by Art Davie
I knew that he was going to be seeking chokes and arm bars, and it was my responsibility to defend his submission attempts as best I could. We proceeded to then go at it non-stop for the next 15 or 20 minutes, with Royler going much harder than he’d ever gone against me before in all of our previous sessions. I knew, of course, that he was still nowhere near his top speed—not even close—but he had definitely turned up the intensity.
When we were done, I was sweat-soaked and absolutely exhausted. I had kept myself from getting choked out and arm barred, but I wasn’t feeling proud, as much as relieved. Rorion had intently been watching my every move, and I saw now that he was grinning like a big cat.
He then approached me with one hand behind his back, and when Royler and I came over to where he was standing in that private workout room, Rorion said, “Arturo, you’ve earned this.” With that he brought forward a blue belt.
I was in shock. Somehow, I didn’t realize that this had been my test. I thought that Rorion had just stopped by to watch how I was progressing with his younger brother now working as my primary instructor. The moment kind of overwhelmed me, and I realized just how much Gracie Jiu-Jitsu had become part of my reality.
To get Rorion his $100,000, over Christmas 1991 at my kitchen table in Torrance, I wrote a killer direct mail piece, and had a friend of mine who was a graphic designer, do the layout at my direction as a favor. I delivered it to Rorion the next month; just as the Basics of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu tapes were being delivered.
I had told Rorion that we would wait until early February to give buyers a chance to pay their holiday bills, and then we dropped the campaign in the mail. It consisted of an eight page sales letter, an order form, a return envelope, a note of endorsement from John Milius, and a reprint of the Playboy article.
To say it was a huge hit would be a massive understatement. Rorion never would tell me the exact amount that the campaign generated, but I found out from his office manager, Helen, that the number was closer to $150,000 than it was to $100,000. Soon, he dumped his old beater Volvo station wagon and bought himself a new Chrysler sedan. The money was rolling in, so I asked Rorion for a meeting.
“Like what I did?” I asked him nonchalantly.
“Well, it was my money that paid for the printing,” Rorion answered with a grin.
I decided not to respond, and quickly moved on.
“Now, do you want to make some real money? And make Gracie Jiu-Jitsu the most famous name in martial arts in the whole world?”
“Arturo, we’re already famous.”
I ignored this comment as well, and said, “Look, I’m going to show you how we can take this to the next level. But, no more freebies. I want 30 percent of the gross on all Gracie video sales we generate from direct marketing from now on.”
You could have heard a pin drop. The shocked look on his face congealed like the yolk of a cold over-easy egg. Rorion said he would need time to think about it. This was a huge decision. I was his friend, and a loyal student, but he’d never partnered up with anybody in the U.S. I could see that this was a hurdle for him. The success of the direct mail campaign was no fluke though, and the cash that he was depositing was no mirage. But I knew that he needed time to think it over, so I backed off a bit.
Later that week, we met in his office at midday. Rorion told me that after much thought, he would like to offer me 20 percent. I countered with 25 percent, and we agreed on 22.5 percent. We signed the contract for me to do the company’s direct marketing on April 13, 1992.
Without question, I could tell that this was a struggle for him. Rorion seemed like he was being asked to cut off a finger. One factor I understood very early on was that in Rorion’s world, most of the people who he had any real contact with outside of his family, were his students. And when you’re a martial arts guru, you became accustomed to having people fawn all over you.
If a student is a dentist, you’re getting dental work done for free or at a deep discount. Ditto for a doctor, an attorney and an accountant. Virtually all of Rorion’s students were happy to give him whatever he asked for, and he was well accustomed to being treated to, “I can get it for you wholesale,” and, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay,” kind of stuff.
When I proposed our deal on the Gracie videos, I wasn’t doing what Rorion had come to expect from a student. And while I was his student as well as his friend, I was never really what could be called a “Gracie disciple.” Rorion had plenty of students who had stars in their eyes. I was just too much of a realist.
Beyond all of this, I had come to know Rorion well enough to understand that he was a wannabe big thinker who was nervous about making a misstep in the United States, where the customs and rules were still unfamiliar to him after almost 15 years. He just didn’t want to make any mistakes, certainly not when it had to do with Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. In Brazil, he knew the lay of the land, but in his adopted country, he was a naïf, a white belt, in fact. And as the oldest son of Grand Master Hélio Gracie, Rorion couldn’t be a white belt in anything.
I understood this was what bothered and also limited him. He was the heir apparent, the favorite son, the chosen one, the future king. Or so he hoped. Giving away 22.5 percent of his business loomed like a potentially huge wrong turn to him. Rorion felt he couldn’t afford to make a mistake that would open up his rightful destiny to one of his brothers or worse, to one of his cousins.
Rorion believed that it had to be him assuming the leadership of the family. After all, he had moved with almost nothing in his pockets to the U.S. in 1978, which paved the way for his family members to join him in Southern California. He made the biggest effort to be the most conversant in English. It was his vision and hard work that had created the Gracie Academy, which provided a place to propagate his father’s martial art, diet and lifestyle. Rorion had lived his life putting forward to the world the accomplishments of Hélio Gracie, and the dominance of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
And yet there was Rickson. Always Rickson. The third son of Hélio, Rickson was born in 1958, six years after Rorion. He was the undisputed family champion, with a skill set, athleticism and ferocity that not even his brothers could match. His status in the family was sealed in 1980, when at just 21 years old, Rickson defeated Casimiro de Nascimento Martins, better known as Rei Zulu (King Zulu) in a vale tudo match, which was televised nationally in Brazil. The 32-year-old Rei Zulu had made his reputation by taking on all comers and claimed a 150 fight winning streak.
All that was left for him to do was publicly challenge Brazil’s first family of fighting—the Gracies. Hélio of course accepted, and bypassed Rorion and second born son Relson in favor of Rickson to defend the family honor. Not only was Rickson 11 years younger and vastly less experienced than his fearsome opponent, he was also five inches shorter and almost 50 pounds lighter. But Rickson prevailed with a rear-naked choke submission, and then defeated Rei Zulu by the same method again four years later.
I found Rickson to be (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. I never got to know him well, and I could never really get a read on the guy, despite seeing him constantly at the Gracie Academy. I knew his reputation as the baddest of the Gracies, and I’d seen his unbelievable talent on display in person at the academy.
I had kept hearing about Rickson’s workout class, and how it was not designed for mere mortals. Having been a Marine, I decided that I had to see for myself just how hard it really was. It began at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m., and it was either scheduled for 60 or 90 minutes. I never found out because both times I took it, I dropped out after about 45 minutes. I wasn’t alone. Two of the cops I was friendly with at the Academy took a powder about the same time I did, which made me feel somewhat better. Rickson was leading us with moves that were beyond anything that I’d ever been exposed to, even as a Marine. It would have taxed anyone, doing things like high repetition one-legged squats—well, taxed anyone but Rickson. It was mind-blowing and very advanced. I couldn’t have kept up when I
was 20. When I finally put my grand plan in motion, there was no doubt in my mind that Rickson would be my star fighter.
The money from the Basics of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu videotapes started rolling in. When my monthly commission check topped $21,000, I knew it was time to approach Rorion again about getting involved with me on the World’s Best Fighter.
“What’s your reluctance?” I asked him in his office at the Gracie Academy. “You know that I know how to make us money.”
“But how would we make money on this Arturo? Would we sell this as another videotape?”
I laid out my full vision to Rorion, which had continued to evolve in my mind since I first started working on this as a pitch for Wisdom Imports almost three years earlier.
“We’d have 16 fighters in a tournament, all held in one night. The 16 guys will all represent a different form of fighting: karate, kickboxing, kung fu, boxing, sumo, wrestling. You get the idea. I figure that Rickson would represent Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.”
“So my brother would have to fight all 15 guys in one night?”
“No, it’d be single elimination. The loser is out and the winner moves on to the next round. But to win the thing, you’d have to fight four times in one night. Could Rickson do that?”
“Of course,” said Rorion. “We all could. We’re Gracies.” And with that, a wide smile creased his face.
I told him that I figured that we would have to bring in about $250,000 to get this thing up and running. We’d need that cash to form a new company, hire a secretary, and probably get an attorney on retainer. The bulk of the money, though, would be needed to book the arena and pay the fighters. If this was really going to be the World’s Best Fighter, then we couldn’t just find chumps for Rickson to choke out. We’d need legit names from the world of martial arts and combat sports. And I told Rorion that I envisioned this as a live Pay-Per-View (PPV) TV event, although cable TV was a possibility. What this wouldn’t be was a straight-to-video production. The tournament and the live TV—ideally PPV—were the two key points that I felt certain would make this work.
Rorion took it all in, and then asked, “How much is this going to cost me?”’
“Right now, nothing. All I need is your support to get this thing going. I need to be able to use your name and the Gracie name.”
To my delight and relief, Rorion agreed. He made it clear, though, that I was coming to him, not the other way around, and as such, this would not be his full-time job. He had his hands full with the burgeoning Gracie Jiu-Jitsu empire: running the Academy, teaching classes there, holding seminars across the region and overseeing the Brajitsu, Inc. videotape business. That was not only fine with me, it was fully expected. I never thought for a second that Rorion would pack it all in to focus full-time on the World’s Best Fighter, nor did I want him to.
Rorion and I agreed that I’d work out of my entrepreneurial office down the hall from my apartment on the corner of El Prado and Satori, and he’d keep working out of his office at the Gracie Academy. We’d use the academy’s address, 1951 West Carson Street in Torrance, for all business correspondence. Rorion knew, as did I, that this was going to be my top priority, with my work for Brajitsu, Inc. coming second. We shook hands, and that was that.
With Rorion finally in place, I was now ready to quit my day job. The pay was good and I genuinely liked the gig—but it required a 50-hour work week. I didn’t have a wife or kids to support, and my expenses were pretty minimal. If I was ever going to get the World’s Best Fighter off the ground, it had to be now.
I gave Craig Huey, the owner of Creative Direct Marketing Group, my resignation on June 12, 1992. I then shifted my energies full-time to my personal office. The money from the videotapes kept coming, and since my divorce a few years earlier, I had saved over fifty grand and shoved it into a bank account. I always planned for the next deal or a rainy day, which was a good habit I’d learned early on. Finally, I was now set to concentrate fully on the World’s Best Fighter.
This was a familiar pattern for me, taking a chance in business. I had been self-employed more than half of my working life, so the prospect of going forward without the guarantee of success, was nothing new or daunting. It was also a familiar pattern for me to be without someone special. I was a multiple loser in the marriage sweepstakes, and there wasn’t anyone in my life that seemed like a potential girlfriend at that point.
But there was a young woman who lived in my building who had drawn my attention. Her name was Maria, and she was a very attractive brunette, curvy and petite. She had an infant son, and during the time I’d been managing the building, I’d seen her every so often. It was just polite conversation in the hallway, always instigated by me. She seemed quiet, serious, and somewhat sad. Maria had been taking a course in massage therapy, and when she graduated, she rented one of the offices on the ground floor of our building for her place of business. Trying to break the ice with her, I booked a massage, which I hoped would spark a dialogue between us. She was very good and very professional, but neither of us said a word during the entire one-hour session. As I was about to leave, Maria paid me a nice compliment about the shape I was in. I told her I was taking jiu-jitsu lessons. Judging from her reaction, she had no idea what I was talking about, and more awkward silence followed.
After the massage, I kept toying with the idea of asking her out, but I never did. In truth, Maria just didn’t seem attracted to me, her lone compliment aside. One Sunday morning I went to a café up the street for some breakfast, and when I returned, there was a hulk of a guy waiting by the security door downstairs. I approached and asked him if he was trying to buzz someone upstairs.
“Yeah, Maria in apartment five,” he answered. “I’m her, um... I’m her... uh... boyfriend. She should be home, but she didn’t answer. Maybe she’s in the shower.”
I was going up to my apartment, so I asked him his name, introduced myself as the manager, and we chatted a bit. At that point, I decided to let him in to the building, as he seemed harmless despite his massive frame. There was something familiar about the guy, and I kept thinking that perhaps I had seen him at the Gracie Academy. Then it hit me that he was one of the famous bodybuilders who had been featured in the film Pumping Iron.
I saw Maria the next night about 5 p.m. and asked her if it was all right that I had let her “boyfriend” in.
“Oh yeah. It was ok. Well, not really. We’ve broken up. In fact I have a court order against him.”
Maria then told me that she had suspected him of sexually molesting her infant son. She also confirmed for me that he was indeed a famous bodybuilder. I could see that she was in the middle of a real-life soap opera. Clearly Maria had enough on her plate without me hassling her for a date, or even another massage. I needed to spend all of my energy on launching the World’s Best Fighter, and figured that maybe being alone wasn’t so bad.
When I had the opportunity, I asked Rorion what his dad thought of me. It was clear that everything that Hélio’s children did—first and foremost Gracie Jiu-Jitsu—required his blessing.
Rorion laughed and replied, “The old man says that the only thing Art Davie knows about Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is how to make money with it.”
While this could have been construed as a compliment, I suspected it was intended as the opposite. My personal relationship with Hélio was not much of a relationship at all. I saw him only at the Gracie Academy, and as he spoke Portuguese exclusively, my exchanges were pretty much limited to a respectful hello and goodbye.
The closest that I’d ever had to a real moment with him was when one of the students at the academy had brought along his girlfriend, who happened to be wearing very short shorts. Hélio looked at me, then moved his two fingers up and down vertically to indicate his appreciation of her slim-hipped physique. He then gave me a very rare smile, and I burst out laughing.
Regardless if Hélio actually liked me or not though, I really liked him. And I admired him even more. Hélio definitely made a lasting impressio
n on me, as a man who was from another era—one that wasn’t coming back. I saw him as a knight—a man for whom honor was everything.
Money wasn’t Hélio’s motivation in life. His creed, his values and his family were everything to him. And that put Hélio at the opposite end of the spectrum from so many people in the modern world. But Hélio didn’t care. He lived by his code, and that was enough.
What can you say about a man who sired nine children, followed a strict food combining diet, helped create a new martial art, became a fighting champion, and put honor before cash? I guess you can say that such a man was a true legend.
Now focused full-time on the project, I immediately went to work, first on creating a brief executive summary, which would spell out my vision for the World’s Best Fighter that I could take to potential investors and sponsors. From there, I would have to write our business plan, which is what would ultimately be needed to seal the multiple deals that would have to be made. But I knew from gigs in advertising, marketing and promotions that absolutely no one is going to read a comprehensive business plan without first becoming interested. And the way that you get people interested is through a tight executive summary.
There was going to be a hell of a lot of research involved on both documents, so I started spending as much time at the Torrance Public Library as I did at my office. Actually, the Torrance Public Library quickly became the de facto headquarters for the fledgling World’s Best Fighter business.
It soon struck me, though, that the name that I had chosen for my pitch to Wisdom Imports back in 1989 wasn’t quite right. This was going to be a true spectacle, and the World’s Best Fighter just felt too generic. I needed something much bigger and imposing. As he was now on board, I knew that Rorion would have had no problem in us calling the event the Gracie Challenge, but I never even considered that name.