Fighter's Heart, A

by Sheridan, Sam

  It took a little doing, but we found the venue at a fairground, complete with stalls of prize Brahman cows, some fancy new tractors, food and beer, and a huge soundstage set up for a concert. The fights had been scheduled to begin at around eight p.m., which is when we got there, but a light drizzle began and there was no crowd, so they put them off for two hours.

  The fighters—instantly recognizable by their bulk, the pite-boys (from “pit bull,” pronounced “pitchey-boys”) with heavily snarled cauliflower ears, battered noses and eyebrows, and thick heavy shoulders and hands—and their respective teams were milling around. One guy was absolutely immense and dark black, with arms like separate people attached to his shoulders, a steroid wonder, with bloodshot eyes in a handsome, chiseled face. A lot of black and olive skin, skullcaps, eyes searching one another out. Being with Scott and the other gringos, it was as if I didn’t exist because I was so obviously not a fighter, or at least not one to be concerned about.

  They call them pite-boys, somewhat like the motorcycle guys are called moto boys. It’s almost a fashion thing, but the pite-boys are a little more extreme. They often show up to a club or party and if they aren’t let in will kick everyone’s ass in the line, or pull the tent down on the party. They are essentially social terrorists. There are stories about how poor street kids will sometimes take rocks and mash up their own ears, in order to look tough, like pite-boys.

  “Once you get pretty good at jiu-jitsu, beating up someone who doesn’t know any jiu-jitsu is pretty fucking easy. So you get this whole power trip,” was Scott’s explanation for the phenomenon. Pite-boys were notorious throughout Rio. “They’ve got a gun and you don’t; and these guys abuse the power.” Most pite-boys were upper class, with the freedom from legal persecution that privilege affords in Brazil.

  While shaved heads, tats, and cauliflower ears are the uniform, some of the most notorious pite-boys don’t quite fit that stereotype, like Ryan Gracie and Georginio. And it’s usually not the best fighters who are the bad pite-boys; for instance, Murilo and Zé Mario aren’t out in clubs beating people up.

  There were some particularly infamous incidents, such as one battle between Ryan Gracie and Macoco that destroyed an entire sushi restaurant in São Paolo. Now just as every dog bite becomes a pit-bull attack, every public fight is blamed on pite-boys.

  Luta livre just means “wrestling,” but it has come to stand for a different tradition from Gracie jiu-jitsu, a competitor. It was “no-gi” from the beginning, as the students were too poor to afford the uniform. The essential difference is class, luta livre being the no-gi wrestling of the poor in the favelas, and jiu-jitsu being the art of the rich and powerful of Rio. Luta livre became its own style of submission wrestling.

  The two styles clashed, somewhat inevitably (this is South America and machismo is the rule), in Rio in the early eighties, probably on the beach, where so much Carioca life happens, and evolved into a Hatfield and McCoy–style enmity. There was an attempt to end the rivalry by a series of vale tudo matches. In the first series, Eugenio Tadeu and the other kickboxing guys did surprisingly well (they had just started learning luta livre), but their leader, Flavio Molina, an excellent kickboxer, was destroyed.

  In the early nineties, representatives of the two traditions fought again. This time the Gracie jiu-jitsu people were better organized and included two of Carlson’s students, Murilo Bustamente and Wallid Ismail, and they won all their fights. There was talk that the Gracies had their students do all their fighting for them, but the focus of the Gracie family at that time was on the United States, where they were starting the UFC.

  We found our seats in the increasing drizzle as the fights finally got under way. The intensity of the clashes was ferocious and intoxicating. It seemed suddenly incongruous that there were about five hundred human beings and two of them were locked in the ultimate effort, while the rest were at rest.

  The crowd and the venue were far more upscale than I would have thought, with a real ring and remote-controlled light show, although some poor bastard had to go up and crawl around on the frame and cover the fancy lights with trash bags as the rain increased. There were little kids around, sitting on their parents’ laps and dancing to the violent, profanity-filled American hip-hop and screaming. Compared to Thailand, though, these people were rich; they had cell phones and cars and clothes and girlfriends. There was nothing third world about it. The fair where Johnny Deroy had fought four years ago in Thailand had been in another universe.

  The fights were pretty straightforward, with few submissions or submission attempts. It seemed that everyone was so well versed in jiu-jitsu that ground-and-pound, holding the other man down, in his guard, and beating him through a slow, steady, heavy constant pressure and battering was the safest and most effective thing to do. You avoid taking risks, you don’t look to “finish” with a submission attempt, as these, when they fail, can leave you out of position. It’s safe, but it’s not a crowd pleaser. It’s boring and is sometimes called “lay-and-pray,” because you lay on top of the opponent and pray to win by decision.

  The rain came spitting out of the dark sky and swirled in the brilliant TV-ready lights (there was a substantial film crew there), and the fighters slipped and slopped and sprawled on the wet canvas. There was a pretense of civility; fighters were forced to shake hands and embrace after a fight.

  In the second vale tudo fight, a Gracie Barra fighter was beating a slightly smaller luta livre guy, and he had him down and kicked him in the face, which laid the luta livre guy out. This is against the local rules, to kick someone who’s on the ground when you are standing (though you can do it in Japan), and everyone freaked out. Eugenio Tadeu was yelling from his corner. The luta livre guy stayed down, and although he stirred and moved, the ref wouldn’t let him up, and a stretcher was brought and the huge black guy and his buddies manhandled the luta livre guy onto the stretcher and away.

  There was a famous vale tudo match in Rio that was on TV, when a young Renzo Gracie was fighting Eugenio. Before the fight, the luta livre supporters had taken all the good seats, and they began to grow rowdier and rowdier as the fight started. A riot broke out, the power went down, and in the darkness, Renzo Gracie got stabbed.

  For the rest of this night, there wasn’t much carnage, just a lot of decisions or quick stoppages. I thought about trying to fight here and figured I might be able to stand with these guys but there was no way I could go to the ground with anyone. It would be a lot smarter to learn something and try a few grappling tournaments first.

  The rain finally stopped, and we milled around with the other fighters and congratulated a few winners. The lower-level fighters all eyeballed one another and posed and looked tough, but the top professionals, the few that were around, were smiling and greeting one another, members of an elite club. They only fight for money; there was no animosity, no aggression, just friendliness.

  A few weeks after I arrived in Rio, I finally went up to Lagoa to train with Brazilian Top Team. I was pretty nervous. I had my first gi in my backpack and was uncomfortably aware of its crisp white starch.

  I wended my way across cool stone patios, through the vines and shrubs, between pools and tennis courts under massive tropical trees and made it to the gym at around ten forty-five, thinking class started at eleven, as advertised. Of course, this was Rio and these were cariocas (the slang term for Rio dwellers), famous for being late, so class didn’t start until almost an hour later. Scotty would say, when we were waiting for someone who was from Rio and the wait turned into hours, “We’re being carioca’ed.”

  I reluctantly put the gi on and felt like I was posing. I didn’t have a belt, and as I stood around stretching, waiting for class to start, I realized that because no one could see what belt I was, there was some speculation. Jiu-jitsu has a belt-ranking system—white, blue, purple, brown, black—and achieving a black belt is a serious accomplishment that might take seven to ten years. Your teacher, or mestre, decides when you are
ready and has a lot to do with your pedigree. For instance, someone who is a Murilo Bustamante black belt is probably a lot better than someone who is a black belt from an unknown in the United States, because Murilo is stingy with his black belts. And your teacher will reflect stylistically in your game, as well. There’s an artistic sense to all this, the way you play your game.

  The head instructor, Olavo, came after me with questions, even after I asked him for a white belt, yelling, “You are good, no? Professional?” and laughing that I was being modest. I got my white belt and tied it on; I had learned how from Scotty the night before. Everyone felt better once I had a belt on.

  The training didn’t seem too bad. We warmed up and started trying out moves, and I sweated and strained and felt okay for a white belt. I had the four months of no-gi at Pat’s place to help me, but anyone other than a white belt slaughtered me, just had their way with me like I was a child. The gi is a mystery; it chokes and pulls and twists around your body. It controls you: By controlling the gi, you control the man inside it.

  While I was rolling with a purple belt, a guy with maybe two to three years of constant study, he got me in something very deep that exerted pressure on my left shoulder—no pain, just pressure—and I waited for a few minutes for something to happen. I wasn’t in much pain and didn’t think he had a real submission; I wanted to see if he’d let it go, but he didn’t, so I tapped. We reset and kept rolling, and I thought nothing more of it until later.

  I got thrashed around for a while longer, and the session ended, and we all bowed and clapped and shook hands on the way out. There was a no-gi training session next, just submissions, and I was invited to join it. I felt pretty good, but my left shoulder was tingling, pins and needles, so I declined. Better take it easy, I thought. Little did I know the damage I had done.

  On the steps outside, I talked to Fernando, also known as Margarida, a famous jiu-jitsu player who had won the 2001 Mundials and slaughtered everyone in his way; he was enormously thick and still quite young, in his early twenties. He told me how he hated all the evil in the world, how he wanted to kill all his enemies and then vanish. I told him he should be like Gandhi, forgive your enemies, and he laughed and said, “Look at your shoes, your clothes, you have money, you have no problems.”

  I had run into this line before; there was a common sentiment among the jiu-jitsu players that we gringos were playboys, that the foreigners were all rich. They would give us crap, but these are guys who have always had maids, who have never mowed a lawn or made their own bed. They’ve always been in society’s upper crust and have never had a menial job like washing dishes.

  That night I sat alone in the house fighting off an encroaching sense of dread. I knew what lay ahead: a lot of getting beat up. My shoulder was tingling in a weird way. I had a neat row of blisters along my fingertips, from grabbing the gi, which I carefully slit and slathered with antibiotic cream.

  The gi was my new nightmare. After three days in a gi, I knew it was a whole different universe. I was a total beginner, getting swept and ridden by every blue belt on the mat. Gi grappling is all about the gi, you grab it at every turn, pulling pant legs, twisting sleeves, gripping and pulling the belt, the lapels, untucking your opponent’s gi and twisting the loose ends around his body to turn him, to choke him. The cloth controls the body underneath, and the body controls the cloth and breaks grips.

  It is interesting and much more technical than no-gi because of all the cloth gripping; for instance, when someone gets you in an arm-bar, there is almost no chance of escape because he has a hold of the sleeve on your gi. If you’re grappling no-gi, the sweat and slipperiness of your hands give you a decent chance to escape with a strong whipping pull; there is a lot less to hold on to. So the pace with gi seems slower, more deliberate, more thoughtful—punctuated by seconds of desperate movement, muscles straining, attempts to surprise your opponent. In no-gi, the movements and straining and changing positions are endless.

  I was the punching bag of choice; guys came to me because I made them feel good about themselves. I strained and strained, and they still easily reversed me, swept me, flattened me out. I just had no idea what I was doing, so I helped them sweep me by holding the wrong thing, pushing the wrong way. Everyone gave me his back because I didn’t know what to do with it—except for a few of the other white belts, who didn’t really like me because I was stronger and bigger than they were, and so I pushed them around but lacked the technique to finish them. “Taking the back” means climbing onto someone’s back, and it is perhaps the most advantageous position in fighting, but an experienced guy can handle someone on his back and escape or reverse the position.

  Afterward, my left shoulder would glow with pain, twitching and spasming, while I sat and watched the pro fighters go through their no-gi workouts.

  I found an apartment in Ipanema and moved to be closer to the gym, within a ten-minute walk. I was paying six hundred dollars a month, which was still a gringo price, for two rooms and a tiny kitchen a block from Posto 10, on Ipanema beach, arguably the nicest beach in the city (although Posto 9 had better girls, it was too crowded on the weekends). Ipanema, in the cidade maravihlosa, is a truly beautiful place. Wide leafy streets, sunny and hazy and bright and hot, with European taste but a unique world. The sidewalks are all the same—cobblestone, pounded into a concrete sand and then set to harden—and everywhere there are huge gaping ruts and shattered piles of stones. It is lovely in a gecko, sun-dappled way, with patterns of different-colored stones and large fish shapes set into the boardwalk. Everything reeks of the sea and the beach and heat and the jungle.

  The main street is luxury commercialism: Louis Vuitton outlets, jewelry, ridiculous high-end sporting gear, H. Stern precious gems, and giant pharmacies. There are stands on every corner where fresh fruit juice is available for a pittance; Brazil has about five fruits that you’ve never heard of, unique to its jungle. I asked friends about this or that fruit and got, “Oh, there’s no translation in English.” I ended up hooked on acai and morago, a kind of thick shake of a dark, richly textured fruit mixed with strawberry (morago). Acai is supposedly wonderful for you, twenty grams of protein and trans-fatty acids and vitamins. It is relatively new to Rio, from the north; Wallid Ismail brought it south with him. Eventually, like most people, I made the switch to acai and banana, as it’s a little less sweet.

  The street kids seemed remarkably happy, smiling and playing, making up games all the time, remaining children. They juggled for the cars and slept in lazy packs like dumped luggage, strewn in haphazard piles on the pavement. How nice not to be one of them, I thought as I walked home with a thousand reals burning a hole in my pocket, as I had to pay the landlord in cash. Why not just hand it to some kids, hand the whole stinking wad to them, right then and there? Just do it. But I didn’t. I turned hurriedly and shook my head as they came babbling to me with soft, high voices. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the plaintiveness, the note of sadness, of hunger, of human commonality—Help me please. . . . I am you and you are me, so why should you get to have all the fun? Why do you get to eat?

  It was the only thing that distracted me in this beautiful, golden jungle city on the lip of the blue blue sea. The street kids bothered me less and less the longer I stayed, until I didn’t even see them, like everyone else. I lived for the most part in Zona Sul, the magic place, the richest part of the country, a fantasy world.

  I had hurt my shoulder much worse than I could have possibly imagined. The pain increased day by day, and I took a few days off and then tried to train when it felt better, and it invariably got worse and worse until it would be hanging off my side like a chunk of driftwood, throbbing and tingling by the end of a training session. It felt as if it were held on by my gi. I began to panic, thinking that I’d damaged the rotator cuff. I couldn’t have come all this way to get hurt.

  First, I tried self-medication. I went wandering and got an injection of cortisone at a quiet little mom-and-p
op pharmacy from a tiny old man with glasses who seemed to understand me perfectly. Cortisona. Eu achuego mi hombro. Sim, sim. Boom, he gave me the shot of cloudy liquid into the meat of the shoulder. It made no difference at all.

  Most people would have been ecstatic to be on vacation here in Ipanema without being able to train, but I was miserable. I had nightmares—my dreams were filled with snakes—and would wake up at five and drink coffee and fret. I had already been down here for a month; I was missing valuable training time.

  I would have done anything to be healthy, for a magic pill to heal my shoulder. I would look covetously at all the other guys, consumed with shoulder envy.

  It wasn’t only that I couldn’t train; it affected everything about me, about how the friendships went. Fighters will talk very differently to someone who works out with them, to someone they’ve been sparring and struggling with. There is an instant intimacy; fighters are friends after they fight because they have tested and know each other. As males, their respective status is known. Without a chance to prove myself as at least a willing beginner, I was a perennial outsider, tolerated instead of welcomed.

  After a month of training off and on, I realized I had to go to a doctor, and I went to see Zé Mario’s and Rodrigo’s doctor and got an MRI for about $150. I had inflammation and edema, little balls of white fluid building up in the tissue, but fortunately no muscular or bone damage. The doctor told me that maybe in fifteen days I could resume training. He was sadly, egregiously wrong: Four months later it was still screwed up, and a doctor stateside would decide that I had an umbral tear to part of the rotator cuff.