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Marcos da Matta

“Parrumpinha”

Carlson Gracie black belt from Copacabana: purple-belt world champion in 1996, runner-up at the 2000 Worlds, head jiu-jitsu coach at American Top Team.

Last updated: 30 September 2026

Biography

Marcos da Matta is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who came up in Copacabana and coaches in Florida, where he leads the jiu-jitsu side of American Top Team and runs his own academy in West Palm Beach. Contemporary Brazilian reporting and a 2011 release from his management write the nickname Parrumpinha; British coverage of him prefers the shorter Parrumpa. He tells the beginning as a piece of pestering. Carlson Gracie, he says, knew him as a football-playing boy of eleven or twelve on the Copacabana sand, and kept asking him to come by the gym; he went along in the end to prove he would not enjoy it. By his own dating he then stayed with Carlson Gracie from 1987 until 2000. A British club that hosted him in 2022 puts the black belt at 1997, and that is the only year for the promotion anywhere in the material read here. The degree is another matter: the sources read here do not agree on it, so none is printed. A Brazilian site's look back at the first World Championship, in 1996, makes him the light-feather winner in the purple-belt division, past Fredson Alves and Cleber Gadelha, two opponents from Manaus. Four years later he took silver at the same weight, beaten in the final by Robson Moura. The same site's retrospective on that 2000 championship sets the pairing down as one between arch-rivals, and has him swept in the opening exchange, two points down, working out from underneath and pressing for a reply that never arrived. That page is not consistent about whom he was representing that day: its results table enters him for Brazilian Top Team, while its narrative calls him the Carlson fighter. 2000 is also the year he gives for the split, which may be the whole of the explanation, but nothing read here settles it. The set also puts him in a role no other source read here gives him. At the third World Championship — the retrospective on it places the event at the Tijuca Tênis Clube, over the final weekend of July 1998 — his place was on the mat as the referee, and it was an illegal slam that forced him to disqualify a competitor. That page is also the only one in the set to spell his first name Marcus. One story he tells himself: a twenty-minute superfight with Leo Vieira, and Carlson Gracie turning to the opposite corner with a wager — five points of a head start, and his man would still come out ahead. Da Matta puts the final score at ten to nil. His fighting weight is given two ways. He said in 2011 that he made 61 kilos for the biggest tournaments; the London club that announced him in 2022 printed 64, super featherweight. Neither figure is corrected here. The break of 2000 took him out of the Carlson Gracie camp. He names Ricardo Libório and Amaury Bitetti as the men he followed, and Brazilian Top Team as where they went. How he then came to American Top Team is not settled, and the disagreement is not between two sources but inside a single sentence of one of them. Portal do Vale Tudo opened a February 2021 item by calling him a founder of American Top Team, and that same opening sentence goes on to trace his path from Carlson Gracie's invitation to train to a chance to come into the team it calls the planet's biggest in MMA. His own words lean the second way: closing the 2011 interview he thanked the team for a chance that, in his telling, took him to the United States. The only date in the material for the founding is the interviewer's own aside, 2001. A video interview that might resolve the question has not been watched. At American Top Team his work has run to the fight side as well as the mat. In 2011 he counted somewhere near seventy mixed martial artists on the roster, some of them his to look after and others Conan Silveira's, and described the video work as his own part of it: studying an opponent, then building the camp with the coaches for striking and wrestling. That same year a release from his management placed him at the Coconut Creek gym as its head jiu-jitsu instructor, and his academy states that he still holds that post with the professional team there. His own school in West Palm Beach had only just opened when the Bloody Elbow interview ran in July 2011; the interviewer closed the piece with good wishes for it. Four years on he was ending another interview by inviting readers to come and visit. By 2022 a London club announcing him as a seminar guest described him as American Top Team's head jiu-jitsu coach, working under head coach Conan Silveira beside Steve Mocco, Mike Brown and King Mo. The names of the fighters he has worked with come from interested parties. The 2011 management release named Gleison Tibau, Cole Miller, Mike Brown, Brad Pickett, Thiago Alves, Thiago Silva and Alexis Vila among the fighters he trained and cornered. His own academy's site, writing more recently, lists Kyoji Horiguchi, Petr Yan, Renato Moicano, Alexandre Pantoja, Arman Tsarukyan and Natan Schulte. Both are promotional documents, not independent records of who coached whom. Portal do Vale Tudo, in 2021, called Amanda Ribas his athlete. Of the people who shaped the coaching he singles out Ricardo Libório: the man he says he learned the MMA coaching from, his mentor, the reason he stands where he does in that business, and someone who has by now handed part of the role on to him. He teaches abroad as well. A Manchester affiliate of his hosted a seminar in 2015; the blogger who wrote it up recorded that he stayed on the next day for a session with the club's own students, three of whom were promoted to blue belt. In July 2022 he was the guest at a club in London. Asked how he runs his own room, he described the format from the inside: sixty minutes of fundamentals, forty of them spent drilling; an advanced class of ninety minutes where drilling takes fifty and the session ends with six rounds of five. Apart from one no-gi session a week, the training is in the gi. Two items from the summer of 2011 — the management release and the introduction to a Bloody Elbow interview — both put his own MMA record at eight wins and one defeat. Neither lists the bouts, and nothing read here carries the figure past that summer. The release also claims ten NAGA superfight titles, four Brazilian national championships and a brown belt in judo; those counts have no second source here and are his management's own. In 1999 he met Royler Gracie; a 2005 booking with Eddie Bravo never happened, cancelled by Hurricane Wilma. Asked once who had rolled with him most across the years, he answered Renato Tavares. He has said he has never had a drink and never touched drugs — at first because he did not want to, and later because he judged neither any help to his training.

Sources for this profile

The Part Time Grappler (Liam Wandi), «BJJ / MMA / Grappling Interview: Marcos "Parrumpa" da Matta», juni 2015.(opens in a new tab)
- He recalls Carlson Gracie offering the opposing coach a five-point head start on the bout as a show of confidence in him.
  Where in the source: Jacare you wanna make a bet? I give you 5 points - 0 and Parrumpa will still win
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He gives the result of that bout as ten points to nil.
  Where in the source: I won 10-0
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- His own account of a twenty-minute superfight against Leo Vieira, which he won.
  Where in the source: I was once chose to do a super fight against someone who for me is one of the best jiujitsu fighters ever: Leo Vieira. We fought for 20 minutes which I won
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He says he has never drunk alcohol and never used drugs - first by preference, later because of the training.
  Where in the source: never ever had alcohol. Initially, I just didn't want to and then jiujitsu came and I knew it wouldn't be helpful to my training. The same with drugs
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He sets out his own lesson format: an hour of fundamentals built around forty minutes of drilling, and a ninety-minute advanced class with fifty minutes of drilling before six rounds of sparring.
  Where in the source: The fundamentals class is a 1 hour lesson: We spend 10 minutes on the warm-up, 40 minutes on drilling fundamentals and 10 minutes rolling (2 x 5 min rounds) Before a competition we change things up a little. As for the Advanced class, it's 90 minute class: We spend 10 minutes on the warm-up, 50 minutes on drilling and 30 minutes rolling (6 x 5 min rounds
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- At his own gym the week is trained in the gi apart from a single no-gi session.
  Where in the source: we train gi every session, except for one nogi session per week
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- Four years later he closes the interview by inviting readers to the same gym himself.
  Where in the source: If you are in Florida, please come and pay us a visit at West Palm Beach ATT
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Bloody Elbow, «Interview With Marcos da Matta, American Top Team BJJ Instructor», intervju av Ben Thapa, 26.07.2011. Lest i Internet Archives kopi av 26.09.2023; den levende sida svarer 403 paa tjenersidehenting.(opens in a new tab)
- He tells it himself: Carlson Gracie knew him as a boy of eleven or twelve from the beach at Copacabana, where he played football, and kept pressing him to come to the gym until he gave in to prove he would not like it.
  Where in the source: Carlson was a friend. He met me when I was 11 or 12 on the Copacabana beach.
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The interview places his origins in Copacabana in Brazil.
  Where in the source: his beginnings in Copacabana, Brazil
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- Bloody Elbow's own introduction gives him an 8-1 record in MMA, a Brazilian national title and world silver in 2000, and puts his age at the time of the interview at 38.
  Where in the source: has amassed an 8-1 record in MMA and won gold in the Brazilian nationals and a silver medal at the Worlds in 2000
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He dates his time under Carlson Gracie from 1987 to 2000, and says he left with Ricardo Libório and Amaury Bitetti in the split that produced Brazilian Top Team.
  Where in the source: I started out with him in 1987 and I was with him until 2000 when we had the whole split between Carlson Gracie and Brazilian Top Team. I went to Brazilian Top Team with Ricardo Liborio and Amaury Bitetti
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He calls Libório his mentor as an MMA coach and says part of that role has since been handed to him.
  Where in the source: As a mixed martial arts trainer, I learned a lot from [Liborio]. He’s kind of like my mentor. Even though right now he’s kind of passed the torch to me a little bit
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- Closing the interview he thanks American Top Team for the opportunity that brought him to the United States.
  Where in the source: Always like to thank ATT for the opportunity that brought me here
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- In the same passage he names Libório as the reason for his standing in the MMA business.
  Where in the source: Ricardo Liborio, without Ricardo Liborio, I wouldn’t be where I am right now and I wouldn’t be as respected as I am right now in the mixed martial arts business
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The interviewer's own framing dates the creation of American Top Team to 2001, after Libório and Bitetti had passed their competitive peak.
  Where in the source: The creation of ATT in 2001 forced them from the competition circuit
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- In 2011 he put the roster at close to seventy MMA fighters, split between himself and Conan Silveira, and described watching opponents on video to build each camp with the striking and wrestling coaches.
  Where in the source: We have probably currently close to 70 mixed martial arts fighters. I take care of some guys and Conan Silveira takes care of some other guys
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He says he competed at 61 kilos in the biggest tournaments.
  Where in the source: In the biggest competitions, I would compete at 61 kilograms which is 135 lbs
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He faced Royler Gracie in 1999, and a booking against Eddie Bravo in 2005 fell through when Hurricane Wilma struck Florida.
  Where in the source: I competed with Royler in 1999 and I was supposed to compete with Eddie Bravo in 2005, but unfortunately Hurricane Wilma came and devastated Florida
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- Asked who he had trained with most across his career, he named Renato Tavares.
  Where in the source: the people that rolled with me the most was Renato Tavares
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- In July 2011 the interviewer signs off by wishing him well with a gym he had just opened at American Top Team West Palm Beach.
  Where in the source: I wish Marcos well with his brand new gym at American Top Team West Palm Beach
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
The Part Time Grappler (Liam Wandi), «BJJ Seminar: Carlson Gracie Black Belt Marcos "Parrumpa" da Matta», mai 2015.(opens in a new tab)
- A blogger who attended the Manchester seminar in 2015 recorded him as a fourth-degree black belt in the Carlson Gracie Sr line.
  Where in the source: Parrumpa is a 4th degree black belt in jiujitsu from the Carlson Gracie Sr lineage
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The seminar was held at an affiliate club of his in central Manchester.
  Where in the source: The seminar was held at Parrumpa's affiliate, Union BJJ
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The day after the seminar he ran a session for the host club at which three of its members were promoted to blue belt.
  Where in the source: The following day, Parrumpa held a special session for Union BJJ students and three members where awarded brand new blue belts
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Sherdog, «Marcos Da Matta: Where did this guy come from?», merket PRESS RELEASE, utsendt av ML Management Group, 29.06.2011.(opens in a new tab)
- The release presents him under the ring name Parrumpinha.
  Where in the source: you will see one consistent, Marcos “Parrumpinha” Da Matta
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- A release issued by his management in 2011 listed a third-degree black belt, a brown belt in judo, a world title in 1996, world silver in 2000, ten NAGA Super Fight titles and four Brazilian national titles.
  Where in the source: With accolades like a third degree black belt in BJJ, a brown belt in Judo, 1996 World BJJ Champion, 2000 Silver Medalist in the World BJJ Championships, 10-time NAGA Super Fight Champion and four BJJ National Titles in Brazil
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The same release places him as head BJJ instructor at the Coconut Creek gym and puts his own MMA record at 8-1.
  Where in the source: Home to American Top Team Coconut Creek, the Florida based gym known for producing some of the worlds best MMA talent, Da Matta serves as the gym's head Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Instructor. An MMA fighter himself with an impressive 8-1 record
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- It lists fighters he trained and cornered at the time.
  Where in the source: Da Matta trains and corners some of the best in the business including, Thiago “Pitbull” Alves, former world champion Mike Brown, Olympic Medalist Alexis Vila, Thiago Silva, Brad Pickett, Cole Miller, Gleison Tibau
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He won a world title in 1996.
  Where in the source: 1996 World BJJ Champion
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He took silver at the 2000 World Championship.
  Where in the source: 2000 Silver Medalist in the World BJJ Championships
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Portal do Vale Tudo, «25 anos do 1º Mundial: A grande revolução do Jiu-Jitsu», 28.01.2021.(opens in a new tab)
- A Brazilian retrospective on the first World Championship has him taking purple-belt light-feather gold there, past two opponents from Manaus, Cleber Gadelha and Fredson Alves.
  Where in the source: Na pluma Roxa o treinador da ATT, Marcos Parrumpinha foi o destaque levando o ouro ao passar por duas pedreiras de Manaus: Cleber Gadelha e Fredson Alves
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Portal do Vale Tudo, «5º Mundial: BJ Penn conquista o primeiro ouro do Jiu-Jitsu americano», retrospektiv om Mundial 2000.(opens in a new tab)
- The results table for the 2000 championship lists him second in light-feather behind Robson Moura, and gives his team as Brazilian Top Team.
  Where in the source: Robson Moura Equipe: Nova União Vice-campeão: Marcos da Matta Equipe: Brazilian Top Team
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The report of that final calls the two of them arch-rivals.
  Where in the source: Robson Moura foi finalizando todo mundo no caminho, até se deparar com seu arqui-rival “Parrumpinha” na final
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The narrative of the same final calls him the Carlson fighter and has him swept early, two points down.
  Where in the source: raspando o atleta da Carlson (2×0) e dando a impressão que levaria fácil. Ledo engano
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- He got out from underneath but never turned the score around.
  Where in the source: Parrumpinha conseguiu sair de baixo, esboçou uma reação, mas não conseguiu mais virar o placar
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Portal do Vale Tudo, «3º Mundial de Jiu-Jitsu: o show de Sperry e Saulo e as homenagens a Hélio e Carlson», 16.10.2024.(opens in a new tab)
- At the third World Championship he was working as a referee, and an illegal slam obliged him to disqualify a competitor.
  Where in the source: uma bate-estaca obrigou o juiz Marcus “Parrumpinha” DaMatta a desclassificá-lo.
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The same retrospective places that championship at the Tijuca Tenis Clube on the last weekend of July 1998.
  Where in the source: voltou a lotar o Tijuca Tênis Clube no último final de semana de Julho de 1998
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Portal do Vale Tudo, «Parrumpinha relembra trajetória até sua chegada na American Top Team e analisa o cenário atual do MMA», 05.02.2021.(opens in a new tab)
- A Brazilian MMA site introduced him in February 2021 as one of the founders of American Top Team.
  Where in the source: Um dos fundadores da American Top Team, Marcos Parrumpinha participou do RESENHA PVT
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The same opening sentence, which calls him a founder of the team, describes his path as running from an invitation by Carlson Gracie to train, to the chance he was given to join what it calls the biggest MMA team on the planet.
  Where in the source: Um dos fundadores da American Top Team, Marcos Parrumpinha participou do RESENHA PVT na última quinta-feira e contou sobre a sua trajetória no Jiu-Jitsu desde o convite de Carlson Gracie para treinar até a oportunidade que recebeu de integrar aquela que hoje é a maior equipe de MMA do planeta.
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The same item calls Amanda Ribas his athlete.
  Where in the source: sua atleta Amanda Ribas
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
Great Britain Top Team, «MARCOS DA MATTA COMES TO GBTT FOR AN EXCLUSIVE SEMINAR», James Bradbury, 11.07.2022.(opens in a new tab)
- A British gym hosting him states he has held a Carlson Gracie black belt since 1997.
  Where in the source: Carlson Gracie Blackbelt since 1997
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- A London club announced him as its guest for a seminar on 23 July 2022.
  Where in the source: comes to GBTT on July 23rd for an exclusive seminar
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The 2022 announcement has him as head BJJ coach at American Top Team, under Conan Silveira as head coach, beside three named colleagues: Steve Mocco, King Mo and Mike Brown.
  Where in the source: Marcos is the current head BJJ coach at American Top Team , working alongside fellow coaches Mike Brown , King Mo , and Steve Mocco , under the tutelage of head coach Conan Silveira
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The same page gives his competition division as 64 kilos.
  Where in the source: Weight Division: Super Featherweight (64kg/141lbs)
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
American Top Team West Palm Beach (Parrumpa BJJ), akademiets egen forside, lest 20.09.2026.(opens in a new tab)
- His own academy states that he also serves as head BJJ instructor for the professional fight team at Coconut Creek.
  Where in the source: Master DaMatta is also the Head BJJ Instructor for the Pro Fight Team down in Coconut Creek, FL
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The academy page lists the fighters it says he has led, among them Alexandre Pantoja, Petr Yan, Natan Schulte, Arman Tsarukyan, Renato Moicano and Kyoji Horiguchi.
  Where in the source: including multiple MMA world champions like Alexandre Pantoja (5x UFC flyweight champion), Petr Yan (UFC bantamweight champion), Natan Schulte (PFL lightweight champion) and so many other top level contenders like Arman Tsarukyan, Renato Moicano and Kyoji Horiguchi
  Accessed: 2026-09-20
- The academy places itself in West Palm Beach, Florida.
  Where in the source: Located in the heart of West Palm Beach, Florida
  Accessed: 2026-09-20

Lineage

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Trained under

Carlson Gracie Source: bjjheroes.com