What are the most prestigious Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments?

Have you ever met someone who said they were an "All-American" wrestling champion or some other sports hero in days gone by? Sometimes it's hard to know if these claims are true. It doesn't matter if it's just idle boasting, but if you are looking for a coach or teacher, it may be important to know if these claims are based on fact. Now it seems like BJJ is the newest competitive sport that generates dubious claims in bars and even on websites of martial arts schools, fight clubs, and instructors' biographies. For people not yet familiar to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling, anybody that puts something like "extreme ngxx grappling intergalactic submission champ" can be convincing. Hopefully the following will help those just getting into the sport to more quickly cut through the BS.

There are two organizations that run the premiere/top level tournaments in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling. They are ADCC and IBJJF. There are two types of competitions that Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors train for. One is "no-gi" or submission grappling and the other is traditional Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the gi. Abu Dhabi Combat Club's no-gi submission grappling tournament is generally considered the top event for no-gi grappling. It is sponsored by the prince of Abu Dhabi and is a professional (money prize) competition held every other year. It has been around since 1998. Regulations stipulate that you must qualify through the many qualifying tournaments held around the world. Recently, ADCC has started an annual gi tournament with qualifiers. It has attracted top level guys but does not yet carry quite the same prestige as the nogi event.

The IBJJF is run by Carlos Gracie , a son of one of the Gracie jiu-jitsu founders and head of the ubiquitous Gracie Barra franchises. The world championships are held every summer. This is the event that attracts almost all the best competitors of every belt level. To win this event at the black belt level is considered by most to be the top goal of Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors. There have been only three USA-born champions (who do not have Brazilian family). One is the famous UFC champion BJ Penn in 1999. Rafael Lavoto Jr. has won the worlds more recently.  Alberto Crane shared a championship with a Brazilian teammate in 1997. Both of these competitors were pioneers who competed when the sport had far fewer participants overall. In IBJJF there are many weight classes, belt divisions and age divisions. One thing that be very misleading to many newcomers to the sport are claims of being a world champion when the person making the claim may have won at blue belt (second lowest skill level) in the senior 2 division (over 40 years old) to give an example. These divisons sometimes only have 2-3 competitors and the skill levels are NOWHERE NEAR THE SAME LEVEL as adult/open divison black belts. IBJJF also organizes a "No-gi World Championships." This is another top-tier event that attracts many of the best. Other IBJJF tournaments are noteworthy at the black belt level, especially the Pan-American and Pan-American nogi tournaments. Even lower belt divisions such as purple and brown belts can be very competitive at IBJJF tournaments.

NAGA, Grappler's Quest, USA Grappling, and other tournaments sometimes attract great competitors but titles here do not mean much in and of themselves because often events do not have many participants or at least high level ones. They are very "hit or miss" and are not as prestigious. Various Pro-Ams and other professional prize money tournaments have many great competitors but have not been around long enough for the titles themselves to be sought independently of the prize money the way IBJJF and ADCC titles are. Many events are not held regularly but are one-time events, or conversely in the case of NAGA and Grappler's Quest, they hold so many events that they are hard to keep track of even for die-hard fans.