Photo: / UFC publicity

Previously exclusive to those with a complete collection of GRACIEMAG and NOCAUTE magazines, the history of vale-tudo and MMA in Brazil condensed into a single print will now reach bookstores in the South American country. On April 3, the journalist harking from Rio de Janeiro Fellipe Awi will launch the book “Filho teu não foge à luta”,

(“No son of yours will duck a fight” loosely translated) telling the story of MMA from Count Koma to Carlos Gracie up to the UFC being broadcast on Brazil’s most popular television network, Globo.

With a focus on the grudges and rivalries that helped draw in fans and practitioners, Awi’s book tells, culminating in a time line that is at once condensed and expansive, recounting the most striking, tragic and vibrant facts of the sports history, a useful tool for future researchers. GRACIEMAG.com thus reproduces it below, and asks: is there anything missing from this time lime from vale-tudo to MMA? Comment below.

MMA TIME LINE

1917 Count Koma is introduced to Carlos Gracie.

1920s Carlos faces capoeira stylist Samuel, “Negro Gigante,” at an event called “Estilo versus estilo” (“style versus style”).

1932 Helio Gracie has his first vale-tudo fight.

1951 Helio Gracie faces Makahiko Kimura.

1955 Helio Gracie fights Waldemar Santana, who next faces Carlson Gracie.

1956 Carlson and Waldemar face off again.

1962 A broken arm on television show “Heróis do ringue” (“Heroes of the ring”) leads to vale-tudo being banned in Brazil’s capital.

1978 Rorion Gracie moves to the United States.

1980 Rickson Gracie fights Rei Zulu.

1982 Rilion fights Marinho in Teresópolis; Rolls and others invade Academia Naja, a Muay Thai gym; Rolls dies in hang gliding accident.

1983 Rickson and Zulu face off again.

1984 “Noite das Artes Marciais” (“Night of Martial Arts”), the first vale-tudo between Jiu-Jitsu and Thai boxing stylists, is held.

1988 Rickson fights with Hugo Duarte on Praia do Pepê beach; luta livre fighters invade Gracie academy in Humaitá.

1991 “Grande Desafio” is broadcast on Globo television network.

1993 Maiden UFC event held in United States.

1994 Rash of fights involving Jiu-Jitsu fighters breaks out in Rio de Janeiro night clubs.

1995 Rorion Gracie leaves UFC; Marco Ruas makes his debut at seventh installment of the event.

1997 Dust up at “Pentagon Combat” event at Tijuca Tênis Clube in Rio de Janeiro; Pride holds first installments in Japan.

1998 First UFC in Brazil

2000 Fertitta brothers and Dana White buy UFC.

2002 Minotauro faces Bob Sapp in Pride FC.

2003 Popular Brazilian Sunday television show “Fantastico” does special on success of Brazilian fighters in Japan.

2005 First season of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show held in US.

2007 UFC purchases Pride. Ryan Gracie found dead in cell at São Paulo police station.

2011 UFC Rio/134 broadcast live on Globo television network in Brazil and on Fox in the United States.

Time to pack the bags. Vacation time has come to an end and I’m heading back to Abu Dhabi. Over the last two years, ever since I went to live in the United Arab Emirates, I haven’t spent more than a week in Brazil, modern Jiu-Jitsu’s homeland. This time away from Brazil brought me to see it with different eyes. I’m able to analyze my country deeper with the perspective of someone who has the responsibility of carrying Brazil with him. I noted how Brazilianness was one of the main, if not the main, seasonings in the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle, the style of life led by anyone who lives and breathes Jiu-Jitsu anywhere across the planet.

Now on my first week here in Porto Alegre, in the country’s south, an apparently normal situation led me to meditate on our practitioners’ lifestyle. Purple belt Gabriel Tayeh, after six months of travel, reencountered his training partners Felipe Leal and Batata, as they are known, embraced them effusively before training, set up an açaí outing and set about rolling. They seem like brothers who meet up again in the living room of the house where they were brought up.

That’s how Jiu-Jitsu practitioners behave in Brazil. The academy, or more specifically, the dojo, becomes a second home to most, and their training partners, their family.

The master, besides being a teacher, can be a dear friend, a surfing partner, a companion at parties and even the goal keeper in Saturday soccer games.

That’s not typical with all martial arts. That is typical of the Brazilian people. This human warmth, this receptivity, this complicity with others is ingrained in Jiu-Jitsu almost unintentionally. Here the fighters tattoo their academies’ emblems on their bodies, lots of athletes never paid monthly fees because their masters are like their fathers. The laid-back atmosphere during training is a cut right out of the country. The master, besides being a teacher, can be a dear friend, a surfing partner, a companion at parties and even the goal keeper in Saturday soccer games.

The Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle and Brazil meld into one another. Probably, if Count Koma had decided to set down roots in another country, we wouldn’t have the gentle art as our way of living life. We all carry Brazilianness in our Jiu-Jitsu. We all consume Brazilianness at all four corners of the world, by absorbing it. To export Jiu-Jitsu is to export Brazil.

It happens that Biel is of Palestinian origins, Batata from a Jewish family. In the holy land of Jiu-Jitsu, little miracles like this one happen every day.