The road to becoming a UFC BJJ coach wasn’t lined with sponsorship deals or elite academies for Rerisson Gabriel—it started with melted popsicles and borrowed gis. Raised in Rio de Janeiro’s Cantagalo favela, Gabriel grew up dealing with more battles outside the mats than on them. In a revealing interview after his 2025 IBJJF Pan American Championship win, he spoke about the early grind—working weekends selling popsicles at the beach while balancing weekday training and teaching judo with his coach.
“ I would sell popsicles,” Gabriel said. “When it was really hot, I’d go to the beach. When the weather was nice, I’d sell them in the park. ”
The clearest picture of his struggle came when he had to borrow an oversized gi just to compete at the Pans. With no sponsors and limited means, Gabriel and his brother helped fund competition trips by working with their father, selling ice cream and popsicles. The dream was always distant, but never abandoned.
Gabriel’s breakthrough came not just from talent, but sheer survival. Yet even with a major IBJJF title under his belt, his selection as a UFC BJJ coach has raised eyebrows—not because he lacks heart, but because the UFC seems to be setting him up to fail.
Despite several UFC BJJ episodes having already aired, Gabriel is losing social media followers in the process—a stark contrast to the explosion he experienced after his IBJJF win, where his following jumped from 7,000 to over 18,000. It’s a telling sign that the IBJJF still provides a stronger platform for Brazilian athletes than UFC’s experimental grappling project. And while Gabriel’s character commands admiration, there’s an uncomfortable sense that he’s being cast as cannon fodder, thrown opposite Mikey Musumeci in a matchup few believe is fair.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it echoes the very blueprint ONE Championship used to build Musumeci’s brand—repeatedly booking him against overmatched foreign grapplers. Many of these opponents came from humble origins, often holding down exhausting day jobs, just to be flown in for what ultimately looked like scripted losses. Musumeci, in contrast, trains full-time, backed by a well-oiled promotional machine. The result? Lopsided matchups dressed up as elite competition.
The 2023 Musumeci vs. Shinya Aoki bout was a prime example—an openweight “spectacle” that saw a five-time IBJJF World Champion submit an aging MMA veteran in just over three minutes. Fans online called it a “dumb mismatch,” with the obvious conclusion that ONE was carefully curating highlight reels, not legitimate competition.
This pattern extended to Musumeci’s matches with Gantumur Bayanduuren, Osamah Almarwai, and Jarred Brooks. Bayanduuren suffered serious ligament damage in a one-sided display. Almarwai, though respected, simply wasn’t ready for that level of spotlight. And Brooks? He was an MMA strawweight competing two weight classes up in a submission grappling match. None of these matchups posed a real threat—they were scripted to keep Musumeci looking untouchable.
Now UFC seems to be following the same formula with Gabriel. And here’s the catch: Rerisson’s only major win came in the gi—a format UFC BJJ explicitly distances itself from. So not only is Gabriel out of his strongest rule set, but he’s also being placed opposite a specialist in no-gi submission grappling. The narrative crumbles under scrutiny.
Still, Gabriel remains undeterred. When critics labeled his IBJJF win a “robbery,” he answered with poise:
“Talk bad or talk good—just say it. It’s good for my media.”
Coming from the favela, he was used to being underestimated.
“The pressure was all his,” he said of his opponent. “I had nothing to prove.”
His final message, however, was not about titles or matchups—but resilience.
“What we go through in the past is just a phase. Keep working, keep dedicating yourself. One day it’ll work out. A while ago I was selling popsicles on the beach. Today I’m a Pan American champion with the possibility to change my life—and my family’s.”
In the end, the real mismatch isn’t just on the mats—it’s between the promise of the UFC BJJ project and the reality of how it treats the very athletes it claims to elevate.
