Eduardo Telles

Eduardo Telles Moreira was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1976.  Like many BJJ practitioners, Eduardo started his martial arts journey through karate when he was a younger man.  In the mid-late 80s, even though jiu jitsu academies were prominent in places like Rio, they were not as readily available in Eduardo Telles home town of Sao Paolo.  He would get his first taste of BJJ at that time when he was visiting a family home in Rio de Janeiro.  

Once the UFC debuted in 1993, Telles' karate school began teaching BJJ and he started his journey under Fernando Yamasaki.  He would train with Yamasaki until blue belt and then would move to the US and train under Carlos Valente.

Eduardo would earn his purple belt from Valente and ultimately would then move back to Sao Paolo and begin training under Fabio Gurgel.  It was at this academy that he would meet his long-time friend and training partner Fernando Augusto "Terere".  There were also such grappling luminaries as Demian Maia training at Fabio Gurgel's academy.

He would have some initial success in competition at purple and brown belts, but became a much more prolific competitor at black belt.  He had long developed a reputation for "weird jiu jitsu" because of his use of positions like turtle guard where he would purposely give up his back in order to bait his opponents into falling into his traps.

After a split in the main Alliance team in 2002, Telles would go on to help start the Brasa Team, the Master Team and eventually TT with his long-time training partner Terere.  After a few years with Terere, his long time friend entered into a dark period in his life plagued by depression and drug addiction.  Eduardo would move on from TT to start his new Academy Nine Nine.

In San Diego, the Nine Nine Academy is the embodiment of Eduardo's own search for perfection and that is what the Nine Nine represents, as in 99's proximity to 100%.

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