(October 1, 1913 - January 29, 2009)
Gracie was born on October 1, 1913, in Belém do Pará, Brazil. When he was 16 years old, he found the opportunity to teach a jujutsu class (at that time judo was commonly referred to as Kano Jiu-Jitsu or simply Jiu-Jitsu),and this experience led him to develop Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. A director of the Bank of Brazil, Mario Brandt, arrived for a private class at the original Gracie Academy in Rio de Janeiro, as scheduled. The instructor, Carlos Gracie, was running late and was not present. Helio offered to begin the class with the man. When the tardy Carlos arrived offering his apologies, the student assured him it was no problem, and actually requested that he be allowed to continue learning with Helio Gracie instead. Carlos agreed to this and Helio Gracie became an instructor.
Gracie realized, however, that even though he knew the techniques theoretically, the moves were much harder to execute. Due to his smaller size, he realized many of the judo moves required brute strength[6] which did not suit his small stature. Consequently, he began adapting judo for his particular physical attributes, and through trial and error learned to maximize leverage, thus minimizing the force that needed to be exerted to execute a technique. From these experiments, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, later known as Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, was created. Using these new techniques, smaller and weaker practitioners gained the capability to defend themselves and even defeat much larger opponents.
Gracie had 19 professional fights in his career. He began his fighting career when he submitted professional boxer Antonio Portugal in 30 seconds in 1932. In that same year, he fought American professional wrestler Fred Ebert for fourteen 3 minute rounds. The event was claimed to have been stopped because Brazilian law did not allow any public events to continue after 2:00 AM, but in an interview Gracie admitted that he was stopped by the doctor due to the high fever caused by a swelling, and he had to undergo an urgent operation the next day.
In 1934, Gracie fought Polish professional wrestler Wladek Zbyszko, who was billed as a former world champion, for three 10 minute rounds. Even though the wrestler was almost twice Gracie's weight, he could not defeat him, and the match ended in a draw. Gracie then defeated Taro Miyake, a Japanese professional wrestler and judoka (practitioner of judo) who had an extensive professional fighting record and worked for Ed "Strangler" Lewis in the United States of America.
Gracie also fought several Japanese judoka under submission rules. In 1932, he fought Japanese judoka Namiki. The fight ended in a draw although Hélio was already twisting his arm when the bell rang. He defeated the Japanese heavyweight judoka and sumo wrestler Massagoishi via armlock. Gracie had two fights with Yasuichi Ono after Ono choked out George Gracie (Hélio Gracie's brother) in a match. Both fights ended in a draw. Gracie fought judoka Yukio Kato twice. The first time was at Maracanã stadium and they went to a draw. Afterwards, Kato asked for a rematch. The rematch was held at Ibirapuera Stadium in São Paulo and Gracie won by front choke from the guard.
In May 1955, at the YMCA in Rio de Janeiro, Gracie participated in a 3 hour 42 minute fight against his former student Valdemar Santana with Santana knocking out Gracie with a soccer kick. This fight is the longest uninterrupted MMA fight in history.[ci
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