Marcelo Nunes, 21, was born in Itu, São Paulo state. The brown belt from Robert Drysdale team team won his most important title so far far from home, however, at the ever more prestigious Arizona BJJ State Championship 2010 promoted by Gustavo Dantas, which took place last weekend.

Superheavyweight and absolute champion Nunes, who now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, spoke with GRACIEMAG.com about his perfect win: getting the tapout on all his opponents and not suffering a single point against him.

What was it like winning the Arizona State Championship, now one of the championships in the USA carrying the greatest prestige?
I train hard with Robert Drysdale, and I’ve had some really good training partners in Las Vegas. The Arizona championship was high level, really well organized, with lots of tough guys competing. I managed to fight well, getting the finish on all my opponents and not having a single point scored against me. I’ve been training a lot. My focus now is to train hard to go into next year’s World Championship strong. That’s what I’m preparing for.

Now will you compete at the 2011 Worlds as a black belt?
That’s up to Professor Drysdale to decide. He knows me, and he’ll decide what the best path for me is. If he thinks I should go in as a brown, I’ll go as a brown. If he gives me a black belt, I’ll go in with the same confidence. I’m ready to fight at any belt. Every Jiu-Jitsu practitioner’s dream is to have a black belt around their waist. But it must all come in due time; there’s no point in taking steps longer than your legs. I know it’s tough to make your black belt debut at the Worlds and make it onto the podium: it’s a whole different level from the other tournaments, requires experience. No one is going to win the Worlds without competing at smaller tournaments. Experience counts a lot.

What’s your assessment of Jiu-Jitsu in Arizona and the USA these days?
People used to think it was easy to compete in the United States, that there weren’t so many good teachers, that the athletes weren’t that well prepared. These days there are great teachers in the USA, and Jiu-Jitsu is evolving a lot. The Americans are getting better and better every day.

Do you plan to stick around the USA teaching and training?
I’ll stay here till November training Jiu-Jitsu and MMA and teaching at Robert Drysdale’s gym in Las Vegas, and then I’ll return to Brazil for two months to take care of some things. Then I’ll be back here again to prepare for the next year’s Worlds.

What are your plans for the future?
I plan to train a lot to compete in anything that comes up, and then I want to fight MMA. I want make my MMA debut about a year from now. I feel Jiu-Jitsu gets us on the path, and MMA gets us money, especially in the USA. Here it’s all about MMA.

How do you plan on making this transition from Jiu-Jitsu to MMA?
I’ve been training a lot of boxing. I plan to get my black belt, compete for some time and then I think I’ll drop the gi. My idea is to train a lot without the gi and then do MMA.

Check out some of the scenes from the event in the photos below:

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Bruno Bastos at top of podium. Photo: Dan Gerous (publicity)

The big standout was Bruno Bastos. The Nova União rep had two matches on his way to taking the prize money in the open weight division.

“I faced Carlos Faria, a guy who weighs 130 kg, in the first match. Thank God he pulled guard and I won by 17 to 0. I faced Guybson Sá, a really tough opponent, in the final and won by a sweep. But another who did well was Gracie Barra’s Rafael Barata. He’s a roosterweight, but fought really well,” recounts Bruno Bastos.

Christian Broadnax celebrates. Photo: Dan Gerous (publicity)

Also in the black belt division, former UFC fighter Hermes França came up with a submission to capture middleweight gold. The winner of the purple belt category was WEC lightweight champion Ben Henderson, who showed how his ground game is sharp as ever winning his weight group and the absolute division to boot. Other standouts in the event with over 500 participants were the Broadnax twins Christian and Christopher, who won the featherweight and lightweight blue belt divisions. In the female category, Pan 2010 champion Kristina Barlaan won both her weight group and absolute at blue belt.

Check back on GRACIEMAG.com later for a photo gallery and team results:

Kids

1st – MMA Lab (88 pts)

2nd – Lion’s Den (86 pts)

3rd – Relson Gracie AZ (47 pts)

4th – Siege MMA/Lotus Club (44 pts)

5th – GD Jiu-Jitsu (42 pts)

Adult

1st – GD Jiu-Jitsu (249 pts)

2nd – MMA Lab (119 pts)

3rd – Rey Diogo/De Brazil (92 pts)

4th – Ruffhouse (74 pts)

5th – Megaton (64 pts)

Bruno Bastos will be in action in Arizona. Photo: Carlos Ozório

Bruno Bastos is a Jiu-Jitsu workingman. Whether with or without the gi, the Nova União representative competes and is always a candidate to place at the top. This Saturday will be no different. The fighter will be in action at the Arizona BJJ State Championship promoted by Gustavo Dantas. There’s a thousand-dollar payout for the winner of the absolute division.

“I’m going to compete in the absolute. I know there will be tough opponents like Guybson Sá. Hermes França’s going to be in the master division, too, so it will be real cool,” he says.

However, Bruno is shooting for another big achievement, but in Brazil, where he will enter the running at the Rio International Open and International Masters tournament to take place from the 22^nd to the 25^th of July.

“I’m going to compete in the Rio Open and the master as well. I want to win four medals. They don’t all need to be gold, but I’m aiming to get on the winners’ stand four times,” he tells GRACIEMAG.com.

Now a resident of Dallas, Texas, the black belt promises to take a bevy of students with him to the events.

“I’ll arrive in Brazil on July 16 to compete. I’m going to take a group from here too and will leave teaching in the hands of my student Daniel Jacaré while I’m away,” he says in finishing.

11:59 pm Arizona time today – June 23 – marks the final deadline to sign up for the competition where the winners take home bounty like LCD screens, Nintendo DS’, Video cameras and more.

Click here to sign up.

For further information, click here.