📍 Mississippi

The Jackson metro got its own formal foundation in 2006, when Gracie South opened as the area's first dedicated jiu-jitsu academy. Chance Sheppard — a black belt under Travis Neagle, himself a second-degree black belt under Royce Gracie — built it into a multi-location operation with a satellite school in Pearl run by Ramey and Amber Kent, who came up through the Madison program starting in 2016. That lineage traces a straight line back to the Gracie family and speaks to how seriously Sheppard has treated the transmission of the art. On the other end of the state geographically but equally important is Gracie United, the organization built by Brazilian black belt Rafael Ellwanger, who moved to the United States in 2006 and began constructing what eventually became 33 locations across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Ellwanger won the 2013 IBJJF Black Belt Master 2 World Championship while simultaneously running one of the most consequential BJJ networks the South has ever seen. Gracie United Hattiesburg and Gracie United Wiggins are among the Mississippi outposts keeping his curriculum active in the state.

The geographic picture of Mississippi BJJ breaks into two distinct zones. The Jackson metro — Ridgeland, Madison, Pearl, Flowood — holds the densest cluster of academies and draws competitors from central and northern Mississippi for regional tournaments. The Gulf Coast corridor from D'Iberville through Biloxi to Gulfport is the other hub, anchored by Belcher's American Top Team affiliate and Steel Coast BJJ in Gulfport, an IBJJF-registered academy. Further out, places like Natchez have their own presence — Swamp Donkey Mixed Martial Arts has put combat sports on the map in a city of 15,000 — and Goldsby's Gym and Martial Arts in D'Lo serves practitioners in Simpson County who would otherwise have a long drive to the nearest mat. The American Grappling Federation runs a Mississippi State BJJ Championship that pulls entries from all these zones and serves as the state's clearest annual measure of competition depth.

The training culture in Mississippi skews recreational with a strong recreational-competition blend. Most academies keep adult and kids programs running in parallel, and the long summer heat pushes a lot of training indoors year-round, which means mat time stays consistent. The Mississippi scene does not produce the tournament volume of Texas or Florida, but it exports fighters — Belcher is the most prominent, but not the only one — and the lineages present are serious: Gracie, Jucao, Soneca, Royce Gracie through Travis Neagle. A newcomer arriving in Mississippi is not stepping into a compromised version of the art.

MatMade lists 99 BJJ gyms across Mississippi, covering everything from full-time academies with multiple black belts on staff to smaller affiliate schools in rural counties. The concentration is highest in Hinds, Madison, and Harrison counties, but the coverage is statewide. If you're new to the state or new to jiu-jitsu, starting with the Gracie South or Gracie United networks gives you immediate access to structured curriculum and established lineage. If you're on the Coast, Belcher's American Top Team gym in D'Iberville and Steel Coast in Gulfport are the natural starting points. The state is smaller than its neighbors but not shallow.