Luta Livre

A Luta Livre demonstration.

Luta Livre, in its early days, was largely considered to be an art "for poor kids who could not afford a gi."[14] due to appearances since they didn't fight with a gi. Luta Livre and BJJ were considered to be enemies. When Euclides Perreria beat Carlson Gracie in 1968 , the rivalry was continued for a few more decades. It was actually very popular amongst kids from the favelas.[15] Luta Livre focused on teaching the poor who were primarily of African descent.[16] This was opposed to Brazilian jiu-jitsu which was thought to focus on teaching of the upper class, who were primarily light skinned.[4] The battles between the two arts was essentially a class warfare.[17] By the 1980s, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu had become very popular in Brazil and Luta Livre representatives wanted to help popularize their art by accepting challenges from Brazilian jiu-jitsu champions in Vale Tudo and Submission matches. Luta Livre continued on with many famous fights in and out of the ring. This included a fight with Rickson Gracie on the beaches of Brazil.[18] This would hurt Luta Livre's reputation with Hugo Duarte losing to Rickson Gracie then getting knocked out by Tank Abbott at UFC 17 and Eugenio Tadeu losing to Wallid Ismael due to his inability to re-enter the ring in time. Tadeu did battle Royler Gracie to a draw in an indoor fight. Another fight between Renzo Gracie and Eugenio Tadeu kept the rivalry going. His battle with Renzo Gracie in 1997 ended in a No Contest due to fans rioting. In 1991 Desafio hosted a Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre card that had three representatives of Brazilian jiu-jitsu up against three representatives of Luta Livre, with BJJ winning all three fights.[17] One fighter Marco Ruas, who would later become a UFC champ, had a huge rivalry with Rickson Gracie.[19] A fight though never occurred between the two fighters.[19]

While the feud between BJJ and Luta Livre was ongoing, BJJ started to gain the upper hand by spreading their art across Brazil and the rest of the world, something which Luta Livre wasn't doing due a lack of central leadership or interest in doing so.[20] A branch of the Gracie family which established themselves in the United States did a Vale Tudo-style tournament in the form of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which saw the early events resulting in the victory of Jiu-Jitsu practitioners and raising the awareness of the art across the globe. While Luta Livre kept its popularity limited to Rio de Janeiro and Manaus areas.[8] As many events similar to the UFC were created in Brazil, United States and Japan, Luta Livre practitioners responded by signing up for those Vale Tudo and MMA events nationally and abroad. Marco Ruas was one of the first, becoming the champion of UFC 7, however, he was billed representing "Ruas Vale Tudo", his own fighting style which Luta Livre only composed a part of.[5] Other Luta Livre fighters followed suit, such as Hugo Duarte, Pedro Otávio, Johil de Oliveira and Eugenio Tadeu, and they found mixed result in competitions. However, the main blow was that, as the nascent sport professionalized, most of the earlier most prestigious MMA academies (Brazilian Top Team, Chute Boxe Academy, Nova União, among others) used Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as their submission grappling style. Many Luta Livre fighters left their original camps and went instead to the Jiu-Jitsu camps hoping for success in a fighting career.[20] BJJ practitioners also stopped using the jiu-jitsu gi in MMA competitions (which later would be banned outright) and developed a style of BJJ without the gi, known as "No-Gi". Thus eliminating one of the main differentials between the two martial arts, and since many Luta Livre fighters were now practicing this new style, many of No-Gi's techniques and strategies were heavily influenced by Luta Livre.[20]

Currently, there has been a lot of work to preserve Luta Livre and work towards a resurgence of the style. In 2017 the Confederação Brasileira de Luta Livre Esportiva (Brazilian Confederation of Luta Livre Esportiva) was founded in order to better organize and promote the sport.[21] While it has also carved itself a niche in Europe, especially in Germany, where Luta Livre schools are common. Luta Livra was introduced in that country by Daniel D'Dane.[22]