The Blond Devil - A Forgotten Great.

Vic-JofreBRASIL · Jun 10, 2012

Euclides Pereira. "The Blond Devil".

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Just now rummaging through some old stuff I found an old Tatame Magazine were they did an interview with Euclides Pereira, a fighter from the Old Vale Tudo days.....I thought would be fun to share .

Some of his words:

"Tatame: Who were your bigger rivals ?

EP - I did more than 570 fights (if this is true this is ****ing outstanding :scaredas: ) with all the big names in Brazil at that time. Without a doubt my biggest rivals were Ivan Gomes, Waldemar Santana and Carlson Gracie.
I fought Carlson once and I won. Fought Waldemar 6 times, 5 wins and 1 draw. But my toughest rival always was Ivan (Ivan Gomes) with him I fought 5 times, all ended in draws"

T: How was the Fight (with Carlson Gracie) ?

EP- It was a great fight.
I beat him by points. Almost 25 thousand people in Fonte Nova (the biggest Stadium in Bahia, actually the most famous Stadium in Northeast).

T: What do you remember about the fight ?

EP- 5 rounds of 10 minutes we did it until the end. I dropped him, beat him the edge was mine.
But Helio Gracie wasn´t convinced and told to the press that it wasn´t serious because I ran out of the ring....

With all due respect to Carlson, I tought that would be harder and wasn´t.
I beat him by a good margin.

T: You always trained many styles of fighting ?

EP- Always believed that the Vale-Tudo fighter must train all the styles. I was training Boxing, Capoeira, Jiu-Jitsu and Judo, these four.

T: Which fighter you admire today ?

EP- Minotauro.
Not only inside the octogon, but also because his story is similar to mine.

T: What´s the importance of the Gracie Family to ValeTudo ?

EP- They created this but let´s not forget that Waldemar Santana was a creator as well. In the North/Northeast he was the man that brought all the Vale-Tudo things.

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Tatame #143

Cool thing about him:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNt3KVN_BzM[/ame]

Also, he is not the guy who beat Carlson......He was the first man to defeat Rei Zulu. Interesting to say that Euclides was past his best against King Zulu.

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What a tough man.....just for the record, the North/Northeast is the place where nowadays the best brazilian fighters are coming from, the quantity of fighters from there is great......and since those days a place where tough men born......Euclides is a great example of that.

Here there is an interview with him....but the subtitles are a bit weird, missing many things Euclides said.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv25QGYyGM[/ame]

And another detail......Euclides was always smaller than his opponents....certainly smaller than Waldemar Sanata, Carlson or Ivan Gomes......

rekcutnevets · Jan 18, 2013

This was posted on the Underground a few years ago.

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum.posts&thread=1673024&forum=1&page=1&pc=67

a "Secret" untold Legacy -"The Blonde Devil"
The whole reason I posted this thread is to give a man, a legend some more exposure... His just due. I personally found this amazing.

Euclides Pereira... The Blonde Devil. A Luta-Livre (No-Gi) fighter from the Northeast part of Brazil who had one of, if not the greatest Vale Tudo career in the history of Brazil having over 380 wins with no defeats. This man fought Carlson Gracie, Zulu, Waldemar Santana, and Ivan Gomez along with many other greats from his time. Now I know what your thinking; The same thing I thought... "What a bunch of BOLOGNE." For me it is almost impossible for me to grasp fighting in the hundreds, even more so never suffering a defeat. I heard of this man through my agent (a stand up guy, a family man, 100% honest) when I was planning some training down in Miami. He told me there is this 69 year old man who literally submitted a 6 foot 4, 240lb guy and he wouldn't have believed it unless he saw it with his own two eyes. Told me that he is this legend from Brazil, hardly anyone knows about him, blah blah blah. This was the first and only time I have ever doubted what my agent had to say. He told me how I should give this guy a chance when I get down to Miami for some training, that HDnet was doing a story on him (it airs this Friday), and whatever.

No way was I believing it... How come I have never heard of this guy? I had obviously heard of Carlson Gracie, I had seen fights of Zulu, I had heard of Ivan Gomez and Waldemar Santana (Santana defeated the late & great Helio Gracie)... Now why wouldn't I have heard of Euclides Pereira? I HAVE NO CLUE why I haven't heard of this guy! I have no clue why 99.9% of you guys have not heard of him either and that his legacy was almost dropped from the history books. One thing I sincerely know is that he is the real deal. Not only from training with him now for over a week. Not only because I have gotten to know him while we are staying at the same house while I am in Miami training. Mainly because I have seen legitimate proof. I have seen hundreds, I repeat, HUNDREDS of newspaper clippings from his fights. Pre-hype clippings of Helio Gracie saying how "Euclides will be lucky to last 30 seconds with Carlson" along with the rules the Gracies and Euclides agreed upon prefight. I saw pictures and headlines of him defeating Carlson and Carlson looking battered and broken. I saw a BEAUTIFUL body kick that Euclides landed on Zulu during their fight. I saw clipping after clipping after clipping in ONE of Euclides several scrapbooks that opened my eyes to a piece of MMA history that I have never known about, that was truly amazing to me, and that I thought it I should share with the UG. I have pics

This is coming from someone who has been a lurker here since my junior year in HS. I love the good threads where guys are breaking down gameplans from fights. I love when some pro's I look up to post here, and I love the threads where the UG outs a guy for being a phony. Even this past September I went to a small town in Colorado where a guy claimed he was 20-0 UFC Fighting and that he had a black belt in TKD,Kenpo AND Kempo Karate (Lol!), a blackbelt in Japanese and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and even a BB in Muay Thai... he had his own BJJ class he was teaching. I went there, submitted him time and time again in front of his students, and personally "outted" him in front of his students by rolling with him rather than just telling his students he is full of it. I know I'll prolly get a lot of flack from a lot of you guys that came over from the Sherdog forums but I'd rather a few of you, or a lot of you to think I am delisiounal than to never give Euclides the credit he is due. This guy is insanely fit for being 69yrs old, insanely strong, and incredibly knowledgable.

I flew into Miami on Monday, July 5th and immediately went to the gym and where I trained with KOTC Heavyweight Champion Tony Johnson, and met Euclides for the first time. I saw this old man, with a fading hair line, and thought is this the guy that is suppose to be showing me stuff? Wow, my eyes were opened quick! This was before I had seen his incredible scrapbook. He watched Tony Johnson and I roll and through his translator he would tell us the smallest details of what we could do to make it better. I feel like I have a pretty decent mount, this guy has made my mount better than I thought it could be! He told me to get down and feel his mount, he mounted me, and at SIXTY NINE years old he was squeezing some of the air out of me. I can honestly say that his mount is one of the most technical, and tight mounts I have ever felt. From there he showed a lot of little tricks that were really neat. He talked about his approach is instead of posturing and punching like crazy, or smothering and throwing rabbit punches is to really pick your spots. To mount the guy with a purpose, maintain it, make sure you have post and good balance. Then he uses his postioning and one of his arms to move your opponents defense and to drop punishment, but stuff that counts. To aim for your opponents jaw and chin, to go at it very methodically and technical. To make every movement you make count. That was day ones lesson, and it may not sound too terrific but if I could explain this guys strategy towards fighting you'd know he is and was something great.

That evening we went home, I showered and the translator started dinner. After I got out of the shower Euclides came in the kitchen and told the translator he thought of some techniques that I would really like, he was correct. For the next TWO hours we traded techniques, mainly him teaching me. He adds things to submissions you would never think of. Some of it are some little dirty tricks he learned throughout his career to make the submission quicker, and add to the pain lol. None of it is illegal at all, but just had a "mean" factor to it that I learned in wrestling but that seems to be missing from sport jiu-jitsu. Little tricks that in a fight are gonna set up the RNC faster and not have to fight the hands so hard, or little ways to finish a guillotine in half the time, things that are like... "Why in the heck haven't I thought of or done this before?" Listening to this man I would feel like I was listening to a Rocky Marciano, a Dan Gable, or a Cael Sanderson... Somone that had been to the top, someone who was something great, who accomplished what 99.9% of people never will. He told me several times "when your in their it's YOUR territory, you fight with the skills you've trained, fight with all your heart, let nothing hold you back, the fight is where you let loose and let your skills be shown." Over and over he constantly impressed me.

The whole reason for this thread is to give this man his just due, I have heard of many people he fought... Almost always he was outweighed in his fights, and Euclides ALWAYS found a way to win. He fought a man called "King Kong" and could rip coconuts apart with his bare hands, and dwarfed him... he won, lol. Not that size matters, but I think things like that show how this guy is the true definition of a fighter. He was on a weekly Vale Tudo show that was for SIX years and he fought EVERY week. His career was from the early 60's till 1985. I think that he really is one of the best fighters in HISTORY, and I hope this opens some peoples eyes to a legend of our sport, the best sport in the world.

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rekcutnevets · Jan 18, 2013

Continued...

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum.posts&thread=1673024&forum=1&page=1&pc=67

The following is the introduction of a book being written about Euclides life by his translator Carlos and one of my good friends now.

"Please, keep it all. Bring it with you. I was going to throw all that into a fire anyway. It's just the past, nobody seems to care anymore. Sometimes, I ask myself whether it all happened, or whether it was just a dream in my old head. If you find a way to let people know, fine. If not, I don't care at this point. Once I was so sad, looking to all those old papers, that I almost made a big fire with the whole thing. Maybe it would be better, if I would not see it anymore."
-Euclides Pereira

I heard those words from the sad looking old man, while he gave me a dusty album with hundreds of newspaper clips, plus packs and packs of old dusty pictures. Thats about all that has been left from his past, besides his own memories, and all that will forever stay in the memories of those who, like me, had the privilege to see him fight. The old man has the reputation of being a legend among legends in Brazilian Vale-Tudo (BVT). But his feats were very real, and most of them consisted in making other legends of BVT to face a rough reality. He was a legend destroyer, a myth destroyer. Paradoxically, now that BVT became known all over the world, he is not known by the new generations. I had a hard time to find him, in order to clarify the matter. He still lives in a very much hidden suburban area in Brasilia.

End of what I will include from Carlos' book.

How about this quote from Armando Wriedt 9th degree Black belt under Helio & one of the most prestige Gracie BB's ever...

"With no doubts, Euclides was the most skilled, a complete Vale-Tudo fighter. Very good in the standing-up game. He threw well, he passed the guard well, nobody could put him in a leg lock, and he was very calm in the ring. Although he was a student of Jurandir, of Pedro Hermeterios lineage, I believe that Euclides was better than all of us of The Academia Gracie, since we use to learn jiu-jitsu to teach and he, to fight in Vale-Tudo. He had a natural talent for fighting, being beyond doubts the most technical fighter I have ever seen in action."
I have links to pictures I will add and hopefully a blue named member can help me out
I had doubted this man... But after meeting him, finding out his character, learning from him... I know he is legit UG. I can't wait for more and more people to find out about this guy. He is the most humble old man I have ever met, he is fun to be around, and incredible to learn from. He is one of the happiest, healthiest men I have ever witnessed. He is truly a "secret" legend. I am just trying to do my part of getting his name out there. After this last week and a half I know I was let in on an incredible piece of history. History that hardly anyone knows about except his generation that saw him fight in their time. It's a shame we haven't heard his name till now.

I hope this read was worth while for ya!

Oh and eat a lot of PUMPKIN, fruits, and greens... I know if he knew I was writing about him, and didn't tell you his secret to still working out at almost 70 he'd kick my butt... so eat pumpkin!
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Stoo · Jan 18, 2013

Cheers for the post Vic, pretty sure cross trainer (check out his threads,I know you love your boxing/MMA history) mentioned this guy before, always good to expand my knowledge though

benebox · Jan 19, 2013

How did they score fights for there to be so many draws?

The Spider · Jan 19, 2013

benebox said: ↑

How did they score fights for there to be so many draws?
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Pereira vs Gomes = 5 draws from 5 meetings.
Good question :think

amhlilhaus · Jan 19, 2013

I saw something years ago with a promoter of vale tudo during that time period. he had all the posters for the fights etc etc. Vale tudo was supposedly on tv all the time back then as well, and it got pulled for being too violent.

SugarShane_24 · Jan 19, 2013

The Spider said: ↑

Pereira vs Gomes = 5 draws from 5 meetings.
Good question :think
Click to expand...

I'm guessing a stipulation that fights going the distance are automatic draws.

The Spider · Jan 19, 2013

SugarShane_24 said: ↑

I'm guessing a stipulation that fights going the distance are automatic draws.
Click to expand...

Would seem the most logical explanation.

Vic-JofreBRASIL · Jan 30, 2013

Rek. I asked around and didn´t find really nothing you haven´t seen......
He is doing some seminars about fighting techniques nowadays, he did one in Brasilia just last month, I´m still looking for someone that have some personal contact with him to know more about this seminars and where and when are the next ones....

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