There’s a familiar feeling I get watching Rio Heroes, and it’s not a good one. It’s like being forced to watch video footage of yourself when you were thirteen. The person you see is vaguely recognizable, and a part of you wants to keep watching to see if something good happens, but mostly you’re just embarrassed.
Thing is, I shouldn’t be so uncomfortable with Rio Heroes. In case you haven’t seen it, it’s a bare-knuckled, almost rule-less brawl, similar to the early UFC offerings. I’m one of the people who got hooked on MMA back in those days before weight classes and rounds, so why don’t I want to watch it now?
Well, for one thing, the production quality is terrible. Rio Heroes’ fights looked like they were filmed in a half-empty warehouse. They don’t even have a full cage, just three sides of a chain-link fence pushed up against a wall. The “referee” is former fighter Jorge Pereira, who is reportedly the brains behind this operation. He does very little actual officiating, unless you count shouting at the fighters just inches from their exhausted faces.
But I think what really bothers me about these Vale Tudo fights (a Portuguese term meaning “anything goes”) is that they seem so unnecessary now. Vale Tudo is, in many ways, the grandfather of MMA. Vale Tudo fights in Brazil and Japan led to the UFC in America, which later led to gloves and rounds and weight classes and a set of rules and official regulation and, eventually, the mainstream juggernaut we have now.
In other words, the move from Vale Tudo to modern MMA was a natural evolution. So why is Rio Heroes trying to uninvent the wheel?
The easy answer is money. No surprise there. Rio Heroes figures they can make a quick buck from the bloodlust of the general populace by throwing together these haphazard tournaments with lower level fighters. But I think their major problem – aside from putting absolutely nothing into production value – is that they’re starting from a flawed hypothesis.
Early UFC’s were successful in America because they sold people on the idea of authenticity. It wasn’t boxing or wrestling – it was a “real” fight. But we learned in a hurry that real fights weren’t always interesting fights. When Ken Shamrock laid in Royce Gracie’s guard for thirty minutes, that was real. It was also painfully boring.
Regardless of what we tell ourselves, the American public values entertainment in sport more than authenticity. Witness the continuing success of pro wrestling, for example. Rio Heroes is trying to sell us on the blood and brutality of Vale Tudo, but watching it only reminds me of why we came up with MMA.
Rio Heroes seems to think that there is a relationship between the lack of rules and how interesting a fight is to watch. By interesting, I really mean brutal and bloody. But is there anyone out there who really feels that MMA is not rough enough as it is? Guys are getting punched, kicked, kneed, elbowed, slammed, choked, and armbarred. Most fights don’t go the distance, and about a third of them end with someone hovering near unconsciousness.
Face it, MMA is about as brutal as it needs to be already.
If anything, the lack of rules makes the fighters more conservative. Punching without gloves means a greater chance of breaking your hand, which means fewer overall punches. Plus, Rio Heroes is not necessarily more authentic as a fight, since the referee regularly brings fighters back to their feet to force them to slug it out.
Some MMA fans are upset about Rio Heroes for fear that it will give MMA a bad name. It won’t. Rio Heroes is not MMA any more than pick-up tackle football games are the NFL. It calls itself Vale Tudo, and I won’t say that’s not accurate. What I will say is I don’t think there’s much to like about Vale Tudo. Not when we have MMA.
Rio Heroes is putting their hope into a cheap trick of marketing. They’re betting that they can make sell an inferior product by using a gimmick. It just happens that their gimmick is one we left behind over a decade ago, and I doubt there are many people who are eager to go back.
Read more of Ben Fowlkes work at The Fighting Life.
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