Only the brightest stars pierce the orange,neon-tinged dome of Rio de Janeiro sky.There are fights tonight. A bank of darkclouds scuds off the Atlantic to drop sheetsof rain, which sizzle off the scorched pave-ments of the city. Bottlenecked rush hourtraffic labors in the flooded streets, but thefans won’t be stopped. In the depths ofFlamengo Stadium, close to the oil-stainedbay, fighters tape up and chant their privatemantras. The crowd waits and the cagewaits for the glory and the violence of aBrazilian tradition known as vale tudo.Anything goes. Only the brightest starswill pierce the pall of anonymity of beingjust another fighter.

One local lutador (fighter) has agreed to bemy guide through the rough world ofBrazilian mixed martial arts. I wanted tovisit the places where the sport of vale tudo(translated as “anything goes”) evolvedfrom a Brazilian fighting tradition into aworldwide sports phenomenon, and to per-sonally observe the lives of the participantswho are the sport’s attraction.

Aloisio “Dado” Barros is 34 now, andthough he has met with moderate success,fighting several times in Japan, he is stillchasing the big hit. His brother, Baixinho,fought last year in the UFC, but lost toMartin Kampmann in Dublin. Three

fights, his manager has told him, will givehim a redemptive shot at the UFC onceagain. Currently he has won two.

Growing up poor, but surrounded by thefaded glory and persistent decadence ofRio’s Copacabana neighborhood, Dadomade a Faustian deal he can’t go back on;he has no higher education, no work expe-rience and no fallback plan. He onlybestows the skills garnered from nearlytwo decades as a fighter in this impover-ished, crime-ridden city where the sportbegan. He is a freelancer in a communitywhere allegiance to a specific gym is thenorm; Dado takes his training from as

Journey of Vale TudoPhotos and story by Tate Zandstra

*Editor Note: To differentiate between styles, the spelling “jujitsu” is for Japan and “jiu-jitsu” is for Brazil.

Boxer overlooks Rio de Janeiro.

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many specialists in as many places as hecan, looking for an edge.

Brazilian fighters come from all socialstrata, noted fighter-turned promoterCarlao Barreto says; some stem from thedesperate poverty and violence of thehillside slums called favelas, controlled byviolent drug gangs. Others come from Riode Janeiro’s privileged neighborhoods,where shooting steroids and rolling jiu-jitsu go with waxing eyebrows and tanningon the beach. They are all chasing the same

dream: a fat contract with a big US pro-duction, and the fame and glory attendant.The time has never been better; MMA con-tinues to grow in the U.S. and the world,outpacing long-established combat sportslike professional boxing in profit and pop-ularity.

The steep road to Nobre Arte (noble art)boxing gym winds upward throughnarrow, brick-paved streets in one of Rio’smany slums. The city is pumping moneyinto the slums these days, bringing water,

electricity, and hopefully order to theviolent and chaotic lives of the inhabitants,attempting to clean up before the 2014World Cup and 2016 Olympics brings thecloser scrutiny of world opinion. A yearago, Dado says, it was very dangerous tocome here; you would pass drug gangsoldiers with machine guns. Now you onlypass soldiers of the elite gang crimedivision BOPE, dressed in battle gear andcarrying machine guns, patched with theFaca e Caveira symbol, a skull withcrossed pistols, a dagger piercing the

crown. (UFC fighter Paulo Thiago is acurrent member of this elite squad.)

Nobre Arte itself sits atop of the slum witha clear view of the famous Rio skyline. Ithas the rancid smell of a classic boxinggym with a battered ring and old fightcards pasted to the peeling walls. Herelocal boxers and MMA fighters meet in theevenings to square off, training by pum-meling each other.

The boxers are easy to spot; they glide

around the ring with grace and sciencebefuddling the slow, lumbering MMAguys, most of them based firmly inBrazilian jiu-jitsu. The MMA fighters eatthe punches; it’s good for them. They plodforward, undoubtedly believing that wereit a real encounter, they would catch theboxer, drag him down, and finish himeasily on the ground. “Punching is hard forme,” says Dado, a luta livre stylist (streetstyle of BJJ). “In my mind, I know I canalways kick; leg kick, head kick, ortakedown, but the punching…it’s hard.”

Dado’s career began in his teens, trainingunder local legends Marco Ruas and PedroRizzo. Given the chance to kick, he is dan-gerous, but notoriety has its price, asDado’s opponents have seen him fightover the last decade or so, and know whatto look for.

Dado, like so many other fighters, cobblestogether an existence training housewivesand wannabes in Rio’s expensive gymsand working bouncing shifts here andthere. Sponsorships take many forms: free

The fight ending armbar.

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food at one restaurant, a bit of cash hereand supplements there. It’s a tenuouslifestyle, but for many, it gets them by.

Dado, attaching his name nominally toGracie Barra, in fact does his training at awide variety of gyms. His days usuallybegin about 6 AM with a quick, scaldingcoffee; he’s off into the chaotic Rio trafficon his motorcycle to train a client. Then it’sonto wrestling practice, followed by lunchand jiu-jitsu. He will end his day boxing.The training schedule is grueling; oftenDado spends twelve or more hours a day,six days a week, training himself betweenclients. The schedule takes a toll. “I havenever fought at 100%. With many yearspunching, kicking and grappling, it hurts toget out of bed everyday.” When I arrive, heis hurting from an elbow injury suffered ina submission tournament a couple weeksprior. Barely escaping an armbar in thefirst match, Dado was able to go on to winthe tournament, but paid a price.

Forbes magazine reported that in 2008, theUltimate Fighting Championship wouldnet total revenue of around $250 million,about 90% of the MMA market share. In2009, despite the frigid economic condi-tions experienced around the world, theUFC barely stuttered.

The story of how the current MMA jug-gernaut has emerged from an obscuremartial art devised in Japan’s feudal erahas taken on the thoroughly rehearsedquality of legend.

MMA, as it is now known throughout theworld, evolved from vale tudo. Vale tudoitself evolved from a swirling burst of chal-lenges among streetfighters, capoeristas,karate practitioners, Brazilian jiu-jitsustylists and their relative counterparts inluta livre, all bringing to the fight whateverthey had.

Before all that, however, there wasJigoro Kano, who founded the Kodokanin Tokyo, yet today the ultimate judotraining grounds, after having studiedthe dominant styles of Japanese martialarts. He made the training more aggres-sive and dispensed with ornamentaltechniques. Kodokan Judo defeated allchallengers for years and seemed to bethe invincible leader of all Japanesemartial arts, until a lone wolf happened

Dado trying to finish withground and pound.

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in the door one day and challengedanyone in the school to a fight.Mataemon Tanabe, the jujitsu master,exposed a fatal weakness in judo; it wasoutdated. The heavy armor of theSamurai was no longer; throws andsweeps could only put an enemy on theground, but alone could not defeat him.

Kano humbly invited the jujitsu master toteach at the Kodokan, and the seed formodern jiu-jitsu as we see today wasplanted.

It was a young Mitsuyo Maeda however,who, after being admitted to train at theKodokan, became the Japanesechampion both in judo and jujitsu. Maedatraveled the world for competition andeventually ended up in Brazil early in the20th century. There he took on crafting ofbrothers Helio and Carlos Gracie, theprogenitors of “Gracie” or simply“Brazilian” jiu-jitsu. Training for yearsunder Maeda, Carlos eventually openedhis own school, and BJJ was set on itscourse to revolutionize fighting through-out the world. After decades of seclusionin Brazil, Helio’s son Royce Gracie rep-

resented the art that burst onto the collec-tive consciousness in the UltimateFighting Championship.

“The greatest thing that Helio Gracie gaveus is the core defense system,” says SylvioBehring, Vice President of the BrazilianJiu Jitsu Federation, himself a 7th GrauBlack Belt, and the BJJ trainer to AndersonSilva. “If a guy is bigger, Gracie figured,when the fight goes to the ground, he willprobably land on top, so how do youdefend yourself?” The answer for Gracie,

slight of build, and constantly strugglingwith his health, was the flat on the backposition we now call the guard. Using thelegs to contain the opponent, a skilled jiu-jitsu fighter can end a fight innumerableways, but even a beginner can protecthimself.

That was Royce’s strategy way back in theearly nineties when the renegade UFCstruggled to find venues and employedvery minimal rules by which a smallerfighter could defeat a bigger, strongeropponent. “I can’t beat you, but you can’tbeat me,” Behring says. “That’s what

Royce did; he could outlast them, then it’sa matter of conditioning, and he could fightfor an hour easy.”

“So, these guys would go home and think‘Why did I lose?’” Sylvio says. Royce’searly opponents would get ground trainingwherever they could, then come back, stillbigger, still with a much more powerfulpunch, and with a clue how to avoid theBJJ traps. “And that,” says Sylvio, “iswhen it got hard for Royce to continue.”That is when the MMA arms race began.

“You can’t mix boxing and jiu-jitsu,” saysBehring, “Nothing is pure. If you want toget in (grappling range), train a littleboxing, a little Muay Thai, then you get therhythm; don’t play his game though. If Ican’t punch, why take that gamble?”Behring says of the variety of skills neededto compete in modern MMA. “That’s amistake a lot of guys make.”

The UFC however was not the originatorof what we today call MMA. Helio andCarlos Gracie are gone, but there is oneman left who lived through those earlyyears when the now famous “Gracie

Dado icing hisinjured elbow.

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Challenge” was an open invitation,declared loudly and publicly, to fight givenany style or size, to see who was better,which art was superior.

“He was on the front line in those days,”Sylvio Behring says. “You could fightHelio, Carlos, or Barreto; he is a warrior.”Master Joao Alberto Barreto mostfamously fought on the weekly Braziliantelevision show Ring Heroes, compiling 15fights and 15 victories in one year.

“I was a vale tudo fighter; I fought lutalivre, capoeira, judo…anyone, everyone,”Mestre Joao Barreto says from his massiveart deco loft on Ipanema beach. He wasone of the early Brazilian jiu-jitsu fightersalongside the Gracie brothers.

The idea for Ring Heroes itself was notoriginal, Joao says. According to him,Carlson started off in the ‘50’s by fightingcapoeira guys around Rio. “Nothingorganized, just challenges.” Then therewas a catastrophic flood, and the Gracie’sdecided to hold a tournament where theproceeds would help repair the damage.They did well, and as the idea of tourna-ments grew, soon they were promotingfights for money; the Ring Heroes conceptwas born the following decade.

Like the UFC, Ring Heroes was a hit, andone of the most popular shows onBrazilian TV while it lasted. “That lastfight on the show, I had this guy in the

Kimura and broke his arm.” Barreto saysthe media was against the show from thebeginning because the violence was tooreal. “There were no gloves, very commonbroken hands…faces.”

Following the demise of Ring Heroes,Barreto went on to become involved inpromoting and reffing fights. He refereedthe first UFC, Royce Gracie’s debut.

Little has changed in Rio. Even as theworld cautiously embraces MMA as amainstream sport, in the favelas, on thebeaches, in sweaty back alley gyms, guysgather to fight. But, says Sylvio Behring,don’t call it MMA. “MMA is an Americanmarketing misrepresentation…vale tudo,it’s 100% Brazilian right? They didn’t

want to give us credit.”

“This generation will die,” Sylvio sayssoberly, “And what we will have is a gen-eration of very precise fighters…warriors.It is coming.”

“Brazilians constantly evolve,” CarlaoBarreto says over hot Brazilian café over-looking the white sand stretch ofCopacabana beach. “That works? Theysay, ‘Show me that!’” He says the creativ-ity of Japanese jujitsu dojos remainsshackled by traditional training practices.“So we have purple belts here going toJapan and teaching the masters!”

Barreto knows the fight game; as a

Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and formerUFC competitor, he earned the moniker“Joe Rogan of Rio” and has become oneof Rio’s leading fight promoters. “Allmy friends have moved…LasVegas…LA,” Carlao says of the pull ofhigher paydays in the US on topBrazilian fighters. “I think in ten years,America will be the best in the world atBJJ.”

“Afraid?” he says, when asked if Dadois, about his fight. His face screws up inan expression of perplexity, as thoughgrappling with philosophy. “No” he saysfinally, and continues hanging clothes todry in the stifling heat of his small apart-ment. His fight approaching quickly,Dado is perpetually training, and perpet-ually in therapy, applying ice after everyworkout to battered joints.

Dado has prepared himself in his ownway, as best he can, to fight a young,skilled, strong opponent who likehimself, is hungry for the victory. Dadohas an odd charisma; he has a huge jaw,a thick brow. He is compact and heavilymuscled; his nickname “Dado”(meaning square head) was given to himby his grandmother. Whether by themystique of his lifestyle or for hishumorous, sometimes coarse personali-ty, people are attracted to him.

From the opening bell Dado attacks. Heputs his opponent down twice, physical-ly throwing him to the ground, butpresses too hard and nearly loses hisback to the mata leão, the strangle wecall “rear naked choke,” but which theBrazilians call “kill the lion.”

Twisting like a crocodile on a rope, Dadomanages to escape, and from the guardpummels his enemy’s face and body.From inches away, the shots have a dullecho. I can hear the impact on the ribs,like a kicked soccer ball, and on thehead, the sound of flesh on flesh, bonestriking bone, which is unmistakable.Alas, the first five minute round closeswith the fight undecided.

A brief rest and the fighters rise, theircorner men, in Dado’s case beingGustavo Ximu and Jefferson Moura,leader of Gracie Barra, melting away.The trap door swings shut and Dado

Dado boxing at Nobre Arte.

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kicks high, looking for a kill, but isbacked up, sprawling and reversing hisopponent’s attempted takedown. On toponce again, in the guard, Dado looksmenacing and dominant, opening cutsover both the man’s eyes. It is a primalposition really; one man atop another,leaning his weight down to pin the enemy,punching at any vulnerable target. I thinkof Sylvio Behring quickly, his belief inHelio’s system, and then look at Dado,strong and fierce, systematically beatinghis opponent until he can’t take any more.Just inches from the action, I am in doubt.

That’s when it happens. The guy on thebottom, the one with the bleeding face,catches Dado’s arm as his pace begins toslow. Fatefully, it is the left arm, theinjured one. As Dado shifts his weightand begins to power out of the armbar, hisweakened elbow gives, his face goeswhite, and he is left gasping; the loser ofthe fight.

Had it been his right arm, I think hewould have escaped. I’ve seen it before.Did the opponent know? Did he sense theweakness there? Dado goes to the lockerroom, devastated. For long, gritty weekshe has poured every ounce of power andenergy into training for this event, over inaround seven minutes. Briefly he speaksto his brother. What is said I never know,but when he turns to me, Dado says “I amso sorry, man” as though he were obligat-ed to win for sake of this article.

Baixinho steps into the cage against aman outweighing him by over 20 pounds.He puts the big fighter down in seconds,but can’t hold him there, and decides toback off, committing a transgression ofone of the sport’s primary laws: neverback up straight.

Baixinho doesn’t even see the kick whichleaves him sprawled, unconscious, for along 60 seconds.

What next for the brothers? It’s simple;they look for the next fight, the nextpayday. Maybe Baixinho will still havehis shot at the UFC. Dado awaits wordfrom the embassy regarding his applica-tion for a US visa. He wants to go workwith Renato Babalu Sobral in LA,teaching and looking for that one bigfight.

Kids jiu-jitsu looking on.

Lagoa with Sugarloaf Mountain.

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