Know Your Vale Tudo: Spotlight on Euclides Pereira

The Blonde Devil - awesome in fighting....and in picking out a moniker/nickname

Click here for the man himself-  Euclides Pereira Interview - one of the few who defeated Carlson Gracie. Eucleides also has something like 350 document Vale Tudo wins.

The following is excerpted from a student of his, TUF alumni, Justin Wren:
Euclides Pereira... The Blonde Devil. A Luta-Livre (No-Gi) fighter from the Northeast part of Brazil who had one of, if not the greatest Vale Tudo career in the history of Brazil having over 380 wins with no defeats. This man fought Carlson Gracie, Zulu, Waldemar Santana, and Ivan Gomez along with many other greats from his time... Mainly because I have seen legitimate proof. I have seen hundreds, I repeat, HUNDREDS of newspaper clippings from his fights. Pre-hype clippings of Helio Gracie saying how "Euclides will be lucky to last 30 seconds with Carlson" along with the rules the Gracies and Euclides agreed upon prefight. I saw pictures and headlines of him defeating Carlson and Carlson looking battered and broken. I saw a BEAUTIFUL body kick that Euclides landed on Zulu during their fight. I saw clipping after clipping after clipping in ONE of Euclides several scrapbooks that opened my eyes to a piece of MMA history that I have never known about.

For the next TWO hours we traded techniques, mainly him teaching me. He adds things to submissions you would never think of. Some of it are some little dirty tricks he learned throughout his career to make the submission quicker, and add to the pain lol. None of it is illegal at all, but just had a "mean" factor to it that I learned in wrestling but that seems to be missing from sport jiu-jitsu. Little tricks that in a fight are gonna set up the RNC faster and not have to fight the hands so hard, or little ways to finish a guillotine in half the time, things that are like... "Why in the heck haven't I thought of or done this before?" Listening to this man I would feel like I was listening to a Rocky Marciano, a Dan Gable, or a Cael Sanderson... Somone that had been to the top, someone who was something great, who accomplished what 99.9% of people never will.

...He was on a weekly Vale Tudo show that was for SIX years and he fought EVERY week. His career was from the early 60's till 1985. Oh and eat a lot of PUMPKIN, fruits, and greens... I know if he knew I was writing about him, and didn't tell you his secret to still working out at almost 70 he'd kick my butt... so eat pumpkin!

 "Please, keep it all. Bring it with you. I was going to throw all that into a fire anyway. It's just the past, nobody seems to care anymore. Sometimes, I ask myself whether it all happened, or whether it was just a dream in my old head. If you find a way to let people know, fine. If not, I don't care at this point. Once I was so sad, looking to all those old papers, that I almost made a big fire with the whole thing. Maybe it would be better, if I would not see it anymore."...
I heard those words from the sad looking old man, while he gave me a dusty album with hundreds of newspaper clips, plus packs and packs of old dusty pictures....

How about this quote from Armando Wriedt 9th degree Black belt under Helio & one of the most prestige Gracie BB's ever...

"With no doubts, Euclides was the most skilled, a complete Vale-Tudo fighter. Very good in the standing-up game. He threw well, he passed the guard well, nobody could put him in a leg lock, and he was very calm in the ring. Although he was a student of Jurandir, of Pedro Hermeterios lineage, I believe that Euclides was better than all of us of The Academia Gracie, since we use to learn jiu-jitsu to teach and he, to fight in Vale-Tudo. He had a natural talent for fighting, being beyond doubts the most technical fighter I have ever seen in action." ...