It's a quarter to 11 on a Saturday

And I'm seriously considering going to bed. Fuck that. I'll show you sleepies!

R.I.P. Helio Gracie, pt. 2

Just got the latest WON with Meltz writing Helio's obit and thought it was super compelling and appropriate that the week after MMA probably had its highest grossing pay-per-view, that the godfather of the sport needed to paid his respect. Copied and pasted w/o permission. If the writer of this piece wishes it to be pulled, all requests will be respectfully complied.

This section focuses on the birth of Helio's theories on self-defense through the eyes of the smaller person, the Gracie family feud, the carnyism of legit martial arts and the introduction of judo/jiu jitsu to Brazil.
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In Helio’s mind, he started as a fighter and grew as he got older, to dislike fighting. He felt fighting was necessary to prove to the public the realities of his art as the best for self defense. When, after a riot broke out between warring camps at a Vale Tudo show in Rio de Janeiro in 1997, when a Gracie Jiu Jitsu vs. Vale Tudo show headlined by Renzo Gracie vs. Eugenio Tadeau ended up with the lights suddenly going out at the 14:45 mark, fighting and even gunshots, and there was an outcry to ban the sport. Helio was quoted in newspaper articles as the founder of this type of fighting, who felt it had gotten out of hand and agreed with those who wanted it banned. He also lost interest in UFC when they added more rules, and most of all, eliminated the time limits.

“He felt Vale Tudo fights were necessary to show what was the most effective fighting art,” said Kid Peligro, a reporter who studied under him and worked with family members in writing books. “He felt once Gracie Jiu Jitsu was shown to be the most effective, there was no more need to fight.”

His mentality of Jiu Jitsu was simple. He felt that if a smaller and weaker man in combat was able to neutralize his opponent and avoid being finished, then that’s a victory for the smaller man. The idea was to defend, stay composed, and wait for the opponent to make a mistake.

“He helped so many people,” said Royler, 43, a multi-time world champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu who also fought several MMA fights in Japan, including the match that really turned the Pride promotion around against Kazushi Sakuraba in 1999. “He gave them a healthy way to work out that would give them confidence. He was a very straight guy. He had a mission in life and influenced so many people. He developed a way that a small guy can beat a big guy, or at least, defend himself against a big guy. He was my hero. It’s hard for me, because every time I put on a gi, it’s a memory of him.”

Rorion marketed the idea that his family, and by that, he meant his side of the family, were the masters. When he first showed up in Royce’s corner at the early UFC events, Helio was portrayed as the grand master and inventor of the techniques, with the story about him being a physically weak man learned these techniques to survive, and that back in Brazil, where matches like this were a popular sport (the popularity greatly exaggerated although the Gracie family is well known in Rio de Janeiro), nobody from the family had ever been beaten in 60 years.

Renzo Gracie went into a tournament created by the first of what would be many rival promotions who would copy the UFC concept, but fail on PPV. When Royce was asked if Renzo was his cousin, he joked, “If he wins, he is, andif he loses, he isn’t.”

Later, that history had to be revised when those who knew the history of Vale Tudo in Brazil brought up Helio Gracie’s two losses in what were his two most famous matches, a soccer stadium match against Masahiko Kimura and a challenge match from former protege Valdemar Santana, the latter of which is said to have lasted three hours and 45 minutes and is purported to have been the longest fight of its kind in history, although there were old-time Olympic wrestling matches and shoot pro wrestling matches that lasted longer.

It’s difficult to separate fact from fiction, as there is little actual documentation other then stories that have been passed down through generations largely from the family itself.

Helio’s older brother, Carlos, had 21 children, and more than 100 grandchildren, the most famous of whom was Carlson Gracie Sr. While Helio and Carlos both helped train Carlson, Helio and Carlson later split in the late 50s. The branch of the family and students of Carlson, who were far more successful in competition, portrayed Carlson in the role of the real unbeatable fighter, since Carlson never lost in competition.

There was a family feud in the 90s when the Gracies became famous in the U.S. On the Rorion side, they would point out that many Carlson disciples lost in competition, while on the Carlson side, they would point out Rorion would not train anyone unless they agreed they wouldn’t fight in competition, thus his students would never lose in public. In 1995, when Shamrock learned enough to neutralize Royce in their 36 minute draw, Rorion, sensing the world was catching up, pulled Royce out of competition, so he left on top and could be marketed as unbeaten. Plus, they pushed that Ken was 50 pounds heavier than Royce and just held him down trying for a draw. There were no real weigh-ins before the match. Ken claimed Royce was really 190, not 176, and that he was really 205 for the match because he had trained expecting a 45 minute or longer match, so it was a 15 pound difference. The truth is likely somewhere in between.

Brother Rickson was considered the real champion fighter on that side of the family, making his legend in Japan. He won eight-man tournaments in Tokyo in 1994 and 1995, against an equally clueless series of opponents, with his toughest competition coming from Yoshihisa Yamamoto, a pro wrestler from the RINGS organization. Pancrase had already gotten popular in Japan, coming from pro wrestling, so some form of pro wrestling-based MMA started there without any Gracie family influence, with the real godfather being Karl Gotch, the long-time trainer of the New Japan dojo. Gotch wasn’t as much a no holds barred fighter as a wrestler who learned catch-style, or submission style, at the Snake Pit in Wigan, England. Gotch didn’t like that kicking was allowed in Pancrase, saying it was wrestling, not a soccer match, but understood that kicking in fights was a significant part of Japanese culture because of the karate influence. Pancrase didn’t allow closed fist punches to the head, and while it wasn’t banned, also frowned on punching or using palm blows while on the ground because the idea was to always go for a submission, and even if doing open hand palms to the head on the ground helped you win, it was considered proof you didn’t have confidence in your technical skill.

In a sense, catch wrestling and Jiu Jitsu had the same origins in the early 1900s, but the British style was a closed society, taught to only a few guys with years of amateur wrestling background, whose mentality was to stay off their back, with the idea that a pin or submission would end a match.

Helio’s style was completely different, as he expected to be put on his back and spent his life refining defensive techniques from there. Another reality is that the Catch style stopped evolving and was never tested in competition after a certain point, so became stagnant at a certain level. Billy Robinson, one of the last great shooters developed at the Snake Pit in Wigan, England, truly believed in the 90s that his “hooking” knowledge was going to die because it wasn’t being passed on to a new generation. In Brazil, where competition between rival factions continued, caused the style to evolve to something that was created more for nearly no rules type of fights as opposed to submission wrestling matches, although the real evolution of what did and didn’t work has largely taken place in the last 15 years.

But as fighters started improving through competition, Rickson, like Royce, also pulled out of continuing to compete, leaving himself as the undefeated legend. Rickson came back for lucrative paydays for two Tokyo Dome matches with Nobuhiko Takada, a pro wrestling legend who was not a real fighter; and Masakatsu Funaki, who was a real fighter. Even though Funaki was much younger than Gracie, he had destroyed his body from in his youth doing pro wrestling since the age of 15, and then monthly shoot matches starting at 24, combined with overtraining in the dojo where every day was all-out before modern training techniques were understood, and Funaki had been physically shot for close to two years before the match. Although the advancing of the style has changed the perception today, even as recently as a few years ago, there were plenty of people who still believed that Rickson, now 50, was still the greatest fighter in the world.

On the other side of the family, It was always noted that when Santana defeated Helio, it was Carlson who defended the family’s honor in beating Santana, preserving the family name and legacy.

When Royce Gracie became famous for winning three of the first four UFC tournaments held in 1993 and 1994, and was billed by UFC officials as the world light heavyweight champion in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it was Carlson who contradicted the claims, noting Royce was beaten many times in Jiu Jitsu competition in Brazil and had never won anything of note there, and that he became a star in the U.S. only because he faced people who largely didn’t know what they were doing. Carlson also claimed that back in Brazil, his students always beat Helio’s students, and claimed many of his students, which included the Nogueira Brothers, Murilo Bustamante, Paulo Filho, Ricardo Arona, Stephan Bonnar, Mario Sperry, Carlos Baretto and Vitor Belfort, could have beaten Rickson, Helio’s son, who was pushed in the 90s as the unbeatable fighter of that period.

Helio largely stayed out of it, but when Rickson and Rorion had their business split, and Rickson marketed himself as having a 400-0 record, Helio made a point of saying Rickson really had (up to that point in time) only had nine legitimate matches, and that you can’t count people you tapped in the gym as wins on your record. Rickson’s record is no longer taken seriously, particularly after it came out that Rickson lost a match in a sambo tournament to judo master Dr. Ron Tripp, later explained by Rickson’s side as he entered the tournament without understanding the rules. Helio said if you included tapping people in gym scrimmages, he himself probably would have had thousands of wins.

Peligro noted that even in his 80s, he would give guys 60 years younger than him who had trained in Jiu Jitsu strong advantageous positions and then make small movements to neutralize any advantage. He was full of energy. Royce brought him from Brazil to corner him for his fights, not for show, but because he would see things others wouldn’t. Royler said he was a great cornerman because he didn’t yell at you, and between rounds he would give you two or three pieces of advice, calmly, thinking anything more would be too much for a fighter to process in limited time.

There was a famous story that before one of the early UFC shows, the Gracies had Helio roll with Jeff Blatnick, the 1984 Olympic Greco-Roman superheavyweight gold medalist. Blatnick obviously didn’t want to hurt the old man by slamming him hard, but his sons told him it was okay. As soon as they got on the mat, he had already locked Blatnick up in a submission. The roots of modern MMA in Japan not only came from pro wrestling as most everyone knows, but in Brazil as well, which few acknowledge.

Mitsuya Maeda, a small judo specialist, at 5-4 and 145 pounds, came to the U.S. before the turn of the century billed at times as World judo or World Jiu Jitsu champion. In those days, the terms were largely interchangeable. The judo and jiu jitsu of that day, which was developed in Japan, was largely a self defense art meant to use leverage, throws and submissions in street fight situations, before it became watered down with rules and became the specific sports both are today. They used the same carnival con men techniques used by the American pro wrestlers of that era, where they would work matches with traveling partners in order to fleece local towns of gambling money, and went all over the world both doing their worked matches, but also, using them to teach the principles of their judo, as well as moves from catch wrestling, which was the real submission form that morphed into early worked pro wrestling, that he learned from being around the pro wrestlers. He incorporated that knowledge gained from traveling the world to his judo.

Eventually he wound up in Brazil. Gastao Gracie, a diplomat in Rio de Janeiro, had Maeda teach Carlos Gracie, the oldest of five brothers, for two or three years, enough to learn some basics but hardly enough time to be a master of a style. Carlos started teaching what he knew and adapting as he did challenge matches. Although they grew up in an upper class environment, street fighting was prevalent at the time, but whatever skilled in those days was limited to those with experience in boxing. Carlos taught younger brothers Osvaldo, Gastao Jr., and Jorge the techniques to create a Gracie brothers fighting dynasty. The other three are largely forgotten in history as Osvaldo and Jorge had no sons to carry on their legacy. Jorge also had a falling out with Carlos, and at about that time, Gastao Jr., moved to Sao Paolo.

Ironically, Helio, the youngest brother, born October 1, 1913, was a skinny and almost sickly teenager. He was too weak to attend school, and at first his mother wouldn’t even allow him to train, let alone fight. But he would attend Carlos’ practices and mentally take in everything he learned.

By the 1920s, Carlos and Jorge were the ones who developed the initial Gracie challenge, publicly challenging boxers and any and all tough guys. As the story goes, one day when the head of a bank showed up for his lessons, Carlos was late and Helio, who had taken in everything he had seen his brothers do, started teaching. The banker was comfortable with Helio as his new coach because he could get more hands-on, one-on-one instruction.

The Jiu Jitsu of Helio Gracie differed from the style of Carlos, and his sons, which is the side of the family that included Renzo, Ralph and the late Ryan Gracie. Their style was an aggressive street fighting style based on athletic ability, in particular power, quickness and explosiveness. Helio, who was small, lacked in all three, so had to refine the style for what would work for him, or people like him. He based his style on being caught on his back and learning defense, in particular studying to perfect the guard, to neutralize bigger and stronger men through technique. In doing so, his style was to use as little energy as possible, and either take advantage of a mistake, or patiently wait for the bigger and more athletic opponent to gas out, and then go on the attack. That’s perhaps his key contribution, because in both judo and wrestling, being in that position meant a loss and the fight was over, so those sports offered little in using that as a resting position and even, as the style developed, an advantageous position. His knowledge of positioning and leverage was said to be unsurpassed. It was not for show that Royce had him in his corner for his fights, as in the gym he could constantly pick up technical things that even the most experienced family members would miss.

Carlos saw Helio’s changing of what he learned to be interesting, and thought he was a good teacher, but didn’t necessarily take it seriously as system advances. Helio insisted he had evolved the style with new techniques, and to prove it, challenged his brother to line up his three best instructors and proceeded to tap them out in less than five minutes, at which point Helio’s style became the basis of what was taught.

I'd beat ums: Feburary edition

I'm counting down the top things that will make February sweet.

5. More Podcasting

It brings me so much joy knowing that we are on iTunes with all the other internet celebrities. I think about our show everyday, thinking about how we can do better and get our show out to more people.

4. Valentine's Day

Kinda doing V-day very low key this year because fiancee is going to Canada(always in Canada, why don't you move there! And take me with you! Montreal is ahhh-some). We're going to our favorite all you can eat sushi place which I've been craving Japanese food since the year started.

The neighborhood Japanese restaurant shut down for some reason. Probably because I've only had worse service at only one other place(Olive Garden on Hesperian Blvd, Hayward). The food wasn't too bad. Good spicy salmon rolls, teriyaki chicken, but they always fucked up orders. We never wanted ginger dressing on the salad and almost 8 out of 10 times they would bring our salads in orange ginger goo. The point is I have gone too long without Japanese food.

3. Mario Kart Wii Game night

We're going to do exactly what Nintendo wants us to do. They want us to play their best game, using their archaic online system where we can't talk except through premade text bubbles. Screw the man. We're gonna use the great Skype. To talk mad profanely and to pick up friends of Chris Hansen.

Prediction: I will plug in AND turn on my Wii at least once a season. So far this winter. Nothing but MK Game Night will change that.

2. Street Fighter IV

Can't say much. I just know I really want it. I really want to make an excuse to buy a fighting stick. I am not playing IV with that shit controller. C'mon taxes. I need to beat CJ and Jay's asses. Maybe Dibs if he buys it.

1. I'm getting laid off

Nothing has been confirmed but my place of employment has informed me that after February my department will not exist. There are opportunities to move to other areas, but I just want to stop working there. Give me my free money, let me go home to drink tequila, and I'll do a solo podcast hammered.

(edit)

I just overheard someone get fired today. Another co-worker got "escorted" to the elevator. It's happeneing.

R.I.P. Helio Gracie, pt. 1

Helio Gracie was buried with his red belt. Royce Gracie, son, and UFC Champion three times out ofthe first four UFCs threw his black belt atop the casket.

Just got the latest WON with Meltz writing Helio's obit and thought it was super compelling and appropriate that the week after MMA probably had its highest grossing pay-per-view, that the godfather of the sport needed to paid his respect. Copied and pasted w/o permission. If the writer of this piece wishes it to be pulled, all requests will be respectfully complied.
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Helio Gracie, the father of not only early MMA fighting legends Royce and Rickson Gracie, but in many ways, the father of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA style fighting, passed away in his sleep on 1/29 at the age of 95.

Gracie was a Brazilian with something of an age-defying Jack LaLanne- like reputation for always staying active and never getting sick, even in old age, which he attributed to his diet and lifestyle. But he had been ill in recent months, and had been hospitalized for more than a week after contracting pneumonia, in his home town of Itaipava, Brazil, before passing away.

“My mom said he just stopped eating, and was only drinking water,” said son Royler Gracie.

A small man, maybe 155 pounds in his fighting prime, Gracie learned Jiu Jitsu at first from observing older brother Carlos’ teachings while a teenager. As an adult, he refined the concepts and developed a style based on almost exclusively technique, defense and conditioning designed to allow a smaller man to survive and outlast a bigger man in competition, based on using as little strength as possible, which his sons later marketed in the U.S. as Gracie Jiu Jitsu. He became a sports star in his native country in the 50s, and later was portrayed as something of an inventor and patron saint of no holds barred fighting, which in recent times he actually wasn’t even a proponent of. In his later years, he achieved a sort of celebrity status to a degree in the U.S., but even more in

Japan and Brazil as this master and legendary figure, particularly when in the corner of son Royce in most of his biggest matches in the early days of UFC, and later Pride. Oldest son Rorion, who moved to the U.S. in the late 80s looking to take what he learned from his father and market it in a new part of the world, marketed tapes and a history of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, known as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu back home, portraying his father as the inventor, and claiming that his family had been unbeaten in no holds barred matches for 60 years, presenting him as a sort of Babe Ruth of his world. The marketing got little traction, other than he taught some celebrities out of his garage he met while working as a stunt man, and got an article in Playboy magazine based on a $10,000 challenge he made to fighters from any other discipline, the Gracie Challenge that his family publicly made in Brazil as a way to market their product.

Rorion and Art Davie came up with the concept of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, based on the Gracie Challenge matches against fighters of different styles in Brazil, with the concept of fighting inside a cage instead of a ring, as was standard in the Vale Tudo wars his father and cousin Carlson had been big stars in during the 50s, when two of the most famous matches were held in soccer stadiums. They went to virtually everyone in U.S. television with the concept of a no holds barred tournament pitting masters of different styles against each other, and were turned down flat by everyone, from the biggest networks to the smallest cable stations. The only nipple came from an enthused Campbell McLaren, an executive of Semaphore Entertainment Group, a company that was looking for an idea to crack the PPV market after doing concerts and other events that ended up being unsuccessful. The only concepts that worked up to that point on PPV were boxing and pro wrestling. McLaren was looking at bringing Lucha Libre to PPV, when Rorion Gracie and Davie came to him with the concept.

The first UFC, held November 12, 1993, in Denver, was for McLaren, a spectacle of an event, pro wrestling without fake matches, which he and probably nobody involved had any

intention of it ever becoming what it turned out to be. For Rorion Gracie, it was meant as a million dollar marketing idea, establishing Gracie Jiu Jitsu and changing the world of martial arts. The concept was to put younger brother Royce, at 6-1 and 176 pounds, skinny, and looking nothing what Americans visualized a badass fighter looking like, in with bigger guys who were clueless to the ground game. Although Royce himself had never fought in a professional match, he had won numerous dojo challenge matches, and in theory would be able to use Helio’s techniques to get a match to the ground before eating too many punches, either by takedown or pulling guard, and then the clueless opponent would burn out trying to escape the guard, make a mistake, and get tapped. In those days, when nobody knew the techniques, at seminars, any of the Gracies could routinely tap just about anyone within a few minutes. The idea was he would win, people would be amazed at a skinny guy winning, and Gracie Jiu Jitsu would take over from karate, Tae Kwon Do and kung fu classes in the lucrative market of self- defense, particularly for women.

UFC was set up to be an infomercial for Gracie Jiu Jitsu, but Royce still had to win the first tournament, which he did, as expected, as he had a lifetime of training from people with decades of experience in this game against people completely clueless as to what awaited them.

The entire martial arts world in the U.S. went crazy. It had always been marketed around myths, and this reality of combat destroyed the myths of what would happen when masters of different disciplines were put together. The traditional martial arts world complained that real world champions were not in the tournament. And this was a complete spectacle, with credentials, records and backgrounds of the participants exaggerated or outright made up.

The Gracies marketed that 90% of fights end up on the ground, and their system was all about technique, so a small man could beat a big man since size and strength didn’t matter.

Of course, in the long run, that wasn’t going to be the case, but the truth was, smaller guys who started studying with the Gracies for even a short period of time were able to easily tap out their bigger friends who may have been more athletic, but had no training, and before styles became mixed and people learned from the best of every style, Jiu Jitsu, with its ground defensive techniques and submissions, was the most effective singular art for at least one-on-one self defense against a bigger attacker, which is what the average person wanted. It was not as effective against multiple attackers, but for the average person, nothing really is.

(part 2 con't tommorow)