Lst year, Brazil’s leading BJJ media Tatame magazine made a very interesting article about the biggest rivalries in the Gracie Family, which was translated in English by BJJEE.com. The article attempts to expose some of the historical manipulations done by some members of the Gracie family over the years. You can read the article in English   here.

In the article, it is stipulated that Geo Omori who was one of the Japanese pioneers in Brazil (who trained with Maeda), had claimed that Carlos Gracie didn’t learn directly from Mitsuyo Maeda. Another interesting fact was that George Gracie was a much better fighter than his brothers Carlos or Helio. The article also alleges that Helio Gracie cheated his way into beating Kimura’s training partner Kato:

Helio Gracie x Yukio Kato
Helio sent a challenge to some Japanese judokas which included Yamaguchi, Kato and Kimura. Yukio Kato, 5th degree black belt was the first. In september of 1951 happened the first fight of the athletes, which was very tough and ended in a draw after three rounds. Helio demanded another fight which happened three weeks later in 29 of september 1951. At the second match, which lasted several minutes, a key element happened: Kato had applied several takedowns and tried to submit Helio. Both fighters were at the end of the ring, which made the referee ask the match to stop to drag the fighters to the center. During this time, Helio applied a choke and Kato passed out. The infraction wasn’t counted and Helio was declared the winner.

Similar things are said in the book ‘Choque’ written by Roberto Pedreira which recounts what really happened according to archives of Brazilian newspapers over 100 years ago. This version is of course highly different the official Gracie version, which can be read in Kid Peligro’s book ‘The Gracie Way’.

Dan Lukehart the owner of JiuJitsu.net, analysed the footage of the Helio vs Kato match and found some irregularities and cuts in the footage which could suggest that the Tatame article and Roberto Pedreira may have a point about Helio applying the choke when the referee asked to moved to the center.

Lukehart made the video which attempts to prove his point and stated:

Did Helio Gracie cheat in his match against Kato? Tatame magazine says yes. Valente brothers say no. To get some answers, we do as Valente suggested and analyze the footage..