Pablo Popovitch

Pablo Popovitch was born on September 9, 1979 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Popovitch’s were very involved with Jiu Jitsu, Pablo’s father, Jorge Popovitch, had been practicing Jiu-Jitsu for a long time, while his aunt was married to Crolin Gracie. With such tight connections, it didn’t come as a surprise that Pablo would start practicing at the age of 5, his father enlisted him in the academy that would later become Gracie Barra in Barra da Tijuca, Brazil, where Jean Jacques Machado and Carlos “Soneca” Machado were the coaches. In 1995 when Pablo Popovitch was 15 years old, the Popovitch family moved to Florida. He didn’t have many experienced training partners (mainly his dad and Carlson Gracie on occasion) trained Jiu-Jitsu. When attending high school in Florida, Pablo was introduced to college wrestling a style he brought to his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game with excellence. It was also around the same time that Pablo’s father Jorge Popovitch opened the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Centre in Fort Lauderdale, an academy that still runs today, led by father and son.