Early 20th century–1980s by Alfredo Storni featuring capoeirista
Ciríaco defeating jujitsu fighter Sada Miyako with a
rabo de arraia kick,
O Malho, 1909. Fighting sideshows called
vale tudo became popular in Brazilian
circuses during the early 20th century. In 1909,
capoeirista Francisco da Silva Ciríaco defeated Japanese jiu-jitsu fighter
Sada Miyako in one of the first documented confrontations of this kind in Brazil. Examples of such bouts were described in the
Japanese-American Courier on October 4, 1928: However, this circus term did not enter popular use until 1959–1960, when it was used to describe the style-versus-style bouts featured in a Rio television show called
Heróis do Ringue ("Heroes of the Ring"). The matchmakers and hosts of the show included members of the
Gracie family, including
Carlson Gracie and
Carley Gracie. The participants were all legitimate practitioners of their styles. The
Gracie family, which had origins in the circus business, devised the "
Gracie Challenge", where they would invite or be challenged by opponents from other martial arts to a Vale Tudo match to prove the effectiveness of their Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracies would hold their challenges behind closed doors at their gyms, but in some cases they also held public events.
Euclydes Hatem, known as Mestre Tatu, was the creator of
Luta Livre, a Brazilian
submission wrestling, variant of
catch wrestling. In 1942, he defeated George Gracie in a historic match. Years later, in 1968, one of his students,
Euclides Pereira, also defeated
Carlson Gracie. One night during the show, João Alberto Barreto (later a referee for
UFC 1) was competing against a man trained in Luta Livre. Barreto caught his opponent in an
armbar and the man refused to
submit. Barreto broke the man's arm. Consequently, the show was canceled and soon replaced by a
professional wrestling show called
Telecatch. From 1960 onwards, Vale Tudo remained mostly an underground
subculture, with most fights taking place in martial arts dojos or small gymnasiums. The Vale Tudo subculture was based in
Rio de Janeiro, but many fights took place in the
northern region, the
southern region and the
Bahia state, where
Capoeira is prevalent. The scene in
Rio de Janeiro focused mainly on the intense rivalry between
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and
Luta Livre. Fights in the other regions featured more diverse martial arts competing in the events. (top) does
rabbit punches on
Rei Zulu's head while he's on turtle position, 1980 In 1980 and 1984
Rickson Gracie fought two events against Casimiro de Nascimento Martins ("Rei Zulu"), father of
Zuluzinho. Both events were preceded with public interest and they filled the
Maracanãzinho stadium in Rio de Janeiro. vs
Rei Zulu In 1984 at the
Maracanãzinho it was held the
Noite das Artes Marciais ("Night of the Martial Arts") also known as '
("Jiu-Jitsu vs Martial Arts"), fought by representatives of BJJ against representatives of Muay Thai, Kung Fu, Kickboxing and Luta Livre. Future UFC 7 champion Marco Ruas participated, with a draw against BJJ representative Fernando Pinduka. There was also a match between Rei Zulu versus Kickboxing world champion, and future promoter of the International Vale Tudo Championship and manager of multiple Brazilians in MMA and K-1, Sérgio Batarelli. And in 1991 the most famous event happened: ' between representatives of both martial arts. The event was organized after BJJ practitioners almost got into a brawl with Luta Livre fighters, after they invaded a BJJ tournament in order to fight
Wallid Ismail, as he had issued an insult and a challenge at a local newspaper against Luta Livre. The Luta Livre fighters were convinced to stand down and instead fight in a public challenge.
Robson Gracie, organizer of the event, convinced
TV Globo, Brazil's largest network, to broadcast the event live under the assumption it was a pure grappling event, the rules were later changed to Vale Tudo but Globo kept the program. The actual event would see 3 matches, all with victories by Jiu-Jitsu representatives. August 29, 1993—a few months before the first UFC event—also saw the event ''
in Curitiba, fought between capoeiristas'' against Thai boxers from the
Chute Boxe Academy. It was the introduction of several future MMA fighters such as
Rafael Cordeiro, Jose 'Pelé' Landi-Jons and Nilson de Castro, and was the first Vale Tudo/MMA event in Curitiba, a future MMA center.
1993–2000s Yuki Nakai fights
UFC 1 finalist
Gerard Gordeau at
Vale Tudo Japan 1995 In the 1970s,
Rorion Gracie of the famous Gracie family emigrated to the United States and introduced Vale Tudo to a new market when he, together with American entrepreneur
Art Davie, helped found the
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993. The event was advertised as a competition where fighters would each represent different martial arts in a
single-elimination tournament without weight classes and no rules—although there were three rules: no biting, eye-gouging or fish-hooking. To pitch the event for TV executives, Gracie and Davie used the footage of the
Gracie Challenges and Vale Tudo events in Brazil where the family had participated. The first event was named
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (later retroactively renamed to
UFC 1). Rorion's younger brother,
Royce Gracie represented
Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and won the event after
submitting three opponents in succession. and more editions were realized. The UFC also pioneered the "
promotion" model for Vale Tudo/Mixed Martial arts, instead of promoters arranging one-off events like before. Inspired by the format of the UFC, many new promotions of Vale Tudo were created. In Japan, former
professional wrestler Satoru Sayama had created in 1985 a
hybrid martial arts organization named
Shooto, which featured
striking with all limbs,
takedowns,
groundfighting and
submissions. Impressed by the UFC, in 1994 he introduced Vale Tudo to Japan by organizing the
Vale Tudo Japan tournament, which was more rules-free compared to previous Shooto rules.
Rickson Gracie won the 1994 and 1995 editions of the tournament, making him famous in Japan. In 1997
PRIDE Fighting Championships was founded in order to match Rickson Gracie with popular Japanese
shoot-style professional wrestler Nobuhiko Takada. The rules of PRIDE were modelled after the ones from Vale Tudo Japan with some modifications. The first event of the organization had an attendance of 47,000 fans and attracted the attention of Japanese mass media and soon PRIDE became one of the largest and most popular combat sports organization in the world, and it helped to popularize MMA. However, in the United States there was a backlash against the violent nature of the nascent sport. In 1996, Senator
John McCain saw a tape of the first UFC events and immediately found it abhorrent. McCain himself led a campaign to ban the UFC, calling it "human cockfighting", thirty-six states followed his campaign, and the event was blacklisted from television. In response, the UFC started to implement more restrictive rules, weight categories and judges, eventually evolving into the
Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. The name "Mixed Martial Arts" was also devised at this time as they felt the term NHB was detrimental to the public image of the sport and better represented the new evolution of the sport after the introduction of the new rules. (
standing, in black trunks) vs
Renzo Gracie (
on the ground, in white trunks) during the Pentagon Combat event before the event descended into a riot In Brazil, Vale Tudo eventually met similar obstacles to those faced in the US. In 1997 there was the creation of a major event named "Pentagon Combat", with a pentagonal cage similar to the UFC's Octagon, counted with veterans
Oleg Taktarov and
Murilo Bustamante, and sponsored by Prince
Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, later known for his creation of the
ADCC and investment in BJJ. The main event continued the Luta Livre-Jiu-Jitsu rivalry by matching LL representative
Eugenio Tadeu and BJJ representative
Renzo Gracie, both who also had a very personal rivalry. The fight went a back-and-forth between both contestants until members of the audience approached the cage and started to shout insults and interfere in the bout by attacking the contestants, Gracie fought back one of his attackers and soon after the confusion escalated into a full
riot, as people threw chairs into the ring, supporters of both fighters brawled, warning shots were allegedly fired by security and the lights were turned off by the promoters to control the fight. The event was broadcast live on national television by
Rede Globo's SporTV. The confusion resulted in the
state of Rio de Janeiro banning Vale Tudo events for almost 10 years. Footage of the brawl was used by
CNN in a special report order to condemn the sport in the United States. As the UFC and similar promotions started to receive more rules. The premier organizations of the late 1990s became the World Vale Tudo Championship (WVC) and the
International Vale Tudo Championship (IVC). The WVC was organized in 1996 by
Frederico Lapenda and Sérgio Batarelli, the due promoted together four events, including Brazil's first Vale Tudo/MMA
pay-per-view, but soon a dispute between the two led to Batarelli to leave and create the
IVC. The two promotions featured prominently throughout the 1990s as they were also televised on Brazilian TV and
pay-per-view. The WVC and IVC were based in the Brazilian financial capital of
São Paulo and launched the careers of many of today's MMA stars. While based in Brazil, they also did international events: WVC did events in
Japan,
Aruba and
Jamaica, while the IVC had events in
Venezuela,
Portugal and
F.R of Yugoslavia. However, after the state of
São Paulo prohibited Vale Tudo from being a sanctioned sport, both promotions went into decline and have not staged an event since 2002.
2000s–present Beginning in the early 2000s, newer promotions such as
Jungle Fight and Bitetti Combat abandoned traditional Vale Tudo rules in favor of the safer
mixed martial arts "Unified" rules. However, some promotions continued the use of traditional rules for a time, most notably Meca World Vale Tudo and Rio Heroes. "Vale Tudo" was still used as a synonym for MMA in Brazil throughout the 2000s, the term started to be dropped as the sport grew and Brazilian media started to cover MMA events, first with
RedeTV! covering UFC events in 2009, and in 2011 it was picked by Brazil's largest network
Rede Globo. events sometimes cause controversy in the media. Critics of the sport argue that Vale Tudo shows should all adopt the MMA "Unified" ruleset created in the United States by Athletic Commissions, and used by various other countries such as Canada and England. On the other hand, supporters of Vale Tudo criticize the Unified Rules, pointing out that there is no medical proof that the Unified Rules are safer, no contestant has ever been killed or permanently disabled while fighting under traditional rules, the Unified Rules were created not for safety, but to ban techniques that commissioners saw as "uncivilised" (such as the soccer kick and headbutt), that the Unified Rules set is not used in Japanese, Russian, Singaporean and Thai promotions, and so on. Proponents also counter that the style of mixed martial arts fighting created by the Unified Rules is now so different from traditional Vale Tudo that it should be treated as an entirely different sport, just as
kickboxing is considered different from
Muay Thai. == As a fighting style ==