Erberth Santos. Photo by Luana de Martini
Erberth Santos will have some serious help in his next attempt at winning absolute gold at the BJJ World Championship. After losing the 2016 final to Marcus Buchecha, Santos will now have behind him Atos Jiu-Jitsu, the gym led by André Galvão.
In an exclusive interview with Graciemag, Santos cleared up the fact that his own team, Almeida Jiu-Jitsu, is parting ways with team Ryan Gracie to become independent. However, for the 2017 Worlds, the team will be a part of Atos — a partnership that will extend to other international competitions.
“I’m very happy with the partnership of Almeida JJ with Atos, André Galvão’s team,” Santos told us. “This will greatly boost the level of the jiu-jitsu of team Almeida JJ as a whole, and I’m excited. Caio, Diogo and Gustavo Almeida are good friends with Galvão, and that brought the union between the teams. I’d like to remind people that I’m 100% from team Almeida Jiu-Jitsu, the team I represent. For Atos, I will be representing them as a partner only in international competitions.”
About the first steps in the partnership, Santos also said that he will be going in early 2017 to San Diego, the home of Atos, in order to begin his physical preparation aiming at the title he dreams of, alongside people like Galvão, Keenan Cornelius, JT Torres and Lucas Hulk.
“I’m travelling to California in early February, invited by Galvão,” Santos said, “to start the camp with the goal of conquering my weight division and the absolute at the 2017 Worlds. I’ll start with the Pan, then I’m fighting the Abu Dhabi Federation’s World Pro. I will hole up in the U.S. gym to be prepared. With the help of Galvão and my coaches, I know that I will succeed.”
