Oswaldo Fadda

Oswaldo Baptista Fadda (January 15, 1921 – April 1, 2005) was a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reaching the rank of "nono grau", a ninth grade red belt. He is known for being one of the highest ranked non-Gracie black belts and also for teaching students from the poorer areas of Rio de Janeiro, where jiu-jitsu was regarded as an upper-class sport. Fadda's lineage, the most prominent second to the Carlos Gracie lineage, still survives through his links with today's teams such as Nova União, Grappling Fight Team, as well as Deo Jiu-Jitsu (Deoclecio Paulo) and Equipe Mestre Wilson Jiu-Jitsu (Wilson Pereira Mattos).

Biography

Early life

Fadda was born in Bento Ribeiro, a suburb in the north of Rio de Janeiro to a family of Italian immigrants. At the age of seventeen, while in the Brazilian Marines, he began to study jiu jitsu under Luiz França, a black belt under Mitsuyo Maeda. Maeda was an expert judōka with direct lineage to the founder of judo, Kanō Jigorō, who had travelled around the world as a prize fighter while also teaching the locals his self-defence techniques. After settling in Belém in 1917, Maeda had continued to teach jiu jitsu to a select group of students (including França and Carlos Gracie).