Alexandre "Xande" Ribeiro is a world class jiu jitsu practitioner who's widely regarded as being one of the best pound for pound grapplers on the planet today. Originally from Manaus, Brazil, Ribeiro currently trains out of The Arena MMA (located in San Diego, California) alongside his brother Saulo Ribeiro, Diego Sanchez, and Rani Yahya amongst others as part of the University of Jiu Jitsu fight team. Ribeiro's jiu jitsu credentials and grappling prowess is incredibly intriguing crossing over to mixed martial arts, and he has been victorious in his first two professional fights.

Among his many accomplishments Ribeiro is a seven time winner at the World Jiu Jitsu Championships, a two time winner at the ADCC Submission Wrestling Championships, and remains a regular competitor at the top grappling events in the world. Ribeiro is incredibly comfortable fighting from any position on the mat, possesses excellent sweeps and transitions and is particularly impressive at passing his opponents guard and taking their back. Ribeiro is as technically sound a grappler as anyone in the world, and his pure ground skills easily rank amongst the very best on the planet today. He doesn't have a very flashy or complicated submission game, but Ribeiro's technique and understanding of jiu jitsu is flawless and he has mastered the very basics in the sport. When it comes to jiu jitsu there is a definite difference between a fighter who is "just" a black belt and one who is an elite level world class practitioner, and Ribeiro definitely belongs amongst the latter. There are very few, if any fighters in the world today who would voluntarily take Ribeiro down or try controlling him on the ground, and his ground game, submission skills and jiu jitsu abilities will never be questioned. Unlike a typical grappling match, in MMA you have to be able to get the fight to the ground in order to use your ground skills and Ribeiro has struggled somewhat with his takedowns early in his MMA career (see bouts with Keiichiro Yamamiya and Takashi Sugiura).To that end Ribeiro will need to continue working on improving his wrestling and takedowns abilities in order to round out his grappling abilities and fully compliment his ground game.

While his grappling credentials were excellent upon entering the sport, there were obvious questions surrounding his striking abilities. Ribeiro has done his best to silence those through his first year in the sport and has looked very promising at times on his feet. He's shown a willingness to stand and trade (see bout with Yamamiya), and ironically has finished both his MMA fights with his standup skills rather than his submissions. Ribeiro displays good natural punching power and did knock out Keiichiro Yamamiya standing (see below). He also showed good clinch potential in his fight with Takashi Sugiura, hurting his opponent with powerful knees from in close before swarming him with punches and leaving Sugiura bloodied and crumpled in the corner to win via TKO. Ribeiro will need to continue working on his technical striking, footwork and head movement but his overall development on his feet has been quite encouraging and only bodes well for his future.