Maggie Grindatti

Maggie Grindatti was born on June 10, 1992, in Saco, a small city in York County, Maine, United States, growing up in the “Lumber State”.

During her formative years, Maggie Grindatti became an avid field hockey player, later being recruited by the University of the Pacific to play D1 field hockey, which she did for 4 years while graduating with a BA in Health, Exercise and Sport Sciences.

After finishing college Maggie relocated to Kaneohe, Hawaii (May 2014) where she lived with her uncle, T. Jay Thompson. It would be through his influence that Grindatti decided to train jiu-jitsu, then joining the K-Team Martial Arts Academy, a gym under the Relson Gracie Association banner.

With only one month of training, and once again, incentivized by her uncle, Maggie competed in her first BJJ tournament, winning double gold. Her success on the mats propelled her to compete often, around the country and train with various coaches, including Marcus Wilson, Egan Inoue, and Robert Drysdale. Maggie also started training mixed martial arts, making her amateur debut as a white belt.

In 2016, during a training camp at Drysdale’s gym in preparation for the IBJJF Pan American Championship, Grindatti met and befriended Roberto Abreu, a legendary grappling figure both as a coach and athlete. The relationship strengthened and in time Maggie moved to Florida, then joining Abreu’s own Academy, Fight Sports. Grindatti was a blue belt at the time, a rank she had earned in under 1 year of training.

Although already regarded as a hot grappling prospect at the time, Maggie’s jiu-jitsu grew exponentially once under Abreu’s instruction, quickly establishing herself as one of the top colored belts on the planet, with sequential world titles conquered (2017, 2018, 2019). Her fantastic campaign as an athlete would lead to her black belt promotion to black belt in December 2019, a rank awarded by her better-half, the aforementioned Roberto Abreu.