Vale Tudo

Histoire

Vale tudo ("anything goes") is the Brazilian tradition of fights with almost no rules. From the 1920s and 1930s, members of the Gracie family and other fighters in Rio de Janeiro and Belém accepted challenges from capoeiristas, wrestlers, boxers and judoka to prove which style worked best.

In the early 1960s the fights reached television in Rio with the programme "Heróis do Ringue". The rivalry between jiu-jitsu and luta livre exploded on 26 September 1991, when the "Desafio" at Grajaú Country Club was shown live on Rede Globo: jiu-jitsu won the three bouts that took place.

Two years later Rorion Gracie helped create the UFC in the United States, where Royce Gracie won the first event in 1993. In Brazil, events such as the IVC kept vale tudo alive in the 1990s, until rules, gloves and weight classes turned it into modern MMA.

Le saviez-vous ?

• Vale tudo was a format of fighting, not a single technique: each fighter brought his own art.
• Luta livre created a special branch, "Luta Livre Vale Tudo", for these fights.
• In Portuguese-speaking countries MMA is still often called "vale-tudo".

Figures clés

• Hélio Gracie (1913–2009) — one of the founders of Gracie jiu-jitsu and of the challenge tradition
• Carlson Gracie (1935–2006) — great vale tudo fighter of the 1950s–60s
• Marco Ruas (1961–) — luta livre fighter, UFC 7 champion

Sources: Wikipédia (pt): Vale-tudo · ge.globo, "Em 1991, desafio entre jiu-jítsu e luta-livre colocou o vale-tudo na tevê em horário nobre" (2022) · Revista Recorde (UFRJ), "O Grande Desafio: o recomeço do Vale Tudo no Rio de Janeiro" · Wikipédia (pt): Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs Luta Livre