On August 28th and 29th 2015, at the ADCC in Sao Paulo, two legends of Jiu-Jitsu which were formed by the late Carlson Gracie will lock horns: Ricardo Liborio and Mario Sperry.

In an interview with Tatame, Liborio, leader of one of the largest MMA gyms in the world, the American Top Team, said that the preparation for the superfight against Sperry has changed his whole lifestyle:

“This has been very good for me. I’m healthier. I have a specific goal: exactly in one year. I’m already training. I have been doing fitness. I’m careful because I have a very serious back problem, have seven herniated discs. I had no motivation, my only motivation was to take care of the kids here ATT, train them and be there. And it’s a lot of people and a lot of traveling. There are also trips to accompany fighters. In my case, trips to open gym, do seminar, belt ceremonies. It’s almost every weekend. But with this fight against Zé Mario, I had to take time for me to be able to train and take care of myself. And it’s been great. I wish that had happened before, “

We’ve all heard legendary Rickson Gracie stories where various famous BJJ/MMA fighters trained with him and talked about how when rolling, he made them look while belts. Ricardo Liborio is also said to have been the top black belt at Carlson Gracie’s back in the day when there there was Murilo Bustamante, Wallid Ismail, Amaury Bitetti, Vitor Belfort, Mario Sperry,  Paulo Filho, Ricardo Arona etc..

Old picture with Mario Sperry from Carlson Gracie days

Judo Olympian and BJJ black belt Rhadi ferguson added his Liborio story to a thread on MMA.tv:

I’ve heard the stories and quite honestly I believed them just like I believed the Rickson stories. I thought they were legends of lore passed down to us through the ghosts of jiujitsu past to allow us to believe that there was something “more”. I’m a ph*king brick house. When I’m really really trying to go super hard, I don’t think I can be stopped. So one day, I thought, “Let me tap this guy on the shoulder and ask him to roll” – not out of disrespect but I just wanted to see what he had. After the initial slapping of the five, Libo swept me, mounted be and armbarred me. So I lied to myself saying, “Well, that wasn’t my best pass attempt.” So I lift Liborio of the ground to hit my stand up pass, as I push agains the leg, this dude disappears and the only thing I remember is tapping again. It looked like some ph*king Houdini shyt!! We started again, and again, and again. I think I got tapped about 9 times in less than 3 minutes and I remember looking up at Renato Tavares and Renato said, “Man, he does everybody like that.” Not feeling satisfied, I grabbed him one more time and told myself, “I’ll get him this time with a leg lock. Damn, Liborio defends, and put me in a straight ankle lock in about 15 seconds. I would have been embarrassed if I didn’t see him do the same thing to others since then. It was humbling. I immediately got in my car and called Lloyd and I remember how the conversation started. I said, “Man, you ain’t going to believe this shyt…….. Liborio………..” If there is somebody better out there, I’d love to meet them, but to date, I have not seen anyone on such a level. And then, just last week I asked him about some technical half guard moves and an armbar from the turtle and Liborio broke that thing down like it was in half. The dude is truly amazing.

 

Marcos Parrumpinha, Carlson Gracie top black belt added his story. It’s not hard to figure which ADCC champion Liborio has submitted numerous times; Ricardo Arona.

I dont need to introduce myself and neither say that I started at Carlson’s back in 1987, so I pretty much saw everything at that school and I think I am a reliable person. All right, this is true, trust me: We were all training for Abu Dhabi in 2000 and it was pretty much ALL Carlson’s Black Belts: Ze Mario, Murilo, Carlao, Bebeo, Amaury, Arona, Allan Goes, Paulo Filho…and the list goes on, I mean everybody. Ok, Liborio was working that time and could not train at regular basis, so he used to go every other week to train. On this afternoon, he stoped by to say hello on his lunch time,all dressed up, and we were all getting ready to roll. He said “Can I train for 15 or 20 minutes? Cus I need to go back to the bank?” Of course everybody was cool about it. So he sparred with 3 or 4 diferent persons and TAP ALL OF THEM OUT AT LEAST 3 TIMES. And they were all 5 minutes rounds. Big deal? I dont think so. One of them (No names, of course!) tappeed 5 times in 5 minutes and started literally to cry after the practice was over, saying ” I suck, how can I do good if I tapped like a white belt…” And 2 months later that same guy who was crying, won his division AND the Absolute at ADCC. The funny thing was that Liborio left that day saying: ” You guys are too tough for me, I feel a little pain on my lower back…” True story Parrumpinha