Since 2008 the Alliance Jiu Jitsu Academy has taken over our sport in a display of total domination, winning every World Championship team title since then, adding also numerous Pan American and European Open championships.
The black belts have been a deciding element of the final scores, where the fact that Alliance successfully placed 53 adult black belts in the tournament’s finals over the past 10 years played a significant role in the team’s overall performance. Even more so, when the largest team in the world (Gracie Barra) placed 48 finalists – third being Checkmat with 20.
But as proven last year (see board), the groundbreaking work put together by Alliance’s many affiliate gyms as a whole, has proved the famous jiu jitsu eagle is not solely reliant on the black belt elites to win a team title.
| YEAR | PLACE | GENDER | TEAM | PTS |
| 2013 | 1 | M | Alliance | 94 |
| 2013 | 2 | M | CheckMat | 62 |
| 2013 | 3 | M | Atos | 46 |
| 2013 | 1 | F | Alliance | 62 |
| 2013 | 2 | F | CheckMat | 45 |
| 2013 | 3 | F | Humaitá | 38 |
| 2014 | 1 | M | Alliance | 99 |
| 2014 | 2 | M | Atos | 97 |
| 2014 | 3 | M | Gracie Barra | 52 |
| 2014 | 1 | F | Alliance | 79 |
| 2014 | 2 | F | CheckMat | 52 |
| 2014 | 3 | F | Humaitá | 86 |
| 2015 | 1 | M | Alliance | 121 |
| 2015 | 2 | M | PSLPB | 72 |
| 2015 | 3 | M | Atos | 58 |
| 2015 | 1 | F | Alliance | 68 |
| 2015 | 2 | F | Humaitá | 61 |
| 2015 | 3 | F | CheckMat | 29 |
As the sport has grown, so has the professionalism taking place in the lower belt divisions, where Alliance has shown supreme skills and excellent synergy between all affiliates. Through schools such as Alexandre Paiva‘s Leblon academy (RJ), Fabio Gurgel‘s HQ in Sao Paulo, Marcelo Garcia in NY, Mario Reis in Porto Alegre, Master Jacaré in Atlanta and now Cobrinha in Los Angeles, the team shows no signs of slowing down as their network expands in numbers and in quality.
With a solid black belt team, a dream brown belt line-up with talent such as Hiago Gama, Tayane Porfirio, Lucas Araujo, Adam Benayoun, Nicholas Meregali or Isaque Bahiense, it is hard not to foresee another solid high flight for this bird of prey. But there will be plenty of adversity to overcome with Matheus Gonzaga (GFT), Jake Ferrara, John Combs (Easton Training Centre), Max Gimenes (GFT) and company, in front of Alliance’s brown belts and a true platoon of grapplers to face in the black belt division.
Though very strong in the upper echelon of the sport, Alliance relies also on numbers, being only beat by Gracie Barra in the amount of warriors they will be bringing out to Long Beach’s battlefield next week.
REGISTERED ATHLETE COUNT 2016:
Gracie Barra 242
Alliance 240
Checkmat 171
Atos 164
GF Team 111
Ribeiro JJ 103
Gracie Humaitá 67
Team Lloyd Irvin 35
Ns Brotherhood 21
PSLPB 20
The numbers are overwhelming and have translated very well to podium placements. These are the numbers of medallists from the top teams in the lower belt divisions (adults) on 2015:
| TEAM | PODIUMS |
| Alliance | 33 |
| Gracie Barra | 17 |
| Atos | 13 |
| Checkmat | 13 |
| PSLPB | 13 |
| TLI | 11 |
| Humaita | 10 |
| GF Team | 9 |
| Ribeiro JJ | 6 |
In sum, and although there are very tough challenges ahead for Alliance, in every division of the world’s toughest jiu jitsu tournament, the team seems well placed to scoop yet another world title, and clear the distance between their (already) record breaking number of team titles.
Eagle photo used for banner, taken by Photo by Don Baccus.
