BJJ

Adele Fornarino - Top BJJ Black Belt

Adele Fornarino - Top  BJJ Black Belt

1. Adele M. Fornarino’s Details

Adele M. Fornarino’s Details

Name

Adele M. Fornarino

Nickname

N/A

Birth Place

Melbourne, Australia

Date of Birth

September 17, 1999

Weight Division

Featherweight/ 53.5kg / 118 lbs

Last Weight in

N/A

Height

N/A

Disclosed Career Earnings

N/A

College

N/A

Rank

N/A

Last Fight

N/A

Favorite Position

Armbar

Head Coach

David Hart

Lineage

Carlos Gracie > Helio Gracie > Carlos Gracie Junior > Jean Jacques Machado / Rigan Machado > John Will > David Hart > Adele Fornarino

Fighting out of

N/A

Team Association

Dominance MMA Team

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2. Adele M. Fornarino’s Biography

Adele Fornarino is a top Australian Black belt champion associated with the Dominance MMA Team under coach, David Hart. She is the number one N0-Gi black belt fighter in her division in the world. She won several gold medals in the IBJJF World, Pan Championship, European Championship, ADCC Trails, and many other international BJJ tournaments . She received her black belt in December 2022. She is the first woman in Australia to have participated and won several international gold medals.

2.1. Adele M. Fornarino’s Childhood

Adele Fornarino is a top Australian Black belt champion associated with the Dominance MMA Team under coach, David Hart. She is the number one N0-Gi black belt fighter in her division in the world. She won several gold medals in the IBJJF World, Pan Championship, European Championship, ADCC Trails, and many other international BJJ tournaments . She received her black belt in December 2022. She is the first woman in Australia to have participated and won several international gold medals.

“Anything my brother did, I tended to do. "If my brother played soccer, I wanted to play soccer.”

By following the footsteps of her brother, she started playing football at the age of 7 and was good at it.

2.2. Adele M. Fornarino’s First Martial Art Class

Adele Fornarino continued playing football at the age of 10. Adele Fornarino took her first Jiu-Jitsu class by chance. At the age of ten, she was deciding what she wanted to be in the future. After thorough searching, she decided that she was going to be a Police Officer. To sharpen her skills she started searching for some martial arts schools near her school. Finally, she picked a gym and started going for Jiu-Jitsu training. She said in an interview about her emergence in the Jiu-Jitsu world, 

“When I got to be about nine or ten years old, I made the executive decision, ‘ I'm gonna be a police officer.’ I thought doing a martial art would help, so one day I Googled something like martial arts near me. I saw a gym, and the gym happened to do jiu-jitsu. If there had been a karate gym closer, I would have done karate, but it just happened to be a jiu-jitsu gym, and I happened to kind of fall into it. The rest is history.”

2.3. Adele M. Fornarino’s First Coach

Adele M. Fornarino's first coach was David Hart at the Dominance MMA Team. Though Adele Fornarino joined this team to improve her skills so that they would be beneficial in her future job but it was David Hart who motivated and trained her and made her fall in love with this game. She said in an interview that she knew nothing about this martial art and used to ask stupid questions all the time. 

“[He] is an excellent kids coach, and he was good at keeping us all interested, playing lots of games. He was a really big part of why I loved it so much from a young age. Christopher also had a big role in keeping her focused: “I was always ‘that kid,’ asking things like, ‘So when are we gonna start hitting things? When are we going to start throwing punches?’ [David] was like, it's not quite that. It’s a little bit different. I’d be like, ‘Yeah, but what are we gonna start punching people?’ It took me a while to understand what was going on.”

2.4. Adele M. Fornarino’s Jiu-Jitsu Journey

Adele Fornarino started her Jiu-Jitsu journey when she was 10 years old. At the age of 12, she competed in her first Jiu-jitsu competition and defeated two boys, winning her first gold medal. After this competition, she left an urge to be perfect in jiu-jitsu and took her training seriously after that.

“I was motivated by beating up guys at the time. Because I had done soccer and I'd done it with guys and girls, I'd always wanted to compete with the guys to make sure that I was just as strong, just as fast. When I started jiu-jitsu and I was one of the only girls, I wanted to get good enough at jiu-jitsu to be just as good if not better than all the boys in the class. And then when I was competing, I was like, ‘I just want to beat up all the boys.”

After that, as she grew up, the brackets changed, and she was forced to compete in the white belt. 

2.5. Adele M. Fornarino’s Promotion To Blue Belt

Till the age of 15 Adele Fornarino was a white belt champion. In 2015, she won her first Blue belt at the Pan Pacific Championship. The Championship was held in December 2015 and Adele Fornarino played the fastest submission ever in the whole competition.


In the same year, another best thing happened in the Grappling Tournament Australia where Adele Fornarino brilliantly won and along with the prize money also got a free ticket to the IBJJF World Championship 2016. In the next year, she went to California with her coach and realized how big the Jiu-Jitsu world is.

“David Hart came with me and he guided me through that process, explaining ‘This is how big jiu-jitsu is. Like you saw it in Australia, but this is actually how big it is. There's thousands of people here, and there's these people that do it professionally.’ It opened up my eyes to how big jiu-jitsu was.”

2.6. Adele M. Fornarino’s Promotion To Purple Belt

In June 2018, when Adele was 18 years old, she participated in the IBJJF World Championship held in Los Angeles. She won bronze in the Featherweight Purple belt No-Gi Championship. She won the first three matches by submissions but unfortunately could not win the semi-final and secured bronze in the Purple belt.

2.8. Adele M. Fornarino’s First Brown Belt

Adele became the first ever Female Brown belt in Australia in July 2018, at the age of 18 years. She was the youngest brown belt in Australia in the jiu-jitsu World. After achieving the Brown belt, the golden period of her life started. She won gold medals in the IBJJF World Gi, No-Gi, European Gi, No-Gi, Pan American, and Adcc trials. 

2.9. Adele M. Fornarino’s Black Promotion

Adele Fornarino competed at the international level for about 4 years as a Brown belt. After winning all the matches at the IBJJF World No-Gi Championship 2022 for the Brown belt in the Featherweight, Adele Fornarino was promoted to Black belt in December 2022 by her long-time coach, David Hart.


After achieving her black belt in the last month of 2022, Adele had a mixed feeling of doubt and pride. 

“Black belt kind of snuck up on me. All of a sudden I was a black belt, and then all of a sudden I was in these black belt divisions with all these people that I've been watching and studying and looking up to for so many years. When you watch these girls, you put them so far ahead of you. At the time it felt unattainable to get anywhere close to them, like it's gonna take years and years. Then I’m there and I’m like, ‘Oh wait for a second. I can do this. I can get there. I'm there. I can get this done.”

2.10. Adele M. Fornarino’s Routine

After becoming a black belt, Adele Fornarino started training even harder than it was before. She wanted to get the title of Gi in the IBJJF Worlds Championship. Shortly after, she won a GI championship and became the first Australian woman to get a GI title in the IBJJF World Championship.


After that, she participated in the ADCC Trails and won gold medals. In short, Adele Fornarino made her training tougher after promotion to black belt. She said in an interview sometimes it gets tough to travel from one continent to the other to participate in international events and sometimes they get overlooked as well.

“As an Australian, it can be really difficult–obviously the travel is difficult, flights and accommodation can be tough, and sometimes we may get a little bit overlooked for those reasons. But I want to get my foot in the door on those major fight cards because I think I can have some really good matches with current belt holders and I think I can draw a whole new audience to some of these events as well.”

3. Adele M. Fornarino’s Top Fighting History

3.1. Adele Fornarino Vs Amanda Iraha

In the final round of Sydney Open 2023 for the Balck belt category in absolute weight, Adele Fornarino competed with a top fighter, Amanda Iraha. Both the fighters demonstrated their best defense throughout the fight. The whole fight lasted for almost 5 minutes and neither of the players secured any points. At last, Adele Fornarino won the match by Armbar submission.


Year Event Opponent W/L/D Method Stage Weight Class
2023 Sydney Open Amanda Iraha Win Armbar Final Absolute weight

3.2. Adele Fornarino Vs Vitoria Assis

In the final stage of Pan No-Gi Championship 2023 for the Black belt category in Featherweight, Adele Fornarino fought with Vitoria Assis. It was a very short and exciting fight. In the beginning, noth the fighters tried to take down each other. But they did not succeed and secure any points. Shortly after, Adele Fornarino applied for Armbar submission and won the match. The whole fight just lasted for almost 2 minutes.


Year Event Opponent W/L/D Method Stage Weight Class
2023 Pan Championship No-Gi Vitoria Assis Win Armbar Final Featherweight

3.3. Adele Fornarino Vs Kaimana Newman

In the final stage of the Santa Cruz Open No-Gi Championship 2023 for the Black belt category in Featherweight division, Adele Fornarino Confronted Kaimana Newman. In the beginning, Newman tried to take down Fornarino but in no vain. After that, Adele Fornarino applied triangle submission which was brilliantly sustained by the Newman for a quite long time. In the 8th minute of the fight, Newman tapped out and Fornarino won the fight by Triangle submission.


Year Event Opponent W/L/D Method Stage Weight Class
2023 Santa Cruz Open No-Gi Kaimana Newman Win Triangle Final Featherweight

4. Adele M. Fornarino’s National and International Achievements

Year Event Medal/ Position Weight Division
2023  IBJJF Pan Championship Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  IBJJF European Championship NOGI Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  ADCC Oceania & Asia Trials Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  GrappleFest U60KG Champion Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  IBJJF World Championship NOGI Silver Silver Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  CBJJ Brazilian Nationals Silver Silver Medal Icon Featherweight
2023  Santa Cruz No-Gi Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2022  ADCC Oceania & Asia Trials Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2022  IBJJF World Championship NOGI Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2022  IBJJF European Open NOGI Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2022  Paris Fall International Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2022  Paris Fall International Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2021  SGT Round Robin Gi Tournament Gold Gold Medal Icon Light Featherweight
2021  SGT Round Robin No-Gi Tournament Gold Gold Medal Icon Light Featherweight
2020  AJP Oceania Continental Pro Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2020  AJP Oceania Continental Pro No-Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2020  Abu Dhabi National Pro Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2020  Abu Dhabi National Pro Gi-Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2019  IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2019  IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2019  IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship NOGI Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2019  AJP Australia National Pro Gold Gold Medal Icon Heavyweight
2019  AJP Australia National Pro No-Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Heavyweight
2019  AJP Australia National Pro Gi-Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2019  IBJJF Pan Championship Silver Silver Medal Icon Featherweight
2019  Victorian State Championship Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2019  Victorian State Championship No-Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Light Featherweight
2019  Victorian State Championship Female Absolute Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2019  Victorian State Championship Female Absolute No-Gi Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2019  IBJJF Asian Open Silver Silver Medal Icon Featherweight
2018  Oceania Continental Pro Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2018  Australia National Pro Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2018  Australia National Pro Silver Silver Medal Icon Absolute weight
2018  ADCC Melbourne Open Bronze Bronze Medal Icon Light Featherweight
2018  ADCC Melbourne Open Gold Gold Medal Icon Absolute weight
2018  Queensland State Championship Gold Gold Medal Icon Featherweight
2016  IBJJF World Championship, Juvenile Gold Gold Medal Icon Light Featherweight

5. Adele M. Fornarino’s Main Achievements

Year Event Belt Position
2023 IBJJF Pan Championship Black 1st
2023 IBJJF European Championship NOGI Black 1st
2023 ADCC Oceania & Asia Trials Black 1st
2023 GrappleFest U60KG Champion Black 1st
2023 IBJJF World Championship NOGI Black 2nd
2023 CBJJ Brazilian Nationals Black 2nd
2022 ADCC Oceania & Asia Trials Black 1st

5.1. Adele M. Fornarino’s Main Achievements (Colored Belt)

Year Event Belt Position
2022 IBJJF World Championship NOGI Brown 1st
2022 IBJJF European Open NOGI Brown 1st
2021 SGT Round Robin Gi Tournament Brown 1st
2021 SGT Round Robin No-Gi Tournament Brown 1st
2020 AJP Oceania Continental Pro Brown 1st
2019 IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship Brown 1st
2019 IBJJF Pan Pacific Championship NOGI Brown 1st
2019 AJP Australia National Pro Gi Brown 1st
2019 AJP Australia National Pro No-Gi Brown 1st
2019 AJP Australia National Pro Open Class Brown 1st
2019 IBJJF Pan Championship Brown 2nd
2019 IBJJF Asian Open Brown 2nd
2019 Victorian State Championship Gi Brown 1st
2019 Victorian State Championship No-Gi Brown 1st
2019 Victorian State Championship Female Absolute Gi Brown 1st
2019 Victorian State Championship Female Absolute No-Gi Brown 1st
2018 Oceania Continental Pro Purple 1st
2018 Australia National Pro Purple 1st
2018 Australia National Pro Purple 2nd
2016 IBJJF World Championship, Juvenile Purple 1st

6. Adele M. Fornarino’s Professional Record Breakdown

28 Matches 23 Wins 5 losses
By Points 2 1
By Advantages 0 2
By Submission 18 2
BY Decision 1 0
By Penalties 0 0
By DQ 0 0
By Walkover 2 0

6.1. Method of Submission W/L

Method 18 Win 2 Losses
Armbar 11 1
Toe Hold 1 0
Straight Ankle Lock 1 0
Triangle Armbar 1 0
Triangle 1 0
Outside Heel Hook 1 0
Inside Heel Hook 1 0
Armlock 1 0
RNC 0 1

7. Adele M. Fornarino’s Top Fight History

Opponent W/L Method Competition Weight Stage Year
Alex Enriquez L Pts: 2x2, Adv No-Gi World 56KG F 2023
Alexa Yanes W Toe hold World Champ. 53KG 8F 2023
Amanda Iraha W Armbar Sydney Open ABS F 2023
Andreza Costa W Armbar Brasileiro 53KG SF 2023
Ashley Bendle W Armbar European No-Gi 55KG F 2023
Emily Nicholson W Armbar No-Gi Pan 56KG SF 2023
Emily Nicholson W Triangle armbar No-Gi World 56KG 4F 2023
Ffion Davies L RNC ADCC 60KG 4F 2022
Georgia Balthazar W Armbar ADCC AUS Trials 60KG SF 2022
Heather Morgan W Armbar Santa Cruz O 58KG F 2023
Janice Yee W Armbar ADCC AUS Trials 60KG R1 2022
Jessa Khan L Armbar World Champ. 53KG 4F 2023
Jessica Crane W Armlock No-Gi World 56KG SF 2023
Joyce Ip W Inside heel hook ADCC Trials AO 55KG SF 2023
Kaimana Newman W Triangle S. Cruz NGO 55KG F 2023
Kanae Yamada W Armbar ADCC Trials AO 55KG F 2023
Mayssa Bastos L Pts: 3x0 Pan American 53KG 4F 2023
Mayssa Bastos L Pts: 6x6, Adv Brasileiro 53KG F 2023
N. Gomes W Armbar Brasileiro 53KG 4F 2023
Nadia Frankland W Pts: 3x1 ADCC AUS Trials 60KG F 2022
Nadia Frankland W Points Boa Super 8 NA SPF 2022
Olivia Ukmar W Armbar ADCC AUS Trials 60KG 4F 2022
Raquel Silva W Outside heel hook European No-Gi 55KG SF 2023
Soojin Hong W Straight ankle lock ADCC Trials AO 55KG 4F 2023
Vanessa English W Referee Decision Grappler Fest 16 NA SPF 2023
Vitoria Assis W Armbar No-Gi Pan 56KG F 2023

8. Adele M. Fornarino’s Top Fights

Adele Fornarino v Amanda Iraha / Sydney Open 2023

Adele Fornarino vs Vitória Assis / Pan Championship No-Gi 2023

Adele Fornarino vs Kaimana Newman / Santa Cruz Open No-Gi 2023


Photo Credit: @adelefornarino

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