Emyr Bussade

Main Achievements

Grappling & Submission Records:

• 1st Place — IBJJF World Champion (2001 purple belt)
• 1st Place — CBJJ Brazilian National Champion (1999 blue belt)
• 1st Place — CBJJ Brasileiro de Equipes Champion (1998 blue belt)
• 1st Place — FJJR Rio State Champion (2000 purple belt)
• 2nd Place — IBJJF World Championship (2000 purple belt Silver Medalist)
• 2nd Place — IBJJF Pan American Championship (1999 blue belt Silver Medalist)
• 3rd Place — ADCC Alternate Tournament (2001 Bronze Medalist)
• 3rd Place — CBJJ Brazilian National Championship (2001 brown belt Bronze Medalist)

Mixed Martial Arts:

• Veteran Pro Competitor — Compiled a respected professional MMA record throughout the 2000s, concluding his active run with an elite 82% finish rate achieved exclusively via tactical submission.

Overview

Emyr “Shark” Bussade is an elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under the legendary Master Ricardo Libório and a foundational builder of the modern grappling landscape. Universally revered as a world-class strategist and developmental mastermind, Bussade carved out a brilliant competitive record across the sport’s most historic brackets before transitioning into professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Operating out of South Florida, he engineered one of the most technical, commercially successful academy frameworks on Earth, functioning as the primary architect behind some of the greatest black belt world champions in modern history.

Early Life & The Copacabana Forge

Emyr Bussade was born on March 25, 1980, in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is of proud Lebanese descent. Heavily influenced by his father, an accomplished BJJ brown belt, Emyr formally stepped onto the mats for the first time at just eight years old under the direction of Master Tarcisio Moreno, establishing an exceptional technical baseline during his childhood.

By his mid-teens, while carrying the rank of orange belt, Bussade fulfilled a lifelong martial arts dream by gaining entrance into the world-renowned Carlson Gracie Team headquarters on the iconic Figueiredo Magalhães Street in Copacabana. It was inside this legendary, unforgiving training room that he forged a connection with Master Ricardo Libório, who immediately became his primary technical guide and lifelong mentor. The daily trek to train was a profound testament to Emyr’s dedication; he and his lifelong friend, future PRIDE FC and MMA superstar Ricardo Arona, would catch a commuter ferry and navigate two separate municipal buses every single day just to reach the academy mats.

The Evolution of the “Shark” Moniker

His famous international nickname was generated during his competitive tenure as a blue belt. Deeply fascinated by the predatory nature and clinical efficiency of oceanic sharks, Bussade custom silkscreened a prominent graphic of a shark directly onto his heavy canvas kimonos. This distinct aesthetic prompted his Copacabana training partners to affectionately brand him “Tubarão” (Portuguese for Shark).

When he later took the bold step of embroidering the emblem permanently onto his structural BJJ ranking belts, the moniker became an immutable part of his identity. Upon his subsequent relocation to North America, the title seamlessly translated into English, forever solidifying his presence across the community as Emyr “Shark” Bussade.

Laying the Foundations of American Top Team

In May 2002, Master Ricardo Libório requested that Bussade permanently relocate to South Florida to serve as an indispensable foundational pillar for a newly envisioned global martial arts powerhouse: American Top Team (ATT). Recognizing the historic nature of the project, Bussade accepted the call, arriving during the brand’s infancy to help lay down the elite training methodologies that would define the squad’s culture.

Later that year, in December 2002, Emyr tested his lethal ground structures within professional Mixed Martial Arts, making a high-profile debut under the HOOKnSHOOT banner and securing a swift, clinical victory via first-round rear-naked choke. Immediately following the dominant performance, Master Libório stepped into the ring to officially award Bussade his black belt. Emyr would go on to compile a highly respected cage career over the ensuing decade, maintaining a spectacular 82% career submission-to-win ratio.

A Master Pedagogical Legacy and World-Class Influence

While an exceptional martial artist in his own right, Bussade’s ultimate contribution to sport Jiu-Jitsu resides in his historic legacy as an elite technical coach. Operating out of the flagship ATT Wellington regional affiliate in Florida, his highly structured, deeply analytical approach to advanced guard geometry revolutionized the modern sport.

Bussade served as the primary strategic mastermind and baseline coach responsible for the early childhood and adolescent development of multi-time IBJJF Black Belt World Champions Mikey Musumeci and Tammi Musumeci, alongside elite technical innovators Kevin and Brian Mahecha. Through his continuous preservation of the unyielding Carlson Gracie pressure ethos combined with modern open-guard physics, Master Emyr Bussade remains a premier pillar of American combat sports, guaranteeing authentic, world-class martial lineage is accurately preserved for generations to come.