MMA Roots: Vale Tudo O Lutador at Canecao

It was designed to be a celebration for three Brazilian jiu-jitsu stars: Amaury Bitetti, Jorge Pereira and Crezio de Souza. Instead, it was remembered for a fight in which Eugenio Tadeu protégé Alan Carvalho made his debut as a luta livre representative and stunned one of the Carlson Gracie academy’s premier lightweights.

Vale Tudo O Lutador was held on Dec. 19, 1996 at Canecao—the largest concert venue in Rio de Janeiro. It marked the first and only time a vale tudo event took place there.

At the end of 1996, Yan Bonder, the main creative force behind Tatame magazine, decided to partner with Ricieli Santos to create a new combat sports publication: O Lutador (“The Fighter”). Known for promoting the most important jiu-jitsu championships of the 1980s and 1990s, Santos convinced Bonder that a vale tudo event would be a great way to launch the new magazine and secure additional money to pay some expenses. The original idea was to hold a superfight between de Souza, Carlson Gracie’s most technical lightweight, and Tadeu, a luta livre icon.

“When they brought me the idea of the challenge, I did as the Gracies did,” Tadeu said. “I already had a history in fighting. I had fought with [Renan] Pitanguy, Royler Gracie and Wallid Ismail. I thought Crezio needed to be credentialed to fight with me. I suggested that he fight with my student, and if he won, I would fight him at the next event.”

The fact that Carvalho was an orange belt and had been fighting for just over a year led de Souza to accept a nearly 18-pound weight difference in the Tadeu disciple’s favor.

The rivalry between jiu-jitsu and luta livre turned Canecao into a powder keg once the two men entered the ring. De Souza dominated early, as he spent most of the 10-minute first round striking from Carvalho’s guard. However, the newcomer’s tactics worked. With his guard closed and his ability to defend against most of the blows, Carvalho managed to tire de Souza. By the second round, de Souza was no longer able to take him down. That was where the story of the fight started to change. Bigger and better prepared on the feet, Carvalho began to gain the upper hand in their exchanges. Around three minutes into the second round, an already fatigued and bloody de Souza sat down in guard. At that moment, Tadeu, surrounded by Ismail and Murilo Bustamante, stared at a historic scene and locked arms with his two rivals.

“There was no way around it,” Tadeu said. “At that moment, the elbows were coming from all sides, so it was better for us to hold each other’s arms, protect ourselves from one another and watch the fight.”

Soon after, Tadeu watched his student turn the tide for good with punches from side mount. With de Souza on all fours, badly injured and showing no signs of reacting, referee Fernando Pinduka—another Carlson Gracie disciple who fought Marco Ruas in 1984—stopped the fight and awarded the victory to Carvalho.

“That’s when the jiu-jitsu guys started to respect us more,” Tadeu said, “and I started preparing fighters for each jiu-jitsu weight class.”

It was a trying night all around for jiu-jitsu. Before de Souza lost to Carvalho, Pereira, a Rickson Gracie black belt, conceded full mount and back mount before he ultimately maneuvered behind Egidio Amaro da Costa and finished him with a rear-naked choke. Bitetti, meanwhile, faced Maurice Travis in the main event. Clearly unfocused after de Souza’s defeat, Bitetti was not able to beat the American Kickboxer with the ease everyone expected. He struggled despite outweighing Travis by some 22 pounds. Bitetti lost position while in full mount but managed to take down his counterpart and climb back to full mount again. After a series of punches, the Carlson Gracie black belt dispatched Travis with a rear-naked choke. Bitetti’s victory was a point of celebration.

At the conclusion of the event, as was common at the time, the accounts did not line up. The prevailing mentality within the jiu-jitsu community—everyone was a friend, so they were not required to pay for tickets—wound up preventing Bonder and Santos from raising enough money to cover the purses. Even with the Canecao almost full, they had a meager 130 paying spectators. It was barely enough to pay Travis. In order to pay the other competitors, the promoters were forced to sell a car. In the end, the purse of the show’s biggest star—luta livre’s Carvalho—was still missing.

“I felt like the rope was going to break on the weaker side,” Tadeu said. “They paid everyone in jiu-jitsu. Only my boy’s [money] was missing. He put on the main show of the night and was not going to get paid, so I had to take a tougher approach. I went to the offices of O Lutador magazine and seized some computers. Thank God everything worked out soon after, and they settled with us.”

Months later, O Lutador went bankrupt, and the talented Bonder wound up leaving the fight sports publishing market for good.