Fighters Only

Issue 059

February 2010

Wallid Ismail could be nothing else but a fighter. He looks as though he has been bred for it, like a pit bull with short, powerful limbs, the barrel chest, bald head and cauliflower ears. But Wallid Ismail, the man who beat four of the Gracies in jiu-jitsu competition, is much more than just a fighter.

In his most famous jiu-jitsu match he choked out the legend Royce Gracie. The fight itself is epic. Even on a well-worn VHS tape, you can feel the magnitude of the event. You can almost smell the sweat on the mats, baking under the spotlights. The coaches are introduced. Carlson Gracie, coach and mentor to the loyal Wallid, receives scattered yells of support. Branches of the Gracie family face each other from opposite corners of the mat. The crowd collectively holds its breath. Wallid is a man who has been at the heart of pivotal moments in modern martial arts history.

But reviewing the match the one thing that stands out (aside from his brutal choking of Royce) is Wallid’s jiu-jitsu uniform. It is plastered with sponsors, in contrast to Royce’s white-as-snow gi. This is an indication of the forward-thinking mind, always thinking beyond just fighting.

“People forget, but I was the first [MMA] athlete in the world to live off sponsorship. I was the first [jiu-jitsu] athlete in the world who didn’t need to give classes to live. That’s historical. But time passes by and people forget. I was the first to put sponsorship on the kimono, put the sponsorship on the shoulder to show the cameras.”

Wallid is from the Amazon. He is a proud man, always quick to point out the strength of fighters from his native homeland. “We have launched names such as Jacare, Saulo and Xande Ribeiro. No one doubts that Amazonas is a land of warriors.” He started jiu-jitsu there in 1980, in the truly early days of the sport. He moved to Rio de Janeiro around 1984 and met Carlson Gracie (one of the toughest in the famous Brazilian fighting family), and dedicated himself to the man.

“Carlson was like my father. I started young with Carlson and trained with him all my life,” he says. With the modern-day trend for shifting allegiances in the search for the best possible training, Wallid’s loyalty to Carlson was impressive. It was perhaps this loyalty (and his up-front personality) that caused him problems over the years. “I never say a thing from behind, I’m a man,” he says in his thick Brazilian accent and broken English. “When some misunderstanding happens, I talk in the front.” His most famous bust-up was with the bad boy of the Gracie family, Ryan Gracie; the very mention of the name would, at one point, send him into a tirade of imaginative abuse.

The stocky Amazonian was a fearsome jiu-jitsu competitor, winning the Brazilian championship a number of times, a competition so stacked with elite competitors you could compare it to the world championships of today. His MMA career started before the term itself was even coined. Wallid fought in vale tudo, genuine no-holds-barred fighting, and fought in one of the most heated exchanges of styles in Brazilian history, the ‘Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre’ competition in 1991.

Luta Livre, a Brazilian style of striking and grappling, has long been a bitter rival of jiu-jitsu. In this special event, Wallid fought alongside Fabio Gurgel and Murilo Bustamante to represent jiu-jitsu. It is worth noting that Gurgel now heads Alliance, one of the strongest jiu-jitsu teams of today, and Bustamante is one of the founders of Brazilian Top Team, one of the most successful MMA teams of all time. Another pivotal moment in MMA of which Ismail was a part. That night, it was a clean sweep, 3-0 in favor of jiu-jitsu.

Wallid’s next MMA fight was at the inaugural Universal Vale Tudo Fighting. He won by rear naked choke, as he would his next two fights. In the space of a year, Wallid fought in Brazil, Japan and America where he dropped a decision in the UFC. He returned to his winning ways at Brazil’s International Vale Tudo Championships, before appearing three times in the legendary Japanese promotion, Pride FC.

In 2003 Ismail created Jungle Fight, an MMA promotion held in the heart of the Amazon. The promotion has seen stars like Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral do battle. Jungle Fight has also begun its expansion across the world with events held in Europe and plans to expand to Japan and America.

Jungle Fight is not just an MMA promotion though. Wallid’s passion for his homeland means that Jungle Fight is about bringing awareness to the plight of the Amazon rainforest. “Jungle Fight is trying to help the people of the Amazon. We are going to have a large expo to help bring awareness to people... In 40–50 years the Amazon could be gone so we must make people aware that there are more ways to make money other than cutting down all the trees.” Recently he has collaborated with Sergio Moraes, the 2008 BJJ black belt world champion, on social projects in the poorer areas of Brazil.

Wallid Ismail is a renaissance man, but a fighter nonetheless. “I’m a worker, a guy who wakes up at five a.m. and loves what he does. I like to talk with the fighters, I like to give advice, I lived all of this... I’ve been through it, that’s my life.”

CAREER SNAPSHOT

1980

Begins BJJ training in the Amazon.

1984

Moves to Rio and starts lifelong commitment to Carlson Gracie.

1991

Defeats Eugene Tadeu at Desafio: Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre

1996

Wins at Universal Vale Tudo 1.

1998

Beats Royce Gracie in jiu-jitsu.

2003