Igor Veríssimo was born on October 03, 1993 in Belo Horizonte – the capital city of southeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state.As an 8 year old Igor signed on to swimming classes, a sport he practiced and competed in for a few years ending his pool days just before entering puberty. At 17 years of age Igor decided to join a jiu jitsu club, he was very skinny during his adolescence and wanted to gain muscle but believed lifting weights to be a boring endeavour. Since his uncle already practiced jiu jitsu and had very positive reviews BJJ was the chosen activity.Gracie Barra’s Leonardo Oliveira, a black belt under Vinicius Draculino was Veríssimo’s first coach. Igor jumped almost immediately on to the competition scene, doing his debut with one month of training. As a blue belt he started competing every weekend, and changed his training to the GB Belo Horizonte Headquarters, there learning from the prestigious Marcelo “Uirapuru” Azevedo.Igor earned his purple belt from Uirapuru, but as Minas Gerais offered very few high level tournaments, Veríssimo saw himself regularly travelling to meet the big events. The commute became a financially unsustainable effort, and for that reason the young athlete decided to move to São Paulo, Brazil’s toughest BJJ circuit where most of these events took place.In São Paulo Veríssimo joined Cicero Costha‘s Projeto Social Lutando Pelo Bem (PSLPB) academy, where he slept – later moving to the team’s athlete house. Igor became friends with Leandro Lo who was PSLPB’s star pupil at the time. Lo invited Veríssimo to be part of the heavyweight’s training (being the lightest pick in the room) and when Leandro decided to leave Cicero’s academy, Igor followed him out.Under Leandro Lo’s wing Igor earned his brown and black belts. The latter in a ceremony held on October 21, 2017.