Vale Tudo or vale-tudo (; ), also known as No Holds Barred (NHB) in the United States, is an unarmed, full-contact fighting style or competition format characterized by having very few rules. Popular in Brazil during the 20th century, it eventually evolved into modern mixed martial arts (MMA).About European Vale Tudo . www.europeanvaletudo.com. URL last accessed on April 28, 2006. "Vale Tudo" was long used as a synonym for MMA in Brazil, but fell into disuse with the emergence of stricter rules and media influence for a more "civilized" name; the term now refers to an early, more rules-free stage of the modern sport.
Vale Tudo initially started as an informal ruleset for fighters from different martial arts to fight each other. The Gracie family was known to organize their famous "Gracie Challenge", in which they would fight other martial artists in Vale Tudo bouts to prove the efficiency and superiority of their own Gracie jiu-jitsu.T.P. Grant, April 12, 2011 History of Jiu-Jitsu: Coming to America and the Birth of the UFC. Bleacher Report. Retrieved on 2012-01-08. Many fighters eventually started to train specifically for Vale Tudo events, mixing striking and grappling, eventually advertising "Vale Tudo" as its own standalone style. For example, Marco Ruas referred to his hybrid style of Luta Livre and Muay Thai striking simply as "Vale Tudo".
History
Early 20th century–1980s
Public fighting exhibitions and intermodality contests involving different fighting styles were held in Brazilian circuses and theaters during the early 20th century. These events formed part of a broader international tradition of combat-sport exhibitions and challenge matches associated with circuses, fairs, and theaters, which also included boxing and wrestling (in particular, catch-as-catch-can, a precursor of professional wrestling). In Brazil, Japanese immigrants practitioners of "jiu-jitsu", a term that at the time was often used broadly for Japanese grappling arts, in particular Kodokan Judo, incorporated demonstrations and challenge matches into their public performances, sometimes facing practitioners of other fighting styles.
In 1908, Japanese jiu-jitsu practitioner associated with the Kodokan Sada Miyako arrived in Brazil aboard the Brazilian Navy training ship Benjamin Constant, together with another Japanese practitioner, M. Kakiora. He was subsequently employed by the Brazilian Navy to teach jiu-jitsu to its officers. In 1909, as part of public demonstrations intended to showcase the effectiveness of jiu-jitsu, Miyako began publicly challenging practitioners of other fighting styles and offering prizes to anyone who could defeat him. Among those who accepted his challenges was the Portuguese wrestler Arnaldo José Ferreira, who had previously defeated the Japanese wrestler Raku in Lisbon. Another was capoeirista Francisco da Silva Ciríaco defeated Japanese jiu-jitsu fighter Sada Miyako in one of the earliest documented confrontations of this kind in Brazil. Examples of such bouts were described in the Japanese-American Courier on October 4, 1928:The original reference was probably "Jiu Jitsu", Time, September 24, 1928. Archived from the original on October 15, 2007 on the Wayback Machine.
In 1914, Mitsuyo Maeda, also known as Conde Koma, a Japanese judoka trained at the Kodokan, arrived in Brazil with a group of Japanese martial artists. Before coming to Brazil, Maeda had already gained international experience through challenge matches and contests against practitioners of different fighting styles, including professional wrestling, particularly catch-as-catch-can wrestling (at the time, professional wrestling generally referred to competitive grappling prizefighting rather than the scripted entertainment form associated with the term today). Like Miyako, Maeda and his companions incorporated demonstrations and challenge matches into their public performances. In Rio de Janeiro, the group performed at theaters and other entertainment venues, where they demonstrated techniques, fought among themselves, and occasionally challenged members of the audience. Maeda later settled in Belém, Pará, where he taught what was then commonly called jiu-jitsu to Carlos Gracie and other students.
However, the term "Vale Tudo" 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.
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. They brought public media attention back to Vale Tudo, which had been dormant since the 1960s. This was made possible by Robson Gracie's ascension into the Presidency of the Sports Superintendence of the State of Rio de Janeiro in 1980, appointed by Leonel Brizola, whom Robson had a friendship as a bodyguard.
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
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. The event was a success and attracted some attention from the public and the media, 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. Some of the noteworthy promotions of this time in Brazil include Universal Vale Tudo Fighting, Brazilian Vale Tudo Fighting, Brazil Open, Super Challenge and Mo Team League. Besides the UFC, the United States also saw the introduction of Vale Tudo promotions similar to the UFC, such as the Battlecade Extreme Fighting and World Combat Championship in 1995. Vale Tudo would receive the name No Holds Barred (NHB) in the United States.
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.