Hélio and Carlson Gracie: the tribute at the third Worlds and the handshake that never happened
Marcelo Alonso describes to VF Comunica two scenes he photographed in the 1990s: Hélio jumping the railing to be honored, and pulling his hand back from his nephew
The Gracie family built Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and lived for decades with a rivalry inside the house. On one side, Hélio Gracie and his sons. On the other, his nephew Carlson Gracie and the academy that produced their main opponents. Journalist and photographer Marcelo Alonso documented both sides and kept two scenes that, together, explain that relationship. He described them to Vitor Freitas for VF Comunica.
The jump over the railing
The first is from the third Jiu-Jitsu World Championship, in 1998, at Tijuca Tênis Clube, in Rio de Janeiro. Hélio, then 84, was in the stands to watch his sons compete. “At that time we already knew how big Mr. Hélio was. He was already a great idol of Jiu-Jitsu,” Alonso said.
The organizers prepared a tribute, and Carlos Gracie Jr. called his uncle to the mat. What happened next is the image the journalist keeps from the tournament. “Mr. Hélio jumping the railing, man. The crowd roared as one, it was unbelievable,” he recalled. According to him, there was one comment going around the gym: the old man is something else.
Alonso photographed the patriarch from behind, with the family name on his gi, and then speaking into the microphone, watched by his sons Relson, Royler and Rickson. “People had tears in their eyes, because the whole dynasty of Jiu-Jitsu was there, complete,” he said.
The photo that was missing
It wasn’t actually complete. For Alonso, one name was missing from that picture. “For me to be happy with that photo, Carlson had to be there in the middle,” he said. He wishes someone had broken protocol and called the nephew to the mat. “I don’t have that photo, unfortunately.”
The hand pulled back
The second scene shows why that didn’t happen. Alonso has a photo of the two together, taken at an edition of Meca, a vale tudo event, in Teresópolis, in the mountains outside Rio. Carlson arrived and walked past the main table, where Hélio and João Alberto were sitting. He held out his hand to his uncle.
“Mr. Hélio doesn’t reach out. He pulls back and gives a little laugh, like: I’m not shaking your hand,” the journalist described. João Alberto noticed the awkward moment and shook Carlson’s hand in his place. “That was the mood,” Alonso said.
Rivals, but in the same art
The journalist tells both stories with the care of someone who lived among these people, and he stresses that he has absolute respect for Hélio. He also rejects the idea that the two sides practiced different arts. Carlson provoked his uncle by separating “Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu” from “Gracie Jiu-Jitsu,” and his style really was more about pressure and guard passing. But for Alonso, the difference stopped there. “It was all the same Jiu-Jitsu,” he said.
The proof, according to him, showed up in the hard moments. On the night his student Wallid Ismail submitted Royce Gracie, Carlson’s first reaction was to go to his defeated cousin. The story is in Royce vs. Wallid: behind the scenes of the match that drew 7,000 people to the Copacabana arena.
Full video on YouTube
The full interview with Marcelo Alonso is on the VF Comunica YouTube channel (in Portuguese).
What was the biggest rivalry in the history of Jiu-Jitsu? Leave your opinion in the comments.
