Brazilian mixed martial arts martial artists and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior dos Santos has an estimated net worth of $2 million. He was born Junior dos Santos Almeida on September 12, 1984 to a poor family in Cacador, Santa Catarina, Brazil. He was raised by his mother and in order to help the family, he started working at the age of ten. He was 19 when he first met his wife, Vilsana Picolli, in a restaurant where he worked as a waiter. However, after ten years, they had divorced.
Junior dos Santos was 21 years old when he started to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Yuri Carlton. Carlton saw his potential and after working with him for some time, he invited dos Santos to begin training in mixed martial arts. Six months after his training, he won a few Jiu Jitsu tournaments in Salvador. He was soon invited to join an MMA practice where he met his boxing coach Luis Carlos Dorea. Roughly after a year he started training jiu jitsu, he made his debut professional fight.
Dos Santos was very successful initially. He won six out of seven match-ups suffering his only loss to Joaquim Ferreira. He quickly attracted the attention of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He debuted for the UFC on October 25, 2008 as a heavyweight fighter at the UFC 90. He knocked out top contender Fabricio Werdum despite he was considered an underdog. As a UFC fighter, he had been incredibly successful with 15 wins out of 16 bouts where 11 of them were won by knockout.
Junior dos Santos’ hero is Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira. He speaks native Portuguese, English and Spanish. His nickname Cigano started because he shows up in a practice with his long hair in a ponytail. Cigano means Gypsy in Portuguese.