MMA Roots: Wallid Ismail beats Johil de Oliveira in one of the last great jiu-jitsu vs. luta livre showdowns

Marcelo Alonso Jun 30, 2026

The rivalry between jiu-jitsu and luta livre, which spiced up vale tudo events in Brazil in the 90s, had a very important chapter at the third edition of the International Vale Tudo Championship, held on Dec. 10, 1997, at the Maksoud Plaza Hotel in Sao Paulo. The event was titled “The War Continues,” but the war was in fact winding down, and IVC 3 represents one of the last great style-versus-style showdowns before barriers started to dissolve and cross-training became the norm.

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BJJ vs. Luta Livre: What could go wrong?

After the infamous duel between Eugenio Tadeu and Renzo Gracie at Pentagon Combat on Sept. 27, which ended in a sad brawl between fans of the jiu-jitsu and luta livre factions, a lesson seemed to have become clear to Brazilian promoters: No more BJJ vs. luta livre events for a while, right? Not for Sergio Batarelli, who organized the third edition of his IVC less than three months later, booking two of the biggest icons of the rival styles in a superfight: BJJ star Wallid Ismail and Johil de Oliveira, top student of Joao Ricardo (Boxe Thai) and Luiz Alves (Budokan luta-livre). To make the stakes even higher, whoever won would take the inaugural IVC middleweight belt.

Despite historical odds favoring Ismail, the Carlson Gracie disciple was coming off a loss to Kazuo Takahashi at UFC 12, while de Oliveira arrived at the event riding the momentum of an 11-fight unbeaten streak, the last of which was against none other than Jose “Pele” Landi-Jons in the final of the WVC 4 tournament. De Oliveira won after thirty minutes without gloves and without rules in one of the bloodiest fights in the history of the sport.

Not Here to Make Friends

Ahead of their title fight, the two stars did not hold back on the pleasantries. "I'm going to run over his little Volkswagen Beetle with my Ferrari," Ismail quipped. The answer from de Oliveira was instant: “I've already ordered two coffins, one for him and a bigger one for his tongue.”

The rivalry between fighters of course extended to the rivalry between their styles, as well. “After this fight he will be a new disciple of jiu-jitsu and I, as a good man, will be his master,” joked the Carlson black belt, while the Luta-Livre Budokan representative responded in kind: "I'm going to do to his face what I did to Pele’s and then bury him in a very deep grave so he can develop his jiu-jitsu, because above ground, luta-livre dominates.”

Ismail showed up wearing wrestling shoes, leaving no doubt about his game plan: takedown and strike, coincidentally the same tactic that had made de Oliveira famous in his fight with “Pele” at WVC 4. But when the fight began, the element of surprise ended up helping the jiu-jitsu representative, who went for the striking exchange, cornering Johil and taking him down. That would end up defining the fight, since Ismail spent almost five minutes hammering Oliveira on the canvas. Batarelli even interrupted the fight and restarted it standing, but Johil, already quite injured and with his left eye closed, was unable to react. Ismail took him down again and, after cornering him against the net at the edge of the ring, forced the luta-livre representative to give up at 9 minutes and 48 seconds of the fight.

After the confrontation, the two embraced and showed that Pentagon Combate would indeed be the last chapter of the rivalry between the two modalities.

“The Pedro” gets revenge, wins twice in the same night

While the middleweight superfight was marked by a classic between BJJ and luta livre, the tournament for the top heavyweight title in Brazil at the time also ended up being marked by confrontations between the two modalities.

With just three losses in his 13 career fights, 230-pound Pedro Otavio arrived at the event as the favorite. “There are two jiu-jitsu athletes in the tournament. Today I'm going to beat both of them and show that I'm unfinishable," the big guy told me before completely dominating his confrontation with 200-pound BJJ black belt Ismael Souza. Souza spent more than 15 minutes on the bottom defending against the Budokan representative's attacks, and when the fight returned to standing, he held onto the ropes on three occasions to avoid being taken back down and ended up being disqualified at 18 minutes, 12 seconds.

On the other side of the bracket, muay thai representative Sidney “Leopardo Negro” Santos made the same desperate mistake when he was clinched by jiu-jitsu purple belt Jorge “Navalhada” Magalhaes. After three warnings from Batarelli, Sidney was also disqualified at 2 minutes and 5 seconds of the fight.

The grand final thus ended up being a rematch of the championship fight at Freestyle de Belem 3 seven months earlier, where “Navalhada” had defeated “The Pedro” by decision. This time, however, Otavio came much better prepared and completely dominated the confrontation. Magalhaes spent the entire fight on the bottom, limiting himself to guarding and defending against the Budokan athlete's punches. After 30 minutes of total dominance, the judges decided in favor of the luta livre representative. In the end, Otavio downplayed the victory, pointing to his own merit and not that of his fighting style: "I beat jiu-jitsu twice tonight and proved that there is no best fight, only a best fighter." Rivalries were beginning to fade, and a new era was beginning: cross-training. « Previous Pictures - IVC 3 More

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