Robson Gracie

By Roberto Pedreira

Carlos and Helio had once had a large academy at 151 Rio Branco in the Centro district. It had been closed since 1968. I thought it would be interesting to see the neighborhood where it had once stood.

  I went the next day. The building is still there. It’s an old office building, solidly constructed, but architecturally undistinguished. I looked at the directory by the elevator. Nothing was listed for the 17th floor. Unoccupied, I assumed, probably walled off or boarded up. I took the elevator to the 16th floor to avoid attracting attention, got off and walked up a flight. The door was sealed. I pried it open and squeezed my way through. I walked around the corner to the left. The glass doors were chained shut. Someone had been painting landscapes. There were stacks of frames and piles of canvases everywhere. I walked back around the corner over to the right side. The glass door was unlocked. I circumspectly pushed it open. I could hear footsteps and voices. I entered.

 " Boa Tarde", I called out, alerting whoever was there to my presence.  A middle-aged woman approached with her head cocked quizzically, surprised to see me. I spun out my spiel, assuming she’d be amused to explain that Carlos and Helio's academy hadn't been there for over thirty years. But she didn’t seem taken aback at all. I noticed a sign over her shoulder. It read Federacão de Jiu-jitsu do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.  That seemed strange. No one else had used the 17th floor since 1968?

  I suddenly realized that the 17th floor, maybe the whole building, belonged to the Gracie family, some part of the family at least. Maybe I could learn something about the history and structure of jiu-jitsu after all. But Vilma Teixeira de Souza didn't speak English. She was the secreteria. She didn't know much anyway, but mentioned that the presidente of the Federacão would be in mais logo (soon). In Rio, that could mean anything from an hour to a week to never. I promised to come back another day. She gave me an information packet and accompanied me to the elevator. The door opened and out came two middle-aged guys. One was Robson Gracie, son of Carlos, 9-grau jiu-jitsu black belt, and president of the federation. He is also the father of Renzo, Ralph, and Ryan (among others). Robson greeted  me warmly and invited me to his office for a chat. Earlier, Reyson Gracie, son of Carlos, told me that his brother Robson spoke English well, but he had either been exaggerating or was misinformed. Robson's companion however, Julio Cesar de Paula, had been to 152 countries, including Korea, which he didn’t like, as a member of the Brazilian national futebol team and could speak six languages. English was one of them, so he translated.

  What did I want to know? Robson wondered.

  I wanted to know what jiu-jitsu in Rio had been like before the boom began less than ten years ago. Robson began telling me the standard story. Like his brother Reyson, he was surprised that the story was already well known up north. Maybe the reason some family members resent Rorion’s attempt to monopolize the family name is that they don’t realize how single-handedly he masterminded the dissemination of the art into the United States. And they don’t understand that things work differently in the United States. There, anyone can call what they claim to be offering to teach anything they want, including “Gracie Jiu-jitsu”. Anyone, not just family members, and you can’t just walk into their school and beat them up. There are laws in America—lots of laws. And America is a big spread-out country. The purveyors of bogus jiu-jitsu (and there would be many) wouldn’t be confined to a small area like the South Zone of one relatively small city. Rorion did the smart thing and necessary thing. Why he doesn’t let Rickson and Royler use the name is a different matter—as everyone says, a “family matter”. Better not to get too involved.

  I didn’t want to get into this with Robson. His feelings about Rorion and his gullible (according to Robson) younger brother Royce are well known. Robson has a television program on Saturday afternoons, contributes columns to Warrior magazine and the Boletim da Federacão de Jiu-Jitsu. He isn’t reticent. He doesn’t beat around the bush and doesn't mind stepping on feet. To give one example, Robson’s son Ryan didn’t appreciate Wallid gloating that he had beaten three Gracies (Ralph, Renzo, and most recently, Royce), so at the 99 Mundial, Ryan snuck up on Wallid, put him in a headlock, and punched his face a few times until other people broke it up (I was there, a few feet away). Apparently, Wallid forget the basic headlock defenses he should have learned when he was a white belt. I guess you need to review the basics, even when you are a black belt who has beaten three Gracies—especially when Ryan is around. The point is that afterward Robson was quoted as saying that Ryan was justified in attacking Wallid, because Wallid had committed slander by saying that he had beaten three Gracies; Royce doesn’t count, because he is merely a "vendedor de camisas" (a seller of T-shirts). As if claiming to have beaten three Gracies merely because he actually had, weren’t bad enough, Wallid, had, according to Ryan, “winked and stuck out his tongue” at him (dando piscadas de olho e mandando lingua) in a provocative way.  Robson clarified the situation by saying that Ryan is aggressive but not crazy (O Ryan pode ser agresivo, mas não e maluco). In any case, Wallid seems to have “tendencias homosexuais”, so Ryan was not wrong to ambush him—according to Robson.

  Other people’s opinions were that Wallid and Ryan were just being themselves. It wasn’t anything new.  

  Robson didn't have much good to say about Vitor Belfort either, who seemed to emblemize what is wrong with the scene Rorion created. Guys exploiting the Gracie name and mystique without really knowing the art.  Guys like this are posers, Julio said, they know a little jiu-jitsu, a little boxing, but aren't really good at anything. He pointed to Vitor's recent humiliation at the hands of Kazushi Sakuraba in Pride 5. Losing to Randy Couture is one thing. Anyone can lose once, and Randy is an Olympic level wrestler. But who is this Japonês? A former pro-wrestler, isn’t he? Knocking out a wrestler quick is ok, if you can do it, but neglecting your jiu-jitsu to concentrate on boxing and bodybuilding is idiocy, Julio says. Vitor is a good boy with a great potential, but misguided, they seem to be saying. Misguided by who? One can only surmise. Vitor is managed by Carlson. Carlson is a good guy, and a good coach, but brains were never his long suit, a lot of people agree. Training jiu-jitsu fighters to box with wrestlers is a perfect example of that.