Biography

​

Thiago Gaia was born on the 25th of March,1990. Although his family is historically from Ilhabela, an island located just off the coast of São Paulo, Thiago was born in the state capital. This was so his mother could receive adequate care during the birth of Thiago due to his being a risk pregnancy. The Gaia family returned to Ilhabela shortly after the birth of Thiago.

​

At the age of 8, Thiago’s mother enrolled him in a judo club in an attempt to ease off her son’s hyperactivity. The success of this experiment meant that from there on Gaia had a busy sporting life, playing football (soccer), swimming, sailing and at the age of 10 jiu-jitsu, with coach Rezende.

​

In the very beginning, Thiago’s motivation to start training jiu-jitsu was Price FC, particularly the performances of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the ring of the famous Japanese MMA promotion.

​

At first, BJJ was just a game, something followed half-heartedly, but as Thiago turned 15 he started focussing more in his training and developing a taste for competition.

​

At the age of 16, Thiago was promoted to blue belt by coach Nelson who ran an affiliate gym of the TT academy in São Sebastião. Gaia’s desire to improve and be the best grappler he could be led him to move to the capital – São Paulo, in order to train at the TT headquarters where names such as Cobrinha, Eduardo Telles, André Galvão, Tererê, and Marcelo Mafra trained.

​

Thiago then found Leonardo Vieira and AKA Jiu-Jitsu Coach Leandro Vieira (Brasa and later Checkmat) who was Gaia’s coach throughout his formation years, grading him with his purple and brown belts.

​

​