However, Japan became a bastion of openweight fights, with fighters such as Ikuhisa Minowa and Genki Sudo commonly facing much larger opponents.
He received his black belt from Rolls Gracie student, Romero "Jacaré" Cavalcanti, he also trained under Fernando 'Magrao' Gurgel and is one of a select group of Jiu-Jitsu competitors to have won the prestigious World Jiu-Jitsu Championship openweight titles twice.