Lucas Montalvão

Lucas Montalvão is a jiu-jitsu black belt under Cristiano Alves and Julio Cesar Pereira. He represented the GF Team throughout his competitive career, from white to black belt, later joining the Ground Control squad. Although a successful athlete in the sport’s International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) circuit as a colored belt, Montalvão gained worldwide notoriety in the grappling community during the 2024 season, a time when he won both the World & Pan American No-Gi Championships in the professional division.

Lucas Montalvão Jiu-Jitsu

Full Name: Lucas Valentim Alves Montalvão

Nickname: Often referenced as “Gorilla’ by his training partners, a label started by his coach, who believed he walked like a big ape when he first started training.

Lineage:  Luis França > Oswaldo Fadda > Monir Salomão > Júlio César > Cristiano Alves > Lucas Montalvão

Main Achievements:

• 1st Place IBJJF World Championship NOGI (2024)
• 1st Place IBJJF Pan Championship NOGI (2024)

Main Achievements (Colored Belts):

• 1st Place IBJJF Pan Championship (2019 blue)
• 1st Place IBJJF European Championship (2019 blue, 2020 purple)
• 2nd Place IBJJF Pan Championship NOGI (2022 brown)
• 3rd Place IBJJF World Championship (2019 blue)

Main Achievements (Juvenil):

• 1st Place IBJJF World Championship (2018 blue)
• 1st Place IBJJF Pan Championship (2018** / 2019 blue)
• 2nd Place IBJJF World Championship (2017 blue)
• 3rd Place IBJJF Pan Championship NOGI (2018 blue)

* Absolute
** Weight and Absolute

Favorite Position/Technique: Pretzelbolo & Guard Passing

Weight Division: Pesadissimo (over 100,50 kg / 222.0 lbs)

Team/Association: Ground Control

Lucas Montalvão Biography

Lucas Montalvão was born on June 2001, in Jardim América in the North Zone of Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro where he lived until his early teens, when he moved to Recreio dos Bandeirantes.

Montalvão was an active kid, playing sports like surfing and basketball, to which he added boxing and Muay Thai at 13. Lucas’ initial intention was to one day become a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) athlete, and with this in mind, two years after he joined the striking classes, he added jiu-jitsu to his schedule (2016) under coach Cristiano Alves.

4 weeks after his first BJJ training session, Montalvão entered his competition. The positive performance led Mr. Alves to sign Lucas to a local tournament in the Juvenile 2 category (16/17). Although he was only 15yo and with just a month of training, the young prodigy dominated his opponents and won gold, a breakthrough that led him to opt out of his long-term goal of cage-fighting to focus solely on BJJ.

Guided by coach Cristiano Alves and GF Team’s leader Julio Cesar Pereira, Lucas Montalvão developed into one of the top up-and-comers in the sport, which led to his move to the United States at the age of 20, to focus on his professional career as an athlete and instructor.

In December 2022, Montalvão was promoted to the black belt rank by his teammate Max Gimenis, a promotion commissioned by Lucas’s instructor and mentor, Cristiano Alves, who could not be present at the occasion.