BJJ News — roosevelt-sousa

Roosevelt Sousa's career just got put in a submission hold with no referee to call the tap. On January 15, 2026, the UFC's anti-doping partner USADA handed down a three-year suspension to Sousa, a UFC contract grappler and title contender in UFC's BJJ division.

The BJJ community got handed a piece of paperwork that nobody particularly wanted to think about too hard. USADA announced that Roosevelt Sousa, the 2025 No-Gi Absolute World Champion, would not compete in an IBJJF event until January 12, 2029.

There is a specific kind of cognitive dissonance that happens when you watch a sport announce, with total confidence, that it has solved a problem—and then immediately creates the exact problem it just solved. Roosevelt Sousa knows that feeling now.

When UFC decided to get into the grappling event business, a lot of practitioners had questions. Like: will these be real grappling matches, or just celebrities awkwardly pummeling each other while Dana White grins at a production monitor?

Roosevelt De Sousa had a December to remember. On December 13, 2025, he won the IBJJF gi world title in the ultra-heavyweight division.