and the absolute. He then competed at the World Cup, where he won his weight division but came second in the absolute again losing to Marcus Almeida. At the World Championships, Vieira retained his title in the -94 kg weight class but lost to Almeida in the final of the absolute. In 2014 in an effort to defeat Marcus Almeida Rodolfo put on more weight and moved up to the -100 kg weight class, at the 2014 World Cup he won his weight class defeating Luiz Panza in the final, but again was defeated by Marcus Almeida in the absolute final, however the match was much closer than their last previously contested matches.