Luta Livre Esportiva
The sport branch of Brazilian luta livre: no-gi grappling decided by submission or position, with strikes excluded.
Quick Facts
BrazilCharacter & Origin
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
Catalogs & Databases for Luta Livre Esportiva
About Luta Livre Esportiva
Luta livre esportiva is the sport, purely grappling branch of Brazilian luta livre: bouts are fought without a gi and won by submission or points for position, with strikes excluded. Its roots trace to Euclydes Hatem, nicknamed Tatu (16 September 1914, Rio de Janeiro – 26 September 1984), who from the age of fourteen studied catch wrestling at the Associação Cristã de Moços under Orlando Americo da Silva, known as Dudú — the same teacher the Gracie brothers also trained under. Hatem combined catch wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling and his own adaptations into a system that, according to the English Wikipedia, he began teaching in Rio as early as 1927, while other sources place the start of his teaching only in the 1950s; the exact date the sport branch emerged cannot be verified, so the year field is left blank in the record. In 1942 he defeated George Gracie by a rear naked choke in the second round — a period photograph of an americana hold from the first round still creates the mistaken impression of how the fight ended. A match against Hélio Gracie never took place, because Gracie insisted on wearing a gi and Hatem refused. A theoretical framework was given to the style in the 1970s by the engineer Roberto Leitão with his 'theory of grappling'. The rivalry with Brazilian jiu-jitsu culminated in the 1991 Desafio tournament, where luta livre lost all three bouts, and for a long time the style remained confined largely to Rio de Janeiro and Manaus. It nonetheless produced fighters such as Marco Ruas and Eugenio Tadeu, and its no-gi technique took hold in MMA. The sport form is today overseen by the Confederação Brasileira de Luta Livre Esportiva, founded in 2017, and its schools are growing especially in Europe.
Styles & Branches
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.