Caio Terra and Jeff Glover Agree to the Gi

From over at Graciemag HERE, Caio and Glover have agreed to fight in the gi at the upcoming Jiu-Jitsu expo.

Straight from Caio, “Even though I like Gi as much as No-Gi, it makes no sense for me to have a No-Gi match two weeks prior to the IBJJF Worlds. Even though Jeff hasn’t competed in awhile, he understood that it might affect my performance at one or both events and sent me a polite message inviting me to make the change, so we made a deal. As he agreed on competing with the gi, I agreed on having no weight limit. I believe this will make the fight more interesting, as Jeff won’t need to suffer from the cut and a little guy in the absolute is always fun to watch. I think the public was the one who most benefited from this, and as Jeff has told me, we will make this an epic fight, with both of us looking for the submission."

Awesome.

Interview Friday: Marcos & Satoshi De Souza, and Rafael Lovato Jr.

Ralph Gracie Black Belt Diego Herzog on his way to winning the heavyweight and absolute at the American Cup in San Jose last weekend.

Interview with brothers and black belts Marcos and Satoshi De Souza

Rafael Lovato Jr. Interview

Ary Farias: In the Shadow of Mountains

He'd pretty much fallen to the wayside in Grappling news, but this piece at Graciemag reminded me this up and coming name in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Here is his background at BJJ Heroes

Ary has bounced around from Fightzone to Checkmat to Atos (most recently).

Being in the same division of Gui Mendes is like being the 2nd best Judoka in Japan in your weight class.
You're probably better than many, many, many other guys in the world. But due to environmental factors beyond your control, you are simply in a division over which presides one of the best players currently competing.

Being a member of Atos and competing in the shadow of names like Mendes parts Rafa and Gui, Galvao, Calasans et cetera is another giant shadow under which one must toil.
He's beaten Malfacine on points which is no small feat for (at the time) a newcomer to Faixa Preta/Black Belt. His more notable titles listed on BJJ Heroes include:

• 3x European Champion (2009 Purple, 2010 Brown, 2010  Black )
• 8x World Champion (in the under 16s, Blue, Purple, Brown Belt Div., 2011 black belt – closed bracket with team mate)
• Brazilian National Champion
• World No-Gi Champion (Purple Belt Division)

Caio Terra Versus Jeff Glover at Jiu-Jitsu World Expo

Well, Jeff Glover, it's time to back up your foray onto Caio's facebook post about winning the World's despite injury. More concisely, Glover's claims that Caio was a whiner and should quit complaining about competing while hurt.

As is rarely the case, the war of words will be settled at the World's 1st Jiu-Jitsu expo.
Graciemag highlighed some other matches of the day HERE and HERE. 

For Grappling Fanatics, the event now features superfights between:
Kyra Gracie Versus Alexis Davis (Cesar Gracie)
Victor Estima Versus Kron Gracie

Nino “Elvis” Schembri Versus Bill "the Grill" Cooper (Paragon)
Bráulio Estima (Gracie Barra) Versus Nick Diaz (Caesar Gracie)

Kayron Gracie (Gracie Barra) Versus Rafael Lovato Jr.

In addition to that, the Jiu-Jitsu Expo will feature a Special Spring Tournament with the "likes of Otávio Sousa, the winner of the NY Open absolute division, as well as Rodrigo Simões, Gustavo “Sirizinho”, Ricardo “Franjinha”, Magid Hage" and others.

Amazing.

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." ...
 

Dan Henderson: The Difference Between Legendary & Perfect

MMAJunkie has a great piece HERE regarding Dan "Hendo/Hollywood" Henderson.

The man's resume is a veritable who's who of top flight guys in MMA. He also has the distinction of repping a  15+ year career spanning most of the notable organizations and many notable fighters who have been a part of the sport in 3 different weight classes.

Anderson Silva's span of title defenses is impressive. Less impressive is his roster of names.
Henderson's list of past/former champions littered with names like Fedor, Shogun, Belfort, Noguiera, Wanderlei, Bustamante, Sakurai, and Franklin.

The other fighters are legitimate guys like Allan Goes, Misaki, Bisping, Palhares, Babalu et cetera.

Anderon's dismal performances even in winning against guys like Thales Leites, Cote, and Maia will always stain his career. As they were clearly outclassed and Silva just chose not to fight.

Henderson, though never able to string together as many title defenses/wins, has always laid it on the line. Henderson has always been willing to fight whoever, whenever, and never made excuses provided the money was right. Remember, this is about being a prizefighter.

- Thanks for the great memories and fights Hendo.

Grappling Links for your Tuesday

Graciemag has a follow-up piece on Otavio Sousa after his winning both weight and the absolute in the black belt at the NY Open. The piece on his NY Open performance is HERE along with a butterfly guard pass that one of my instructors teaches, incidentally.
My earlier pieces on Otavio Sousa are HERE and HERE.
If I'm not mistaken, he's also out of GB Pernambuco where I trained earlier this year during my stay in Brazil.

For those that don't know, I'm a big John Danaher fan. Not b/c he coaches GSP b/c I've heard so much about how amazing he is, but his approach to explaining the why and how we do things is refreshing. I'm much more interested in WHY a high level practitioner thinks the way they do than "show me an inverted spider guard to spiral guard transition to reverse omoplata."
I posted awhile back HERE about going inside the matrix with John Danaher. Coincidence I guess that the podcast I'm linking here went with that same angle. You'll also notice my post is dated January 16th of this year. Any how, whatever, the podcast is good and as always, Danaher says some things that make you reconsider or at least add to your perspective on grappling. And that's the difference between a good speaker and a great one.

BJJ Heroes has a piece up on Vitor Toledo HERE.
(the guy who Kayron crossfaced to hell and beat recently at the Pan Ams).


Graciemag also has a piece up on Minotauro HERE, the one, the only, the legend. It also includes a guillotine prevention bit. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The World Jiu-Jitsu Expo in Long Beach is also heating up to be quite the fan friendly and hardcore grappling fan's dream:
Kayron will face Rafael Lovato Jr.
Victor Estima will face the wily Kron Gracie (Victor lost by DQ at the recent 2012 Pan Ams to Kron via reaping the knee).
And for the ladies, Kyra Gracie has thrown her name in the mix with an as of yet unnamed opponent being sought out.

At any rate, Happy Trainingz!